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Patent Threats In OOXML
An anonymous reader notes an initiative by the New Zealand Open Source Society to weigh in on the question of standardizing Microsoft's OOXML. The organization has authored a white paper (available in several formats, HTML here) laying out the ways in which the OOXML spec falls short of what a standard should be. From the article: "'If OOXML goes through as an ISO standard, the IT industry, government and business will [be] encumbered with a 6,000-page specification peppered with potential patent liabilities' said New Zealand OSS President Don Christie. 'Alarm bells are going off in many parts of the world over OOXML. Normally ISO draft standards would be drawn up by a number of stakeholder organizations, involving an often slow process of consensus building and knowledge sharing. Since many aspects of the office document format remain proprietary, OOXML has not taken this development track.'"
Given that there are two competing potential standards and one has patents and the other doesn't then why should ISO choose the one with patents? Of course it also doesn't help that one standard is 600o pages long and can only be 100% implemented by MS.
Clearly the ISO bodies are being corrupted (packed) by MS and I really don't understand why. MS has never obeyed any standard and they will not obey this one either. Why does ISO even pretend that MS has respect for standards? Why do would they ratify a standard which will immediately be extended by MS?
evil is as evil does
when peoples bosses email ooxml ms word and ms excel files waiting back for an answer we can find a sure winner. It will be what yoru employer uses and will most likely be microsoft based.
http://saveie6.com/
'Nuff said.
The existence of shit like that in the spec -- not to mention the obsolete HTML export described in the post below yours -- indicate that the OOXML architecture is just as shoddy as the grandparent post asserts!
In other words, he's right and you're trolling, so STFU and HAND.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, obviously Microsoft doesn't care about standards itself. However, others do, and Microsoft wants to abuse that fact. Understand now?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Not even Microsoft believes in the technical merit of their own spec, which is why they are resorting to their usual underhanded and corrupt tactics.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
While you have some interesting ideas, I can't see them working in practice. They generally rely on different charges for patents based on the size of the company. Unfortunately, bypassing this is trivial.
1. Start a new company
2. Patent something
3. License patent to big company
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo.-Enoch Root
is that there are so many of them.
Microsoft XML standard compliance would be just as useful as their POSIX compliance.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
If something is patented then the description of that patent should enable replication by any third party who then can legally produce and/or use that thing for a "Reasonable" and "Non-discriminatory" payment to the patent holder for the life of that patent. So basically all patents are open, however if the patent is vague or obvious then it should never have been granted in the first place.
Getting back on topic. I think the following from the conclusion of the article says it all: "While Microsoft has granted patent use over the required portions of the specification that are described in detail the numerous undisclosed behaviours and inexplicit definitions are not covered, providing a legal as well as technical barrier to OOXML's implementation". I think we can quite easily arrive at the conclusion that to adopt OOXML is to adopt something that cannot easily be implemented by a third party, so we can assume this is a proprietary format that is dressed up to look like it is an open format.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Ahh yes, so if you aren't an expert you shouldn't have anything to say? Well that'd be quite useful, every Slashdot story would have one or two comments at most. I'm simply trying to help the poster understand why it might be the case that ISO is considering this. However, this being Slashdot, people don't want to hear that because it doesn't reinforce their view of how the world should be, hence I get moderated "overrated".
No I was moderated overrated because people disagreed with what I was saying. Overrated doesn't get meta moderated and it is highly generic so it is a great thing to use for people who wish to silence those they don't agree with. Also you'll note I wasn't trying to say that Microsoft's format is better, I was trying to explain reasons why the ISO doesn't see this as an open and shut case. The poster seemed to feel that because there were patents that made it totally inferior and thus the ISO had been corrupted. I'm trying to show how that might not be the case. But that's not something people want to hear.
I agree, the term "Open Standard" is used very inappropriately by RAND, M$ ... and many others.
... "International Standard", but in fact when proprietary content is used in a standard (legally) it is not "OPEN" and/or freely available to anyone, and is anti-competitive and anti-capitalist by making basic (non-creative/non-original) technology requirements private property for more socialist/communist (as in anti-capitalism) corporate-welfare.
...] concept/intent.
.... Repeated misuse of the term "Open" by industry, governments, agencies, foundations ... should not be allowed. The term "Open" when used in medicine, science, engineering, communications, literature, music, art, technology ... has a definite (though unregistered) trademark value in business and international economics that is being intentionally misused by industry to financially harm the public good, "Open Economics", and "Open Businesses" globally.
Correctly stated it is simply a standard, not "OPEN".
If you want to use a two word phrase, then the correct phrase for a few decades now has been and still is an "Industry Standard".
An "Industry Standard" is sometimes called an ANSI, ISO
By accepted technologist and L/FOSS convention dating back to the 1980's the usage of the term "OPEN" is conceptually reserved to products/ideas... that closely follow the "Public Property" [GPL, "Open Content", "Open Standards"
Just like a public park, which is always paid for by the public or philanthropic individuals/foundations, the property is provided and developed for the public welfare. Software patents and industry standards are an obvious attempt by corporatist and their governments to prevent access [easement] to public property that could/would limit the private property's owners attempts to control public property use by citizens.
I know you see my direction of debate/argument, the word "Open" when capitalized or in all caps (like an acronym) should have as much legal standing as the term "Microsoft", "California", "Navajo" "The United States" "Organic"
Revisionist-spin is never reality, but can be dogma for fools and "Exploiticians" to use for legal rights to the wind, they may even stupidly try to hold the wind for themselves.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
OpenDocument format is already an ISO standard and has been since last year.
I think OOXML has already achieved Microsoft objective of creating confusion and doubt in the marketplace. ISO should swiftly reject OOXML to help eliminate that doubt.
Given that Sun's ODF plug-in for MS Word does exactly that (simply adds ODF to the list of supported formats everywhere they occur in Word, including allowing it to be set as the default), it makes me wonder why Microsoft would say that.
I call prior art!
"The best thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from" (unknown, but ancient attribution)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!