Microsoft Won't Assert Web Services Patents

Andy Updegrove writes, "Microsoft has just posted the text of a new promise not to assert its patents with respect to 35 listed Web Services standards. The promise is similar to the covenant not to assert patents that it issued last year with respect to its Office 2003 XML Reference Schema, with two important improvements intended to make it more clearly compatible with open source licensing. Those changes are to add an explicit promise not to assert any relevant patents against anyone in the distribution chain of a product, from the original vendor through to the end user; and to clarify that the promise covers a partial as well as a full implementation of a standard. It's all part of a recent wave of such pledges made by companies such as IBM, Nokia, and Oracle, and a significant shift in how Microsoft is dealing with open standards."

Comments

Dialog

[eldavojohn]

Act One

Setting: 1990s

Developer: "Man, java is the shit!" (hey, it was the 90s, everybody spoke like an idiot)

Microsoft: "Then you'll love J++, it's more efficient and other stuff that we don't need to prove. Plus, it will soon be used by everyone everywhere."

Developer: "Cool, sport me a copy!"

Microsoft: "Not so fast, it's $300 a personal license."

Developer: "No thanks."

(Scene ends)

Act Two

Setting: late 1990s

Developer: "JSP's are stupid awesome."

Microsoft: "Then you'll love ASPs, they're more efficient and other stuff that we don't need to prove. Plus, it will soon be used by everyone everywhere."

Developer: "Cool, where do I get the compiler for VB or this .NET stuff?"

Microsoft: "Well, you can make ASPs for free and stuff and almost everyone has IIS anyways ... but to make applications that do anything at all you need our libraries. You need to buy Visual Studio and we're afraid it's a bit pricey ..."

Developer: "No thanks."

(Scene ends)

Act Three

Setting: the oughts

Developer: "XML makes my life easier but it's not standardized."

Microsoft: "Use our standard, it's the best! Uh, it's kind of sorta free. You can edit it easy and use it. *cough* but we've got some patents *cough* so go ahead and use it."

Developer: "Wait, what was that last part?"

Microsoft: "Aw, christ, well, to stop everyone from slowly eating away at our dominant market, go ahead and use it. We promise not to sue but no backsies on these patents!"

Developer: "What the fsck, Microsoft, get it through your heads, we just want to get along. Stop charging us for everything (even standards). Change your business model."

(Scene ends, developer storms off to go play nice with the Sun & the rest of the world)

Breakable Pledges

[Doc Ruby]

What legal binding do these "pledges" have? Why not back up the pledges by just releasing the patent into the public domain?