Legal Counsel Advises Against Accepting OOXML Pledge

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday March 13, 2008 @04:44AM from the so-hard-to-keep-these-things-straight-now dept.

ozmanjusri writes "A legal analysis of Microsoft's Open Specification Promise (OSP), which was purportedly written to give developers protection from patent risk, says the promise should not be trusted. According to the Software Freedom Law Center, 'While technically an irrevocable promise, in practice the OSP is good only for today.' This is on the back of a chaotic ISO meeting to resolve outstanding specification problems. The session was described by Tim Bray as 'Complete, utter, unadulterated bulls**t. This was horrible, egregious, process abuse and ISO should hang their heads in shame for allowing it to happen.' The advice would seem to throw more doubt on OOXML's suitability as an international document standard. Microsoft responded to these assertions stating that they've already taken steps to answer these concerns"

2 of 139 comments (clear)

It's a trap! by und0 · 2008-03-13 04:50 · Score: 5, Funny

Don't look at me, lawyers are saying it! ^__^
Re:'Complete, utter, unadulterated bulls**t. by sm62704 · 2008-03-13 07:41 · Score: 2, Funny

*WOOSH!*

--
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest