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Microsoft to Open up Office Formats
Been on TV writes to tell us that Microsoft is expected to announce on Tuesday the opening of their Office file formats, according to Financial Times. From the article: "Microsoft will submit its Office file formats to Ecma International, the standards body, which will develop the documentation and make it available to the industry. The move is being supported by a number of organizations including Apple Computer, Barclays Capital, BP, Intel and Toshiba."
It may be an ECMA standard, but it could still be patented. IIRC, the ECMA / patent issue affect Mono as well. From the Mono FAQ : "The core of the .NET Framework, and what has been patented by Microsoft falls under the ECMA/ISO submission"
MLT - simple and robust open source multimedia framework for Linux
Alright slashdotters, you have your mission. Now put a negative spin on this as quickly as possible.
I wonder what kind of impact Microsoft hopes to achive by doing this.
Fully documenting the Microsoft Office file formats and permissively licensing any essential patents could help dissuade governments from migrating to OASIS OpenDocument format, which happens to be the native format of a competing software package called OpenOffice.org 2.x.
According to this post by a Microsoft employee, the format is free to use. In his next post, Brian points out that the license is perpetual; that is, it cannot be changed once granted. He cites the license itself, which says, that the license is perpetual for everyone, and is only terminable if the individual sues Microsoft over patent infringement claims relating to reading or writing of Office Schemas.
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wow microsoft must be far more scared of the recent successes and news for open office and the open document format. I thought they weren't paying enough attention to those projects. I have been 100% MS office free on my home systems for 3 years using open office and getting on open office 2.0 just made that much nicer (i still had many complaints about the old open office). Yeah M$ office still has it beat on many levels, but I would say 90% with newer machines that can handle the large overhead of Open Office would be completely satisfied and hardle ever run into a feature which they miss. (yes i know the officail name is OpenOffice.org, but that is long and i personally think the .org being in part of the name is LAME.)
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Out of date. That refers to Microsoft's pseudo open format licensing. Specifically crafted to exclude GPLed software from legally using the formats. If this announcement tomorrow is supposed to mean that Massachusetts and the EU won't drop them, then it will have to drop the license terms that stop sub-licensing, such that GPL apps may use the formats. Anything less won't cut it.
MS says it will go to ECMA first with the Office 12 XML format. They say that once Office 12 XML is recognized by ECMA, they will go to ISO. See News.com story.
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That's pretty good salvo, but I wonder how DRM will play into this?
Heck, they are defining how DRM will be used in the software industry (not media in all cases).
From the license:
"Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas."
and that's why this has never been acceptable to the open-source community.
Steven
In order to 'legally' use a patent, you need a license to the patent. The GPL prohibits any requirement which forces said license to be included in any GPL software.
The GPL is incredibly restrictive about what you can suck in. Everything must be free, both in and out. Patents are not "free". Therefore they can't freely be sucked 'in'. And you can't distribute GPL'd software without the license to the patent, meaning it can't be freely pushed 'out'.
I don't see how anyone can view this is being a deliberate attempt to subvert the GPL. The philosophy behind the GPL by its very nature prohibits this sort of thing. I suppose there is a bit of irony about how one of the more restrictive OSS licenses produces something ultimately free-er than the less restrictive licenses.
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One bit wrong could create a document that causes other applications trying to read it to crash.
Am I the only one thinking that if your app crashes because one bit in a file is wrong, then not only is the app badly written, but the bug is also probably exploitable to run arbitrary code (buffer overflow and all)? Of course, I get the original idea that if a small detail is wrong, the file may be considered invalid.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Massachusetts quite explicitly did in their document on requirements for a new file format standard.
I don't think the EU have. But it was only a matter of time.
Several idiots here have replied that writing is harder than reading.
Why don't you try a *REAL* file format.
TIFF is a good example.
A program that writes a TIFF file can be about 100 lines (writes an arbitrary sized image in full 24 bit rgb or in 32 bit rgba).
To read a TIFF file you need a library of tens of thousands of lines (libtiff).
Why? Because in the TIFF header there is a "compression type" and a lot of other variables. If you are writing a TIFF file you only need to worry about one setting of these variables. To read them you need to worry about ALL of them.
Learn a little.
I fully agree that if they really say "write a Word document" they may very well be trying to make in one-directional.
I've just run into another company who is following the Microsoft model to the teeth.
A certain audio hardware maker who I won't name, but it's Mackie, makes a line of control surfaces for digital audio workstations. They are really well-engineered hardware devices, by anyone's standards.
However, the company advertises the communication protocol they use as "Univeral", and claims that they are open and anybody's software can support them.
Naturally, I got excited about this, and decided it might be a good project for me, to create the driver layer for Linux/ALSA/JACK systems, and maybe give Ardour support for Mackie's HUI.
So I investigated, and contacted the company. Boy, did I get a harsh, hostile response. Turns out their protocol is not open at all. Specs may be available under NDA, at the company's discretion, and I know from another developer that the NDA contains language that binds you into a partnership with the company far beyond a mere release of the specs.
Needless to say, I was shocked (SHOCKED!) that a company would advertise the openness and universal compatability of their hardware, while ALSO failing (REFUSING!) to make documentation available even to the people who buy the hardware.
It put the company, who I will not name, but it's Mackie, on my personal blacklist forever. Other people may have less radical policies, but mine is "corporate deathlist forever banned, period, the first time they are openly hostile to an open source developer."
Since they aren't Microsoft and don't have a billion users and since their users don't include governments, etc., there's not much hope for them to come around.
At least with Microsoft there's a chance...
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In case anyone else is wondering what COTS means:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/COTS.html