Microsoft's New Leaf On Interoperability

A large number of readers are submitting the news that Microsoft has made a major announcement about interoperating with others including specifically the FOSS world. The impetus is the ongoing EU antitrust case against Microsoft. The announcement comes in the context of the release of 30,000 pages of API documentation for Microsoft Vista, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and Office SharePoint Server 2007 — and a listing of patents that apply to these technologies, and a pledge not to sue open source developers who use the APIs. InfoWorld summarizes by saying that Microsoft "promised greater transparency in its development and business practices." Fortune is blunter, saying "Microsoft declares truce in open source war." Here's Microsoft's FAQ on the open source interop initiative.

Comments

Patent clause is for non-commercial only

[dsginter]

Wouldn't it be better for them to in a sense "escrow" those patents w/ an external body like the open patents.org people?

No - because they are retaining the rights to sue entities that use the information for commercial purposes. Here's the text:

5. Open Source Compatibility. Microsoft will covenant not to sue open source developers for development and non-commercial distribution of implementations of these Open Protocols.

This announcement is just marketing spin on what the EU was about to require.

Estoppel

[ClayJar]

I believe there are legal consequences to making public statements like that, but I forget the legal principle - it basically says "once you announce something in public, you can't just 'take it back'". The legal term is "estoppel".

Basically, Microsoft pledges not to sue if you use the API. Then once people start using it, they say, "Sorry, we didn't mean it. We sue you now." The doctrines of estoppel would prevent them from successfully suing you, as they are estopped by their pledge. You can't be held liable for their change.

Of course, anyone can sue anyone for anything any time in our legal system, so it may be no great comfort to know that they won't succeed if they sue you. They know they can bankrupt you with legal fees, at least for however long they can drag out appeals (which can be longer than you can go without the money).

Re:Don't worry

[mjmartin_uk]

Especially since it's a trap.

(from the doc...)

• iii. Open Source Compatibility. Microsoft will promise not to sue open source developers for development and non-commercial distribution of implementations of these Open Protocols. Companies that engage in commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not have such a patent license.

So basically they'll be sending the hounds over to the Ubuntu camp, Red Hat and anyone else who doesn't want to pay their fees. Any developer of GPL products should steer well clear from any of their bait.