It is shame you did not bother to read the Sun document concerning it's patents and ODF. Here is the quote:
"Sun irrevocably covenants that, subject solely to the reciprocity requirement described below, it will not seek to enforce any of its enforceable U.S. or foreign patents against any implementation of the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 Specification, or of any subsequent version thereof ("OpenDocument Implementation") in which development Sun participates to the point of incurring an obligation, as defined by the rules of OASIS, to grant (or commit to grant) patent licenses or make equivalent non-assertion covenants. Notwithstanding the commitment above, Sun's covenant shall not apply and Sun makes no assurance, covenant or commitment not to assert or enforce any or all of its patent rights against any individual, corporation or other entity that asserts, threatens or seeks at any time to enforce its own or another party's U.S. or foreign patents or patent rights against any OpenDocument Implementation."
I used reverse engineering in the sense that the format has been designed so that it can store any document produced by the programmes such as OpenOffice or Microsoft Office. I don't get your arguement that because you don't like the specification it is any less open. Once it is owned by a committee or a standards body then it is controlled by that body. No one seems to have complained that ECMA standardised Javascript.
The question is why should one be a standard and not the other. Will having ODF as a standard be of real concern to anyone outside the public sector. Up to now it has not been important to anyone.
This is my first post and I don't really understand all the rhetoric. ODF is reverse engineered OpenOffice binary format and OpenXML is reverse engineered Microsoft Office format. Both formats have patents associated with them. However, in both cases the patent owners will not sue people who create applications that write documents stored in the formats (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.p hp and http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA10205 8151033.aspx). For many years Microsoft was told that they should open up and publish the Office formats and when they do they are criticised. What is the problem with having 2 official formats. Whatever, happens the market is likely to ensure that OpenXML is the defacto standard which means this who arguement seems a bit hollow.
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It is shame you did not bother to read the Sun document concerning it's patents and ODF. Here is the quote: "Sun irrevocably covenants that, subject solely to the reciprocity requirement described below, it will not seek to enforce any of its enforceable U.S. or foreign patents against any implementation of the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 Specification, or of any subsequent version thereof ("OpenDocument Implementation") in which development Sun participates to the point of incurring an obligation, as defined by the rules of OASIS, to grant (or commit to grant) patent licenses or make equivalent non-assertion covenants. Notwithstanding the commitment above, Sun's covenant shall not apply and Sun makes no assurance, covenant or commitment not to assert or enforce any or all of its patent rights against any individual, corporation or other entity that asserts, threatens or seeks at any time to enforce its own or another party's U.S. or foreign patents or patent rights against any OpenDocument Implementation." I used reverse engineering in the sense that the format has been designed so that it can store any document produced by the programmes such as OpenOffice or Microsoft Office. I don't get your arguement that because you don't like the specification it is any less open. Once it is owned by a committee or a standards body then it is controlled by that body. No one seems to have complained that ECMA standardised Javascript. The question is why should one be a standard and not the other. Will having ODF as a standard be of real concern to anyone outside the public sector. Up to now it has not been important to anyone.
This is my first post and I don't really understand all the rhetoric. ODF is reverse engineered OpenOffice binary format and OpenXML is reverse engineered Microsoft Office format. Both formats have patents associated with them. However, in both cases the patent owners will not sue people who create applications that write documents stored in the formats (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.p hp and http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/HA10205 8151033.aspx). For many years Microsoft was told that they should open up and publish the Office formats and when they do they are criticised. What is the problem with having 2 official formats. Whatever, happens the market is likely to ensure that OpenXML is the defacto standard which means this who arguement seems a bit hollow.