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Developers Warned over OOXML Patent Risk
Tendraes brings us a story about legal experts who are warning that Microsoft's "covenant not to sue" over use of the OOXML specification is both ambiguous and untested. Developers wishing to make use of OOXML are unlikely to understand the complex legal language of the Open Specification Promise, and such a document - being neither a release nor a contract - has never been tested in court. From ZDNet Asia:
"David Vaile, executive director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Center at the University of New South Wales, said that Microsoft participants at a recent symposium on the issue found it challenging to explain how an ordinary person 'or even an ordinary lawyer' could easily determine which parts of the specification were covered. 'This lack of certainty would mean a cautious lawyer may be reluctant to advise any third party to rely on the promise without extensive and potentially quite expensive analysis, and even that could be inconclusive,' Vaile said. 'In turn, this could restrict its viability as a usable standard for less well-resourced users, including small developers and many public organizations.'"
These guys have already started the Simple English trend. All we need now is a plan to decimate the lawyers.
The trick is to stay away from Microsoft if you don't want trouble with the law, with licences or with vendor lockin.
No, actually you don't need to eradicate lawyers. That would be treating symptoms and not the cause of it. Edadicate all those stupid laws and make the government smaller... and most of the lawyers will disappear with it.
There's a Simple English now?
This is a good read... Ron Yu's background paper on patent approaches in OOXML.
It is a chicken or the egg situation. Many of the laws were written by lawyers- either the politicians themselves, those that work for them, or the lobbyists that wanted the law.
The GPL has been tested in court, and in more than one jurisdiction too.
I wasn't complaining about m$ - I was commenting on the topic of lawyers. Attorneys are a self-perpetuating breed. In today's world you can't be a TV commentator or a member of the Senate/House without being a lawyer. Since their beginnings in England, they used to get paid by the word. Now their job is to obfuscate, hide and meander.
That kind of lax thinking would forgive any legal problems in the OSP. Look at what is industry standard, and then look at Microsoft changing legal terms such as "license" to a "promise" and originally insisting on a full implementation before having any coverage.
Microsoft would write some obscure language piece of literature. This just goes to further show that either they are retards that can't speak in plain English, or they do in fact have a hidden agenda. There is no good reason to hide behind obscure legal documents.
What part of "has been" did you miss there? A number of years back the GPL had not been tested in court, and detractors stated that since such licenses were never used before, they might not be valid, making firms copying and distributing GPL'd software copyright infringers (thieves! pirates!) I am not a lawyer, but I don't really understand why microsoft cannot put those things in the patent equivalent of public domain or grant everyone a free license. I mean, they want people to use their standard, right? OTOH, I agree with GP that "it might not hold up in court" is not a very strong argument by itself.. Anyway, good to see MS getting the FUD :-)
Look, if it was a good spec then there would be reason to debate it's license, implied or otherwise. There would be reason to discuss Microsofts standing.
It isn't a good spec, so it isn't relevant.
IANAL, but it looks like the PTO has some mechanism by which a patent owner can reassign ownership or a patent. If so, Microsoft need only transfer the patent to the public domain or renounce ownership to solve this. Some wishy-washy covenant won't hack it unless it is irrevocable.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The predecessors to lawyers caused this mess by arguing "but it doesn't SAY that!" so everything had to be spelled out in an unambiguous way to prevent people from arguing about the rules.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Microsoft's document on the other hand seems obfuscated on purpose, so that they can claim OOXML to be open and freely available to speed its adoption as a standard and alleviate fears of lock-in... then go to court and assert a different interpretation whenever their interests are sufficiently challenged. Given where Microsoft's interests lie, that's not a farfetched scenario.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I agree that stuff should be made as simple as possible though, and bet that's not the case with the MSFT documentation.Do you mean select one in ten for death? (Ducks)
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
On the contrary, GPL is written in a fairly comprehensible language.
I was able to understand it without any problem, and English is not even my native language.
The first step to "open" or "sharing" or whatever TF you want to call is is making stuff accessible (ie easy to use and understand) and making clear licensing is part of that.
