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.'"

Comments

Why am I not surprised

[jimmyhat3939]

While I'm not certain this is part of an overarching strategy by Microsoft, it's articles like these that make it hard to take them seriously when they claim to want to standardize. First it was just "embrace & extend," now it's this mess with patents.

In my opinion, the right solution to these patent problems is eliminating software and/or business process patents.

Re:Why am I not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

One another option is -

1. Cost of patenting based on the wealth of the patentee. This should help the small garage inventor + actual real good innovations. Patent trolling will be less effective.
2. Patent to be supported by product within a period of 3 years. It is the responsibility of the patent holder to provide proof that a product that was created by his patent has been made after 3 years. This product has to be a) made by the patent holder or b) the patent holder has given license to the company which creates it. Otherwise the patent lapses. This would again take care of the patent trolls + help actual good inventions
3. The cost of patent to be borne across the years. Every 5 years the patent has be re-issued with quite a high fee (again based on the wealth of patentee). This means that only good useful products are under patent for the complete duration of the patent. This again will support the basic idea of patenting, i.e. really good useful ideas not to be kept under wraps, and not the small ideas.

I guess these ideas should help modify the patent system so that
a) Patent office gets more money which means more people, which means better results
b) Small guy inventor is supported
c) Real good ideas can be patented for the whole duration
d) Company still can work freely without struggling with frivolous patents, while producing real good products under patents themselves.

There can be only one

[pwizard2]

There can only be one standard. One will survive and be commonly implemented , and the other won't become widespead and will only be used by fringe elements.

ODF has been gaining ground in the EU and in other parts of the world, whereas OOXML has to start from a dead stop. It's only asset is the marketing power of MSFT behind it, but that may not be enough. It is already clear (from other /. stories) that the OOXML architecture seems rather shoddy and looks like something that was quickly put together. MSFT is trying to force it through iso rather thanb let OOXML succeed through its own merit... that alone draws suspicion to the quality of OOXML.

Re:There can be only one

[RobBebop]

When your boss e-mails you ODF files, what are the chances that you won't have the upgraded software needed to read it? Bosses are dumb and will use whatever format the computer uses for them by default. However, the upgrade to MSO '07 will be a large expense for an IT staff to shoulder... and it is needed by everybody and not just the PHB.

Really, to defeat MOOXML, it is important to avoid the upgrade to MSO '07. The slow acceptable rate of Vista in businesses is a boon to this, because it takes away the chance for MS to package the 2-for-1 OS+Office Suite in a reasonably priced "package deal".

The plateau of desktop hardware is another boon. Three years ago, it would have been painful to run a computer purchased in 2001. Today, computers from 2004 run about the same as when they were new. If there is no reason to upgrade... there is no reason to get a new version of Microsoft in the organization.

But Microsoft is patient... and they have until 2009 or so to push Vista and MSO '07 into the market to win the current fight to be the continued "de facto" standard. Does ODF/OO have enough steam to become the standard, preferred Office software when people get their post-XP upgrades?

Re: Open standards often are patented

[Dolda2000]

a) Reasonable. The fees required are in line with whatever it is. It's not a "Oh you want a license for that video codec? Ok $1,000,000 per player, no cap." That's clearly unreasonable and designed to keep people from licensing it. One has to wonder what that really does entail. Leaving Free Software aside for a second, what about ordinary people who just like to DIY, such as myself? When licensing patents for a MPEG implementation to a company like Microsoft, Sun or Apple, $1,000,000 doesn't seem at all unreasonable if it is a perpetual license (not a "per player" license). If I want to license it just for my own purposes, however, it is clearly an unreasonable amount that I couldn't afford in a lifetime. Then again, surely they don't have the right to choose a price arbitrarily depending on the licensee, right?

1900 is my personal favourite

[fritsd]

See OOXML part 4 par. 3.17.4.1 , p. 2522.

For legacy reasons, an implementation using the 1900 date base system shall treat 1900 as though it was a leap year.

Legacy reasons?? In a new document format standard?

Basically they are saying that although the Gregorian calendar says 1900 is NOT a leap year, from now on it should be, otherwise a certain program's spreadsheet data wouldn't be correct anymore because one programmer screwed up getting the dates right in said legacy program, many years ago.

Never mind that the world didn't start in 1900 (dates before either 1900 or 1904 are NOT IMPLEMENTED)

Never mind bothering to implement other calendars (Islamic, Chinese etc.) which might be of interest in large parts of the world.

WHY didn't they just use ISO 8601, like ODF did?

Speaking of ODF, this is what they put in par. 14.7.11 (p. 523) if you don't believe me:

The attribute may have the values gregorian, gengou, ROC, hanja_yoil, hanja, hijri, jewish, buddhist or an arbitrary string value. If this attribute is not specified, the default calendar system is used.

So basically, my gripe with OOXML is not that it's legally unclear, or not open enough, it's that it's clearly not written to be A STANDARD. Think with me pls:

If the OASIS people overlooked an important calendar/date problem, and there is consensus, it can be added in the next version of the standard. All existing ODF documents are safe.

vs.

If the ECMA/Microsoft people decide one day to correct this bogus "1900 should from now on be a leap year" feature, all OOXML text documents that contain dates will have to be checked, and the ones that turn out to have dates from 1900 have to be corrected.

See the difference?