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."

Comments

GPL is not the definition of open

[Richard_at_work]

Which just happens to be incompatible with free software licensed under the GNU GPL."

Hate to break it to you, but the GPL is not the be-all end-all of openness, and the benchmark of "open" is not necessarily "compatible with the GPL".

Re:GPL is not the definition of open

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but Patent-encumbered definitely means NOT open.

Re:GPL is not the definition of open

[thisnamestoolong]

GPL is certainly not the end-all be-all of openness, but we need to define our terms somewhere. When defining static terms in a non-static world, the line is always going to be arbitrary and cases that are close to that line will always highlight this fact readily. Microsoft, however, does not even approach the line, no matter how one defines the term. If you are going to retain patents on your software, it is not open. Period. End of story. There is no legitimate argument that can be made here, the patent in and of itself proudly claims 100% ownership over the code in question, which is the antithesis of openness under any standard. The GPL has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this case.

Re:GPL is not the definition of open

[swillden]

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

Open and royalty-free are necessary but not sufficient conditions for use by GPL software.

There could be additional encumbrances on a patent other than royalties. A common one is that each user has to obtain permission from the patent holder. Even if this permission is easy to obtain and costs nothing, that would still be encumbered from the GPL's perspective because it would impose restrictions on those who receive the software.

Contrary to the GGP's opinion, while the GPL may not be the "be-all end-all" of openness it's a pretty damned good yardstick. If a license (copyright or patent) is compatible with the GPL, you know that it's open.

From the...

[Daemonax]

From the gpl-isn't-really-open-either-ya-know dept.

What is up with that? The majority of people that go around saying this about the GPL complain that you can't include the GPL in proprietary software or other unfortunate obscure issues. The GPL is designed to keep software licensed under it Free (or open if you prefer). Sure sometimes that causes unfortunate problems with other Free Software licenses, but while there are those that would like to take away the freedom that users and developers get with the GPL, it's a cost I'm happy with.

Re:Now who's redefining "open"?

[Darkness404]

Open source only means that the source is available to the users of the product.

Nope, OSI defines open source software as software that:

A. Free Redistribution
B. Includes Source
C. Allow Derived Works

And a lot of other stuff. See http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php for more info.

Re:You guys would bitch if

[Vinegar Joe]

You guys would bitch if MS was giving out free blowjobs.

Knowing Microsoft, the free blowjobs would come with a free dose of the clap.

losing contracts

[stine2469]

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.

Embrace, Extended, Extinguish

[commodore64_love]

Well yeah it's the same EEE philosophy they've followed over th last twenty years. Why abandon the philosophy when it works do brilliantly for them?

- EMBRACE the concept of open standards (previous phase).

- EXTEND these standards with Microsoft proprietary formats (the current ongoing phase).

- EXTINGUISH future competitors by claiming they violate these proprietary formats and may not use them, which means customers must buy Microsoft software to gain full functionality. Thus a once-open standards model becomes a closed MS-proprietary format. Again.

Re:Cue Microsoft bashing...

[ozmanjusri]

*sigh*

Yes sigh. And the astroturf starts right on cue as well.

Microsoft has finally started to understand the web, to recognise that opinions are being formed in the relatively informal arena of social and discussion websites. Their evangelists and reputation management teams are invading social web sites posing as ordinary participants.

There is pattern of saturating discussions with the same marketing points. This demand that Microsoft be given "fair treatment", criticism of the GPL as being "unfair", claims that anyone who criticises Microsoft is a zealot who would complain no matter what they do, the harassment, ridicule and abuse of people they perceive as representing competitors viewpoints, constant reiteration that, as much as they love [competing product], Microsoft's implementation is undeniably superior. Anyone who's participated in Slashdot discussions for any length of time will recognise these and the rest of their marketing checklist of memes they wish to propagate.

In the process they have come close to destroying Slashdot, and other tech discussion websites. We need at least a small element of trust that the people participating here really believe what they are posting, and are not simply reiterating from a script planned by some marketing team.

Re:You guys would bitch if

[IGnatius T Foobar]

You guys would bitch if MS was giving out free blowjobs.

I'm sure they'd fail at that too. In fact, it might be the first time in history that they didn't suck.