If every OpenOffice user needs to first get a legal opinion before using OO, then they may as well buy MS Office. Companies that want to be legal won't just take the advice of www.jimmy.org.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Mainly I think the problem people have is that Microsoft has not made a clear commitment to make this an open standard that anyone may implement in their software. Personally, I would expect no less from Microsoft, and wouldn't be surprised if their intention was to scare third party developers away from OOXML. This is the company that has fought tooth and nail to make sure that nobody ever uses third party software, after all, and now they are in a market that increasingly demands open standards and interoperability. What better way to kill two birds with one stone?
Palm trees and 8
It appears that Microsoft has about 280 patents around OOXML and related technologies. It also has a large number of patents that read on ODF. We're making a list of these and hope to be able to publish them soon.
There are also several patents from third parties that read on OOXML, and in theory ISO should halt the process while these are examined and cleared. It looks like ISO won't do that.
Microsoft has several techniques to keep OOXML a captive standard controlled by a single vendor. Complexity is one. But patents are the very best technique.
Note also that OOXML's complexity is mostly because it's a dump of a legacy format. Some upcoming MS ISO proposals are very clean technically, but also very heavily patented.
It seems clear that the OSP is worthless for GPL implementations, the biggest threat to Microsoft.
At the same time it's worth noting that the format being voted on by ISO is not the format implemented by Office. There are over 2,300 changes and the two formats are not compatible. The reason for pushing for ISO standardisation is to let MS market their formats as "standard", while in fact implementing non-standard vendor-specific formats. And then, using patent threats against anyone who tries to reverse-engineer those.
It's a nice con trick. Many national bodies have realized what's going on but many are too corrupted or too ignorant to understand.
My blog
For starters, MS' "promise not to sue" is in no part friendly with the GPL (now that you mention it) And the mere fact that you need MS' to decide not to sue you for implementing their "open" standard is quite ridiculous (really...) What on earth prevents MS to suddenly decide to stop the promise?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
But I like my healthy irradiated glow!
Exactly.
If you think about it (did you think about it?), you'll realise you're providing a supporting argument to my post.
Erm. I didn't even reply to your post. What's the rant for?
Ah I see now.
:)
So they turned something which could be interpreted in different ways in to something which has no meaning at all!
Thus solving the ambiguity problem once and for all.
And it would be a good thing if every law was really spelled in an unambiguous way, I think the problem is, it's not... and people still argue about law. It is specially true for the kind of law we are talking about, software patent laws, or copyright laws, etc. they seem designed to be endlessly discussed in every detail, designed to be used for anything but what they are initially asked for...
If I'm wrong, please correct me ; learning is better than being right.
One thing you cannot say for the GPL is that it is ambiguous. While there may be some wriggle room for any lawyer in there, the document states in pretty clear terms what its intent it.
Recently I attended a seminar given by the Chief Council of a technology company. He was addressing the legalities of open-source and free software and, as you might expect, the topic of the legality of the GPL came up. During the talk, he commented that the GPL was generally a solid license, but had some unknowns that made it tough for a lawyer.
After the talk I asked him to elaborate a little on this point, specifically asking under what conditions he would actually advise a client to litigate against a GPL claim. He responded that the issue of dynamic linking against GPL software is a significant unknown. While the FSF has a position on the subject, it is not addressed in the GPL, there is little or no case law on the subject and there are differing opinions within the software developer community on the subject.
Those phrases contradict each other. Do you know what "ambiguous" means?
Did you even RTFA?! That is the exact argument this guy is using! And I say it is a bullshit argument, using the example of how people tried to use the same bullshit against the GPL.
I have no patience for people that are happy with bullshit as long as it supports their own preference. FUD is FUD, and you diminish yourself for using it. I read the M$ document linked to from this angle, and did not see the ambiguity. If you can point it out, do so: otherwise don't insult my intelligence.
I'm confused--am I missing something obvious? How can a standard be patented? Isn't the whole point of a standard to specify a format or design requirement for something so that anybody that implements the standard will do it properly? I can understand patenting/copyrighting a particular implementation, but not the standard itself.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
* (i) an unequivocal promise by words or conduct,
* (ii) evidence that there is a change in position of the promisee as a result of the promise (reliance but not necessarily to their detriment),
* (iii) inequity if the promisor were to go back on the promise. Microsoft's words are clearly unequivocal. There is clearly a change in position on the part of a developer who, having read Microsoft's promise, decides to incorporate this format into their software. It would clearly be inequitable then for Microsoft to take action against them.
