Groklaw Examines Microsoft's Promises

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Groklaw has examined that 'new leaf' Microsoft turned the other day. PJ has a lengthy analysis of Microsoft's latest promises. To make a long story short, the promises are more of the same stuff and don't help anyone but Microsoft. They only protect 'noncommercial' development and are set up to create a patented standards toll road so that Microsoft can charge competitors to compete. As PJ puts it, 'This is a promise to remain incompatible with the GPL, as far as I can make out.'"

Comments

We come in peace!

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoot to kill!

And there was a collective sigh of "no shit."

[Reality Master 201]

It's what we in the biz call "a load of bullshit," and probably comes from the legal department (by way of marketing), who're possibly worried that the EU might do something to them.

Re:And there was a collective sigh of "no shit."

[filbranden]

I agree it would be better for me as a consumer if Microsoft went all-open, but what right do I have to force them to do it?

You forget that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist and that they use dirty tactics against their competitors.

that's how our current capitalist/free market system works

And that's exactly one of the problems of the capitalist and free market system (I'm not trolling here! No economic system is perfect and others failed miserably much quicker than capitalism, but that's not my point). The problem here is that once a company becomes a monopoly, it has too much power in its hands. It has, for example, power enough to extinguish small competitors by artificially lowering prices until the competitor dies and then, with no one to compete, rise prices again.

Microsoft is a good example of a company that takes profit from the "loopholes" of capitalism. By using lock in to their proprietary formats and bundling IE and WMP in the OS, they've achieved to keep for a long time more than 90% of market share on a wide range of products, to force people to upgrade and pay them more money, and all that without innovating (if you really look at their products, you'll see that in the last 5 years they didn't introduce any new feature worth buying, mostly cosmetic changes only). All that just using dirty tactics by making sure no one could create programs compatible or interoperatable with theirs.

I do believe in a free market, but this market we have with Microsoft is anything but free. And I do think governments have the responsability to level the playing field here.

Why you think Microsoft ownes it to any of you to give away their computer code is beyond me.

The biggest issue here is why did we get into this situation. If Microsoft had used and promoted open standards since the begining, they wouldn't be in this situation today. They would have to compete in quality of their products, not based on the legacy that only they can access. Since they chose to do everything they could to avoid interoperability at all costs, being forced to do that now is the least I expect.

To make a long story short:

[MMC Monster]

The promise is to not litigate if you use their patents/documents for non-commercial applications.

The problem is that GPL software cannot have this limitation.

Just before OOXML-vote

[jbrax]

Excerpt from a post by lawyer Andrew Updegrove, an open-standards advocate who tracks the issue on his Standards Blog:

I expect that it is no coincidence that this announcement comes just two business days (and only one, for most of the world) before the Ballot Resolution Meeting convenes in Geneva next Monday. This will effectively give those participating in the discussions of Microsoft's OOXML document format no opportunity to fully understand what Microsoft has actually promised to do, while reaping the maximum public relations benefit.

European Comission is not so impressed

[jbrax]

Seems like European Comission has learned something about Microsoft's previous four announcements. Excerpt:

The Commission would welcome any move towards genuine interoperability. Nonetheless, the Commission notes that today's announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability.

ECIS's Thomas Vinje has also issued a statement that is worth reading.

Slashdot is still not posting the good stuff...

[NullProg]

The real story from Groklaw, How to Get Your Platform Accepted as a Standard - Microsoft Style http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071023002351958

I submitted this story last weekend. One of the many juicy excerpts....

I have mentioned before the "stacked panel". Panel discussions naturally favor alliances of relatively weak partners - our usual opposition. For example, an "unbiased" panel on OLE vs. OpenDoc would contain representatives of the backers of OLE (Microsoft) and the backers of OpenDoc (Apple, IBM, Novell, WordPerfect, OMG, etc.). Thus we find ourselves outnumbered in almost every "naturally occurring" panel debate.
A stacked panel, on the other hand, is like a stacked deck: it is packed with people who, on the face of things, should be neutral, but who are in fact strong supporters of our technology. The key to stacking a panel is being able to choose the moderator. Most conference organizers allow the moderator to select the panel, so if you can pick the moderator, you win. Since you can't expect representatives of our competitors to speak on your behalf, you have to get the moderator to agree to having only "independent ISVs" on the panel. No one from Microsoft or any other formal backer of the competing technologies would be allowed - just ISVs who have to use this stuff in the "real world." Sounds marvelously independent doesn't it? In fact, it allows us to stack the panel with ISVs that back our cause. Thus, the "independent" panel ends up telling the audience that our technology beats the others hands down. Get the press to cover this panel, and you've got a major win on your hands.


If you can't win by technical merit, stack the panel and buy the moderator. OpenDoc was superior and I find it interesting that were there again after 10+ years with the OOXML vs ODF battle.

I think Microsoft just killed my subscription(s) to every Pro-Windows magazine I subscribe too (DrDobbs, MSDN, etc). Now every favorable opinion I've read about Microsoft will be biased with a "Did Microsoft purchase that expert opinion?". If you compete against Microsoft you will loose because they control the Pundits/Press, and Moderators. Its all about the marketing, not the technical advantages of your product.

My opinion and I reserve the right to be wrong.
Enjoy,