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Microsoft Redefines "Open Standards"
Glyn Moody writes "Microsoft is at it again: trying to redefine what 'open' means. This time it wants open standards to be 'balanced' — for them to include patent-encumbered technologies under RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms. Which just happens to be incompatible with free software licensed under the GNU GPL."
Does this have anything to do with losing the ability to get government contracts because of FOSS requirements? Remember the stink ?last year? when M$ got their proprietary document format declared a standard so they could bid on contracts that required open document standards? They must have another contract coming up for renewal.
"But in the end, they'll meet the same fate as the dinos."
Don't be so sure: dinos didn't have corporate lawyers.
I thought the same thing. Only after did I realize the word shift in the summary:
Also, Matusow didn't say they want all open standards to be able to include RAND, just that he considers some RAND standards as open to him. The article writer even seems to agree with most of his points, and then turns a 360 and brings up the OOXML to bash on them a bit.
On the side of openness, I think the article writer misunderstood Matusow's main point about patents and standards, which is that if a patentable idea could be used in more then one way (his two examples were protocols and an aphrodisiac) that the owner should be able to grant use of the patent for a protocol standard, but should not be required to give up rights to license separately use as an aphrodisiac. Doing so might make the contributor less likely to contribute, which make sense because if that were required, the cost of the contribution might outweigh the benefit.
Some GPL software is patent encumbered. IBM, for example, donated some of their patents for Open Source projects. Postgresql, being BSD licensed, removed/rewrote their code so as not to infringe.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Lots of open standards are patent-encumbered with RAND terms on patent licensing, including the MPEG family, and various hardware standards such as DDR. The term that people seem to be looking for is 'royalty free', which is orthogonal to 'open'. If a standard is open and royalty free then it can be implemented without problems by GPL'd software. If it is only one or the other, then there may be problems.
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OMG, what a sad joke it was !
the DEC Alpha was the absolute epitome of 64 bits processing in its times, a fabulous cpu running loops around what intel had to offer, and head and shoulders above the competition from Sun and IBM. The Alpha was emulating a top of the line Ppro faster than the ppro could run natively. And those retards at MSFT just ported a 32 bits NT to it, and moreover were unable to provide native software for it (MS Office can't run on the Alpha).
Allegedly, the bulk of the work on the 64 bit version of NT (call it 2K_64, XP_64 or whatever, it's never been released) was conducted on Alpha hardware for the lack of competent Itanium platforms at the time.
In short, MS benefited from the Alpha while doing their very best to kill the product, by not delivering the promised goods for it. They created high public expectations and their shoddy behaviours finally put DEC in a bad light.
It makes me sick to read such statements. I still run a PWS under Linux for the good old days memories, and the only comforting thoughts I have are that AMD managed to build upon DEC expertise to create the Athlon 64 after DEC had been swallowed by Compaq and their R&D disbanded.
No bashing is occurring.
Facts are being discussed and reason is attempting to be made. In 2006/7 Microsoft explicitly claimed that they would kill open source. Later Ballmer claimed that open source was a cancer on the software industry. Recently Microsoft stated they would kill Google like they did Netscape. These aren't attempts to compete, they attempts to use their monopoly power to kill the competition. You compete based on the merits of your product.
Clearly and unequivocally this is nothing more than "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish". Microsoft is using their PR arm to attempt to make this out as a makeover while it is nothing more than an attempt to minimize the efforts of Open Source so that businesses look differently at it with less willingness to use it if there is an alternative.
It is no coincidence that Ballmer and Microsoft see open source as a bigger threat today in a sliding economy. They see the inroads that open source has made. It is no coincidence that this is happening at the largest slide in their revenue/profits. They see no other competition other than Linux and the Mac (and they have the Mac in hand as they develop some pretty strong software there).
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.