Untested in court my ass. The first case to use it was 131 years ago.
Just a tip here: "you're" English isn't good enough to use for the purpose of insulting the language skills of others. I'm not a native English speaker either, but some basic professionalism in communication isn't too much to ask.
Sam ty sig.
Would it be fair to say that a license that has been tested in court is better defined than a license that hasn't? Would it be fair to say that microsoft does not have a history of open specifications? I think both would be fair to say. If microsoft wanted a well defined open license, they should have used one that is already available (GPL, etc.) rather than making up one of their own that is, by any one's definition, ambiguous.
IANAL, but lets look closer at the promise.
To an average English speaker, this clause appears to mean, for example, that if a developer patents an algorithm for (implementation of) a better spreadsheet and such spreadsheet uses the open specification, then they can't sue microsoft if microsoft "borrows" their algorithm without the developer's losing his right to implement the specification.
That clause covers a heck of a lot of territory and effectively gives microsoft right to use any implementation of their specification. Of course the intelligent person's response should be "so don't use the specification if you don't like it"--and that would be the point of TFA and the FUD surrounding it.
Just callin' it like I see it.
lawyer.s
You people simply waste time obfuscating everything.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
The _intent_ of GPL is perfectly clear, it's written in plain English in the preamble. Literal meaning is also crystal clear.
Now, _technical_ _details_ of GPL enforcement, of course, won't be the same in all jurisdictions. For example, GPL technically was not enforceable in Russia a year ago.
But you don't NEED to know all technical details of GPL to understand most of GPL consequences. And you also can read nice FAQs on GPL from the FSF.
Also useless. It's like cutting off a leg when you have a scratch. Those laws did not come into being by accident. They were and are part of a natural process that simply happens. It's pretty much standard.
Incident happens or a trend is happening. People or politicians deem is at as a bad thing. A law is written to fix the issue. Now, this may sound straightforward but the problem is that if you enter in this loop a couple of thousand times, law bloat and fragmentation start to happen. Pretty soon you are doing something illegal because it is in violation of some law. This can be a direct effect of the law(thus the intention of law) but it can also be a side-effect of the law. The huge pile of laws becomes a sort of cancer. Cancer is a bunch cells not doing what they are supposed to do. A lawcancer is a bunch of laws that aren't doing what they are supposed to do. Sure, you can cut all the laws and begin again but that simply does not solve the problem. You simply enter the loop at stage 1.
Goverments and lawbooks always start out when a state is formed. However, they all experience bloat and then *boom*, you're in an uncomfortable situation. As a small conclusion I would like to ask you, how many laws have you broken today?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Is *anyone, *anywhere, just aching to get their hands on the OOXML spec 'cause then they can springboard off of a bunch of the cool innovative things that MS formats can do?
Or is everyone, like me, just kinda hoping it's open enough so that we can sorta-promise clients that the software we develop will sorta-work with their piles of legacy, cruft-infested data. (At least, it'll sorta work until MS changes their document spec again and force-upgrades everyone through Genuine Windows YoureScrewed.)
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
That's not a legal commitment at all. Why can't they give a legal promise not to use their patents against Free and Open Source software?
In fact I can tell you EXCACTLY what is going to happen...
1. GPL project implements Microsoft patented format
2. Microsoft says "ZOMG! 200 patents in Linux!"
3.
4. Profit?
0.1 in 10?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Both ODF and MS-OOXML are covered by patents. Hasn't Sun, IBM, etal. issued "covenants not to sue" that apply to ODF as well? In simple english, can someone please explain the difference? Why are Sun covenants GPL friendly and Microsoft's not?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You quoted the parent out of context. The parent said:
"While there may be some wriggle room for any lawyer in there, the document states in pretty clear terms what its intent is"
while you quoted only:
"there may be some wriggle room for any lawyer in there"
The parent was clearly saying that as far as legal documents go, the GPL is generally not ambiguous, but that's not to say it's got no room at all for debate.
