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Microsoft Open Document Standard Not So Open
avik42 wrote to mention an EWeek article discussing Microsoft's attempts at an Open Document Standard. From the article: "According to a Microsoft representative, 'The covenant language is what was referred to as the updated license for the Open XML formats that will be submitted to ECMA International for the standardization process.' The only difference between Microsoft's November 2003 open and royalty-free license for the Office 2003 Reference Schemas and today's Office 2003 license, according to the company, is that 'Microsoft is offering a covenant not to sue for the Office 2003 Reference Schemas.'" We reported on this initiative when it was first announced.
I agree with Stallman, who says:
"designed to prohibit all free software. It covers only code that implements, precisely, the Microsoft formats, which means that a program under this license does not permit modification."
This control that Microsoft wants to maintain has two problems. One, programmers are not free to modify the document format to suit their particular needs. This limits freedom and innovation in many ways.
Two, it means that the future direction of the standard is not truly free or open. Only MS can decide what the next incarnation will be like? Only MS can control the future directions of our document format? That is just another form of control. It still means that our data is locked into a format that we don't really own or control. Yes, being somewhat open, it would be easier, in the future, to migrate to another standard, but ultimately the user still gets screwed. It should be obvious that it's better to have a format that is decided upon in a more transparent and communal way. If new features are needed, they can be debated and possibly added to future versions. If someone doesn't like the trend that the format is taking, they can fork it and create a derivative format (that will presumably not have the blessing of the official versions' name, since it's not incompatible... but that's okay). In the long run, perhaps this variant becomes the "next big thing." With an MS-style control, that innovation cannot happen, and the future of the document standard is weakened.
In short, Microsoft doesn't understand what we mean when we say "we want an open standard."
In a stunning turn of events, Massachusetts state secretary of administration and finance Thomas Trimarco has revealed that Microsoft's recent efforts to make Office XML a ratified ECMA standard may indeed make the format acceptable to the government. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts had previously rejected Office XML in favor of OpenDocument and PDF formats.