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Microsoft to Open up Office Formats

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the learning-from-your-mistakes dept.

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."

5 of 451 comments (clear)

  1. What about patents ? by sunya · · Score: 4, Informative

    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"

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    MLT - simple and robust open source multimedia framework for Linux
  2. Against government use of OASIS format by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:Licensing by BasilBrush · · Score: 5, Informative

    Out of date.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.

  4. MS is opening up the Office 12 XML format. by massysett · · Score: 4, Informative

    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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    Penny - plain text accounting
  5. Really read it... and then weep by sjvn · · Score: 5, Informative

    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