Show me an unambiguous legal document and I'll show you a lawyer who will make it ambiguous.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anyone here, but as I trawled this thread your misquoting jumped out at me.
So you agree with me, then? That bitching about a specification simply because a lawyer might play with the technical details is bullshit?
Given the latests news about SCO, Gates' connection and the $100m plan, as well as previous involvement of the Vole, anything less than crystal clear and open sourced, is another trap with MS.
Seven digit uid.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Heh :)
Dynamic linking is fine. He was keeping his future litigation
cash flow in mind. As to precedent, see uClibc and Monsoon.
Monsoon screwed up, and knew they did.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Until you actually offer an argument, as opposed to ad hominem, I will assume that you have lost.
In fact, I think that file formats are the most important front in the control of computers. 10 years ago, it was all about what operating system ran on what hardware, but things are different today. People don't really care what operating system they run, or what hardware they run it on, they only care that they can use the data that they need. That's why microsoft tried so hard to control web browsers or servers (either one would do) because that left them in control. Instead, open standards won out, and it doesn't matter what browser I use, or what operating system I run on, I can still access on-line content. If microsoft can continue to control office document formats, the can control another generation of computer sales to businesses, and thus computer sales to consumers who want to use the same stuff at home as at work. If we had an open office document format (like ODF) that everyone agreed on, then microsoft would have to compete based on the ease of use, feature set, cross-platform compatablility and cost of their software against WordPerfect, OpenOffice, KOffice and whatever else. So in the end, control of this format is critical. If it fails, it means that all of you data belongs to microsoft, because if you don't have the latest copy of MSOffice, you cannot exchange files any more.
...get an axe. I'm not sure whether this is a Microsoft FAIL or a lawyer FAIL. Oh, heck...I'll post'em both... http://wwwfail.com/?url=microsoft.com http://wwwfail.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forcounsel.com%2Fproducts%2F1265.jpg
You've never read gnu.misc.discuss, have you? Lot's of people in practice find it ambiguous, and when they come to ask about it, long flame wars break out, over the ambiguity.
Is Microsoft's definition of "Microsoft Necessary Claims" broad enough and clear enough to allow a third party to implement the actual .docx format without legal harassment by Microsoft or Microsoft's sock puppets? With Microsoft, as with the devil, you have to check for weasel language in everything they say.
May be too many confused laws to begin with. Eliminate the lawyers and companies like Microsoft would find alternatives to do their extortion for them, probably ones who would come around to your house on dark nights. No niceties such as "See You In Court" either.
Microsoft can't give you a legal promise about how the OSP affects you because Microsoft's lawyers CAN'T tell you how a legal document applies to you. They're lawyers representing Microsoft, and they can't issue legal opinions for anyone else.
Lawyers are professionals who are trained to understand the language of the law, just like software developers are professionals who are trained to understand the language of computers. Just as I wouldn't expect a lawyer to be able to writing an operating system, I wouldn't expect a software developer to be able to interpret a legal document.
That's why this entire discussion is stupid. Microsoft has created a legal document (the OSP). If you want to understand your rights under the OSP, you need to talk to your lawyer.
You couldn't even be bothered to read the web page, could you?
Read the FAQ. Cut the bullshit.
OK,everyone who needed to be told that you can't trust Microsoft, raise your hand.
More than 60,000 Windows programs won't run on Linux.
One would reckon you are correct. But no court has found this interpretation to be correct or incorrect, which would be definitive. The question is, who wants to be the first to put it to the test? Yes, this is FUD, but I think it is legitimate FUD until microsoft more completely clarifies such subtleties.
Just callin' it like I see it.
No, six, digitbreath.
Bite me
It's not a typo, it's completely the wrong word. "Your" and "You're" are too different to consider one a typo of another.
Maybe I'm making a weak connection here, but challenging a person's interpretation of a document is an insult to their interpretation ability, which is a language skill. You can't prove it's a matter of arrogance (which may be the case, but you can't consider as a fact), so all that's left is a matter of skill or simply lack of effort to apply skill. I'd take either as an insult, personally.
