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Microsoft Office Formats Not Really Being Opened
Contradicting this earlier article claiming otherwise, smith_barney writes "Contrary to reports, Microsoft is not opening up its proprietary Office XML schemas. Essentially, the state of Massachusetts is simply repositioning what it considers an 'open format.' According to a report in BetaNews, Microsoft told the state it would ease licensing restrictions, but only for 'end users who merely open and read government documents.' This hasn't stopped Microsoft from tooting its horn, but Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox says, 'Buzz about so-called open formats is little more than PR FUD.'"
Almost everyone uses Microsoft Office as opposed to the various flavors of OpenOffice, StarOffice, etc. Not speaking of its fairness, this is a very effective strategy from Microsoft and not at all surprising.
It's a blatant abuse of their virtual monopoly, but there hasn't really been an effective incentive for them to stop taking such actions in the past. Why would they refrain from continuing such behavior?
I'm a big tall mofo.
I would think that even the NEW Office will still be able to create good ol' .doc files, so wouldn't it burn their biscuits if people just continued to use that instead? (They'll make some minor feature .newdoc only -playing solitaire while working on a doc?- and everyone will use it, anyway, no wishful thinking here...)
"..it is our expectation that the next iteration of the Open Format standard will include some Microsoft proprietary formats."
**TILT**
I guess Proprietary is Open and War is Peace?
Let us all hope that Massachusetts doesn't accept Microsoft's formats if they aren't completely open when it undertakes its review of the decision. If Microsoft are seen to have open office formats in the eye of the public when they are not really open, it can only be a bad thing for OpenDocument and other truly open efforts.
Everyone who lives in MA, go and write to your appropriate representative now!
One good turn - gets all the covers.
Bill said "Suprise! what did you expect fuckers?" :-) *bang goes my karma!*
Really, Microsoft always say they will do some things, to basically spread FUD, to make managers have an excuse for not jumping ship.
Why do they do this?
Hmmm, lets read my crystal ball, aaaah here is a M$ press release:
"Closed format is more secure! Plus it locks you into Office, which we have no bundled with Windows, which is now etched into the core of every processor! *stiffled manic laughter*"
Translation:
"We really don't want to allow people to easily leave Office behind and we want to make it harder for OpenOffice to import etc, because when people realise they don't need office, we will loose money
Also we don't want people to easily crack our DRM and embarrass us as we extort money from publishing companies and spread FUD amongst authors, so people can no longer read stuff without money coming to us
Plus world domination is fun!"
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Could we all endeavor to remember that "FUD" is an acronym for "fear, uncertainty, and doubt" and not simply a synonym for "lying". There is little of the usual Microsoft "end of the world" blather here; it's just deceptive marketing.
In other words, business as usual.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Cue all the "I really need [obscure function XYZZY] in {Word, Excel}" bots from Microsoft!
I was actually quite hopefully that Microsoft would open the format. As a developer, a completely open format would have been wonderful. This is sad news. Not surprised, just upset.
The last version of Microsoft Word I used was in Office 2000. I got tired of it because it is so quirky with layout.
Open Office is a bit quirky, too, and they are different quirks. Many times people forget the many, many hours they spent learning to avoid the Office 2000 quirks. They want Open Office to be perfect, and they have forgotten how imperfect Microsoft Word is.
If you test Open Office, be sure you test the latest version, 1.1.4. Version 2.0 will be available in April or May of this year.
It's understandable that people who have invested hours in learning Microsoft Word don't want to invest hours again. They just want to get the job done. On the other hand, it would be crazy for the Open Office developers to implement the hundreds of ways Microsoft Office is quirky.
Generally, when you send documents outside your company, you should send PDF files. That guards against accidental changes. To do this in Open Office, just click the PDF icon in the toolbar. To do this in Microsoft Word, install an extra-cost package.
"...Massachusetts is simply repositioning what it considers an 'open format.' [...] This hasn't stopped Microsoft from tooting its horn [...]'Buzz about so-called open formats is little more than PR FUD.'"
Although the borg are doing something bad, this time they are doing it by making something bad of theirs sound good, instead of making something good of someone else's sound bad. Should there be a word which represents the contrapositive of "FUD"? Like LAC, for Lying About Crap, or something? (maybe it's the inverse, not the contrapositive, it's been a while, feel free to correct me)
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
It's clear that too many important people have had their heads up their arses for too long.
..... Mandate open data formats first, then guarantees of performance, then source code escrow to back up the performance guarantees and protect against vendor , then slowly tighten the screws on the escrow agencies and software companies till it's no longer economically viable to sell closed-source software.}
We need to have it made law that file formats are not secrets and not patentable, but form as much a part of the specification for interacting with the software as, say, the key bindings. {I personally would like to see it become law that software vendors must supply full annotated source code with their products, but let's take it one step at a time
It wouldn't surprise me if some software vendor had tried at some stage seriously to claim in an EULA that all the rights in any document created with their software belonged to them. I know that it used to be a breach of EULA to use a certain software company's programming languages to develop applications that competed directly with that company's offerings.
The good news is that EULAs aren't legally enforceable in any sane jurisdiction anyway, so you can go ahead and exercise your inalienable statutory right to reverse-engineer documents -- for the purposes of study, creation of interoperable software or just morbid curiosity -- to your heart's content. In fact, you can even refuse to accept the EULA at all. You can still quite legally use the software under your inalienable statutory right of Fair Dealing -- you just don't get any benefits that were only promised to you in the EULA.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I'm no big fan of MS, but this is nothing more than good 'ol jump on the bandwagon MS bashing. This all comes from a letter from MS' XML guru explaining recent clarifications to the license to address concerns from MA. The exact quote is:
"We are acknowledging that end users who merely open and read government documents that are saved as Office XML files within software programs will not violate the license."
