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Office 2007 UI License
MikeWeller writes, "Microsoft has recently announced a new licensing program for the Office 2007 user interface. This page links to the license and an MSDN Channel9 interview about the program (featuring a lawyer). The program 'allows virtually anyone to obtain a royalty-free license to use the new Office UI in a software product. There's only one limitation: if you are building a program which directly competes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access (the Microsoft applications with the new UI), you can't obtain the royalty-free license.' What does this mean for OpenOffice? Will traditional menus/toolbars hold up to an ever-increasing number of features, or will OO be forced to take on a new UI paradigm? With the gap between OO and MS Office widening, how is this going to affect users trying to move between the two platforms?" You need to sign the license before you can get the 120-page UI implementation guidelines, which are confidential.
For all the things you can say about Microsoft, regardless of your perspective, you have to agree that what keeps Microsoft in business is the way they have treated developers.
Raise your hand (if you are used to being PAID for your code) if you have time to develop your own version of the ribbon within the scope of your next project?
Look, Microsoft has all this new shit coming out with Vista and Office 07, and those of us who see coding as a PROFIT center, instead of just something to do to earn our Geek Cred, will take this latest offering and run with it all the way to the bank.
You can say its all about lock-in, you can say that they are stifling innovation all you want. Someday, it would be cool for Slashdot to understand that there are thousands of developers who code for MONEY, not self-esteem, and dont care where their tools come from if those tools help get projects completed faster and better than without them.
If Microsoft can give me tools that insure that every project I do next year comes in on time and on budget, they can slap my momma for all I care.
"Developers, Developers, Developers" may be a running joke around here, and you may not be a fan of MSDN and the other tool sets, but if you code Windows solutions for pay, fuck you, I'm using them.
Time is money, bitches!
"And having to click the arrow in MS Office everytime I want to access a menu item I haven't used in the last 2 minutes is the worst invention -ever-."
Then turn the damn feature off for christ's sake. For people like you who claim to be so technically adept, I find many to be as utterly fucking clueless as the people they often chide.