It's up to you whether you agree that this is an insult to language skills, but I believe I've made my view clear, so there's no need to argue over it. Either way, it doesn't change that you're being pretty harsh on somebody you don't know, while leaving yourself open to mockery for errors.
Sam ty sig.
There's "lot's" of MS shills and trolls here too.
What's your point?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
>>As a small conclusion I would like to ask you, how many laws have you broken today?
I had sex in three non legal positions with my wife. yep in some states you can only have sex in certain ways.
there are literally thousand of laws on the books because no one ever cleaned them up(New yorkers have a telephone tax that goes back to the late 1800's)
As well as many laws that were passed just because it made a politician feel good. You could gut out half the laws on the books and things wouldn't change as those laws no longer apply.
If they have a 75 year long copyright there should be a 50 year long limit on all laws. After which they must be renewed, or they expire.
Term limits, and pay increases for politicians only as referendum vote by the people and you might see more people interested in the voting.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Not quoting the full sentence does not make a quote out of context. The entire argument is about the existence or otherwise of wriggle room and ambiguity. The full sentence is logically null because it claims both the presence and absence of clarity. It is perfectly valid to select only one clause for the purposes of a clear debate.
Besides, you rather hypocritically choose to drop the other half of my quote, which is perfectly logical substitute for the part I "failed" to quote. It would make no difference to my argument or the GP's if I simply quoted the sentence as you did, except that I felt my selection conveys my point better. Repeating the GP's belief that there is no ambiguity serves no purpose.
Also, you may not realise it but you're actually agreeing with me. My very point was that there is no such thing as a document which someone can't find ambiguous if they wanted to. So it's just pointless FUD to do so.
Ad hominem much?
If you have an actual counter argument, I'd suggest you present it. The GPP doesn't need to specifically reference what anyone interested in computers will have observed for themselves over the past few decades.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I think the GP was responding to my question ("What's the rant for?") by pointing out the ranter has a seven digit UID. Might even have meant to imply that said poster may be lacking in patience, intelligence or experience.
:)
Of course, you've proven that six digit UIDs can have similar problems
The real protection you enjoy is that suing you for patent infringement would do too much damage to MS's credibility. MS simply has too much to lose if people start being overly suspicious of relying on the developer information they provide. Ultimately their entire existence is predicated on people being able to take information about specifications they provide (windows APIs) and use them without fear of suit. They simply can't afford to take advantage of some legal loophole to sue you given the damage to their reputation it would cause.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
The objections are irrelevant in this case. If a party writes a contract, covenant, deed or other legal document that could be reasonably misinterpreted the ambiguity goes against the party that wrote it. That is why lawyers try to get the other side to draft contracts, its less risky.
Since we are talking patents here the enforceability of the patent is an issue. Given the nature of the problem I somewhat doubt that if the patents are enforceable against OOXML implementations that they would not cover ODF as well.
Microsoft's general approach to patents has been to 1) assert that company A infringes its patents, 2) sign a cross licensing deal with company A in which each company gets access to the patents held by the other 3) write company A a large check being the balance owed.
Of course it is quite possible that Microsoft might start demanding royalties at some point in the future but at this point they seem to care a lot more about not being sued than actually raising net revenue.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
That anyone even remotely familiar with the history of GPL is ROFLing at the notion that it isn't ambiguous. Go read Rosen's book on open source licensing, and see how much text it takes for him to explain what parts of it mean. Go read the last few years of gnu.misc.discuss, and see the legions of open source developers who've needed help figuring out what it means.
I promise not to sue, even though you may be in violation of our IP! We need thousands of you out there using this before we would consider such a thing anyway. http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com/
The "covenant not to sue" is indeed not a particularly sound guarantee. On the other hand, if Microsoft sued over patent infringement in 10 years, I think they'd have a hard time recovering anything: any infringement wouldn't be willful and any it's hard to claim damages over something that they themselves said anybody could use.