Here's the exact line from the license:
"By way of clarification of the foregoing, given the unique role of government institutions, end users will not violate this license by merely reading government documents that constitute files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas, or by using (solely for the purpose of reading such files) any software that enables them to do so. The term "government documents" includes public records."
Does this statement preclude someone from using the file format for other purpose, such as say import/export from OpenOffice.org? Nope. It just gaurantees that open/reading government files will not violate the license.
Look before you leap...
We can improve the signal to noise ratio on Slashdot and other sites if we all agree that Microsoft keeping things closed/abusing its monopoly position/killing kttens is NOT NEWS and not worthy of mention. Is everybody on board?
Anyone can use MS schemas too, and even distribute software that does so. Not without conditions, naturally. Where's the difference?
The license (two licenses, actually; one for the specification, and another for all MS patents that cover it) may not be GPL compatible, but it sure looks compatible with other open source licenses, including so-called viral licenses.
The catch with the GPL is the additional restrictions part. Microsoft adds two restrictions, both of which are more-or-less reasonable. The first is the obnoxious BSD-like advertising clause; that's irritating, but not a showstopper except for the GPL. The second restriction is that implementations must be conformant to be distributable. That is, reading and writing done by implementations based on the spec must read or write valid Office XML files. Since the format is a well-designed XML format, this is trivially easy to do. The requirement is to prevent forking of Office XML formats, which is obviously a concern of Microsoft's. Again, it would be nice for developers if this restriction was removed, but it would be detrimental to both Microsoft and Microsoft's customers.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
The question is definitely not wether Microsoft could but rather wether they should.
Having a proprietary file format for a software in a dominant position (near monopoly actually) means that the editor can leverage the massive club effect and turn it into additionnal revenues. Other way of saying the same is that no competitor can even think to enter the market without spending as much for interoperability as the monopolist wants. This is a blatant market failure, i.e. a situation which is economically worse for everybody except the monopoly abuser.
Monopoly must adhere special rules of conduct. One of them is that they at least do not erect arbitrary high barrier to entry to the market.
This is why it is economically straightforward that Microsoft should be forced to use properly and exhaustively documented, patent-free file formats. Although a competitor might even choose not to do so (as long as it is not in dominant position itself).
If it costs too much for Microsoft, it is still preferable collectively that they even throw out there existing software and restart from scratch. Yes, even to that point, anything to the contrary is a lie, economically speaking.
In other words, it isn't free. It's ad-ware. There's nothing wrong with that, but don't call it free.
It's like saying you get "500 free minutes" with your cell-phone plan each month. No, you don't. You pay for them. Remember that bill you get each month?
'Buzz about so-called open formats is little more than PR FUD.'
... but chrissakes, could people stop overusing this term? It's just become idiotic, and I've started to get this knee-jerk reaction to knock lots of credence off any argument that uses it.
Show me where Fear, Uncertaintity, and Doubt is being employed as a tactic there? Maybe a bit of uncertaintity, all right
"FUD" seems to have the same connotation and baggage as "counterrevolutionary" does in a banana republic.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
Anyway, I'm just saying. I don't think MS *could* open the format -- at least not as regards document embedding.
Even if everything thing you've said is true, your conclusion is unjustified.
M$ is getting $35,000,000,000+ per year. They could reverse engineer and document their own format with their small change, even if it was serialized Brainfuck. To claim that because it involves activex controls this somehow makes the format undescribable is simply wrong. If the format contains state, that state can be described. Period.
If M$ is claiming what you say they are then they are lying. To technically naive people. Business as usual for them.
---
It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
Strict meanings of both irony and begging the question have been used for millennia--literally, for they both originated in ancient Greece--so I wouldn't exactly call them gray areas. But while the (re)definition of "irony" one is more familiar with might indeed be a question of whether one prefers texts written by Plato or Alanis Morissette, copyright infringement is a completely different matter. Copyright infringement is by definition a violation of copyright law which is not a property law. Violating copyright is not theft because duplicating data is not appropriation of any property, much less a dishonest appropriation of property belonging to someone else with the intention of permanently depriving the other of said property. The key word here is "depriving," for theft is wrong not because the thief gets something without paying (the real goal of any theft), but because the victim no longer has that something (a side effect of every theft)--this is crucial. Furthermore, the copyright law was meant to protect authors from publishers, not from readers so reading a book without paying for the right to read or listening to music without paying for the right to listen is not only not theft, but not even a copyright infringment. The "copy-" in "copyright" is rather unfortunate, and should it have been called "publishing rights" there would be much less confusion today when "copying" is something we must do in order to play any kind of digital media. So, copyright infringement is not theft by any stretch of imagination. Nor is it piracy, for that matter, because it has very little to do with robbing or plundering at sea without a commission from a recognised sovereign nation, and quite frankly I have no idea why has that word been chosen in the first place. I know that in the "Don't Copy That Floppy" era, writing "piracy is a crime"--which is true, even if copying floppies is not--on BSA propaganda posters must have had a strong influence on people, but why using piracy and not just theft? My point is that--unlike irony--copyright infringment, theft and piracy, as well as trade secrets and patents, are all very strictly defined by law in any given jurisdiction and it is impossible to confuse them without clear malicious intents. This is not a question of definition or preference, but a matter of fact. So I fully agree with your point, but I wouldn't use the same examples.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."