Given there are a number of projects which translate OOXML to ODF and back, I would simply always develop with ODF and translate to and from OOXML when it is required
The TFA is the counter argument. It clearly conveys M$'s intent to make OOXML an open standard. Incidentally, pointing out that a post with no facts or references and relies upon an unquestioning thought process that thrives amongst the ideologically inclined may be harsh, but it's not necessarily wrong, and certainly not an ad hominem attack. I'd appreciate it if you refrained from that kind of accusatory bullshit and actually justified your position. Anyone on Slashdot will know there's plenty of groupthink here, so what they've "observed for themselves" is hardly a convincing argument.
This is all BS, smoke and mirrors. In one section they say they can't support the GPL in the quoted section above they say they can.
Why stop at decimation, which would still leave us with 9 in 10 lawyers?
The Lawyer gets the same penalty as the person he/she represents.
Never mind - the problem is that there should be a rule stating that any writing that can't be understood by an average person should be declared invalid.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The problem is not lawyers in this case, the problem is software patents. Novels, short stories and mathematics, or even legal texts are covered by copyright, why need software be special. Especially mathematics and legal texts have very big likeness to software in that they attempt express something in a non ambigous way. Layers doesn't need to pay
licence fees to use e.g a insanity defence in a murder case. Why should software developers be patent suits if they don't pay licences for things that are equally obvious within their field. It is true that many software patents will not hold up in court, but the cost of going to court is so high both in terms of money and in time that very few developers can afford it.
God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
Microsoft have really lowered the barrier to making games on Windows and Xbox 360. XNA and C# have made it really easy to make games but they're so tied to Microsoft that there is no hope of a port. Most code includes look like this..
using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics;Simple, but Microsoft specific.
Making a cross platform game is a lot harder if you are trying to port something written from Windows because you don't even realise until it happens how non-standard you code can be between operating systems. Perhaps you're using the Windows registry or you're using DirectX. Your only hope really is to score an xbox arcade contract with the publisher Microsoft and if you have written your game in C# and XNA you can give up hope of a port unless you're going to go back and re-write some code in c++.
If you want to make a cross platform game then my advice is to write your code on a different platform (Mac, Linux, etc) and then port it to Windows. You'll find the port much easier this way around as it forces you to write your code to be cross platform and it leaves you open to some great debugging tools such as LatencyTop to help you figure out why your game is losing FPS.
That said you can't do all your game programming on Linux because the tools just aren't there. RenderMonkey for shader programming is a good example, but you can easily just do your shader programming on one machine and use the shaders in Linux. Ogre 3D for example has a shader exporter from RenderMonkey.
Two things that bother me, besides the fact that instead of releasing the patents to the public they released a "promise" not to sue over those patents.
What does Covered Implementation [sic] and Necessary Claims [sic] mean? As far as this developer understands, Covered Implementation implicates that the promise only covers you as long as you are implementing a OOXML editor, other software might not be so protected, for instance I have had to add "excel" exporters (actually html pages with a different mime type) in some web applications, if my application exports documents to OOXML am I protected?
And if all implementations are covered what does it mean to be a Covered Implementation? Is there such a thing as an Uncovered Implementation? And what does Necessary Claims mean? And why the random Capitalization?
But... the future refused to change.
The only problem I see with this, is the definition of average appears to be getting weaker and weaker due to the dumbing down of society. Eventually we would would end up with laws written like:
See Jim. See Jim take bread. See Jim not pay for bread. See police arrest Jim. Bad Jim, bad.Ok, maybe not quite that bad, I hope.
With the Novels, etc, everyone gets to see the text of the covered object, whereas with software, it's only the "author" that gets to see it - until OSS that is.
If I'm not mistaken, (the majority of) those who want patents on software are the Closed Source Software suppliers - they can't protect their "idea" by copyright (as you can't see their source), so they've gone for protecting their "secret formula" with a patent...and keep it "secret" by obsfurcating the patent...
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell
"Q: I am a developer/distributor/user of software that is licensed under the GPL, does the Open Specification Promise apply to me?"
.. the only time Microsoft can withdraw its promise .. is if that person or company brings .. a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft .."
"A:
So the whole motive in this legalistic shell game is to protect MS from being sued over claiming IP ownership in Open Source software.
translation: by signing this agreement you acknowledge Microsofts IP claims against Open Source.
davecb5620@gmail.com