Microsoft open specification promise

[Mirko Boehm]

Hi,

at the Microsoft presentation at the summit of newthinking I took a note
to check the conditions under which the OData standard (the OASIS open
data standard proposal, heavily industry influence) is licensed. Turns
out it is the "Microsoft open specification promise" found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/osp/default.aspx

Was there already an analysis of how these terms align with our
understanding of what an open standard is? And if not, is this something
where we should communicate actively?

All the best,

Mirko.

[Andreas K. Foerster]

Post by Mirko Boehm
Hi,
at the Microsoft presentation at the summit of newthinking I took a note
to check the conditions under which the OData standard (the OASIS open
data standard proposal, heavily industry influence) is licensed. Turns
http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/osp/default.aspx
Was there already an analysis of how these terms align with our
understanding of what an open standard is? And if not, is this something
where we should communicate actively?

The following text discusses, that this "promise" is not sufficient
to rely on for Free Software:
https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/osp-gpl.html

[Matthias Kirschner]

Hi Mirko,

Post by Mirko Boehm
at the Microsoft presentation at the summit of newthinking I took a note
to check the conditions under which the OData standard (the OASIS open
data standard proposal, heavily industry influence) is licensed. Turns
http://www.microsoft.com/openspecifications/en/us/programs/osp/default.aspx
Was there already an analysis of how these terms align with our
understanding of what an open standard is? And if not, is this something
where we should communicate actively?

Please also have a look at:

http://fsfe.org/activities/os/msooxml-interoperability.en.html

Example #3: Microsoft's Open Specification Promise is not reliable
legal coverage for complete interoperability

MS-OOXML files generated by MS Office 2007 contain content that is
implementation defined. This is a cause for concern because content
not described in the proposed specification has an unclear status
regarding coverage under the Microsoft Open Specification Promised
(OSP). OSP coverage is limited to patents "that are necessary to
implement only the required portions of the Covered Specification that
are described in detail and not merely referenced in such
Specification." 8

The OSP states in the final sentence of paragraph two that "No other
rights except those expressly stated in this promise shall be deemed
granted, waived or received by implication, exhaustion, estoppel, or
otherwise". 9 It appears reasonable to not rely on the OSP for content
necessary to allow interoperability that is not described in detail or
referenced in the proposed specification.

This concern becomes more acute if the document is saved in other
variations of the proposed specification format. For example, XLSM
documents contain unspecified content as well as binary content. XLSB
documents contain content stored using a method apparently not
described in the proposed specification. XSLX documents with a
password are also stored using a document container apparently not
covered by the proposed specification.

Also some information
http://fsfe.org/activities/os/msooxml-idiosyncrasies.en.html

Regards,
Matthias

[theo.schmidt]

Am 11.12.2012 11:26, schrieb Matthias Kirschner:
...

Post by Matthias Kirschner
http://fsfe.org/activities/os/msooxml-interoperability.en.html

...

Post by Matthias Kirschner
Also some information
http://fsfe.org/activities/os/msooxml-idiosyncrasies.en.html

These are rather dated and technical. Ordinary users, even politicians
engaged in liberty, social or green issues, usually don't care about
anything except that it works. Is there an FSFE page or elsewhere, which
concisely explains to ordinary users the disadvanges of OOXML (and
especially DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX) and encourages them use, if not ODF, at
least RTF and PDF when possible?

Should people be encouraged to use the old DOC, XLS and PPT formats for
interoperability in spite of their inferiority?

My own experience is now that I can mostly open DOCX, XLSX and PPTX
files in Libre Office, but there are often things missing, e.g. lines of
text, columns of data, or complex XLSX documents take ages to load. Is
this the "fault" of OOXML, MS-Office, Libre Office or all three?

Cheers, Theo Schmidt

[Matthias Kirschner]

Post by theo.schmidt
...

Post by Matthias Kirschner
http://fsfe.org/activities/os/msooxml-interoperability.en.html

...

Post by Matthias Kirschner
Also some information
http://fsfe.org/activities/os/msooxml-idiosyncrasies.en.html

These are rather dated and technical. Ordinary users, even
politicians engaged in liberty, social or green issues, usually
don't care about anything except that it works. Is there an FSFE
page or elsewhere, which concisely explains to ordinary users the
disadvanges of OOXML (and especially DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX) and
encourages them use, if not ODF, at least RTF and PDF when possible?

We explained some of the issues in previous Document Freedom Days.
Perhaps some of the links in http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=152 help
you.

Regards,
Matthias

[David Gerard]

My own experience is now that I can mostly open DOCX, XLSX and PPTX files in
Libre Office, but there are often things missing, e.g. lines of text,
columns of data, or complex XLSX documents take ages to load. Is this the
"fault" of OOXML, MS-Office, Libre Office or all three?

Slightly off-topic: whenever you get a recent MS Office document like
this that doesn't work, please file a bug with LO - they really do
work hard on their format converters and love to know about this
stuff, e.g.:

http://fridrich.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/libreoffice-coreldraw-import-filter.html

I don't know for sure about Apache OpenOffice, but I'd be surprised if
they weren't similarly interested in their filters.


- d.

[Bernhard Reiter]

Post by theo.schmidt
My own experience is now that I can mostly open DOCX, XLSX and PPTX
files in Libre Office, but there are often things missing, e.g. lines of
text, columns of data, or complex XLSX documents take ages to load. Is
this the "fault" of OOXML, MS-Office, Libre Office or all three?

At first it is Microsoft's "fault",
as they have choosen a dataformat that is hard to implement
from technical and legal aspects. There is reason to believe
that they did this delibertately as it is the usual game.

I secondly believe that users (paying or non-paying) customers,
especially organisations, are responsible for using the format
and thus giving it some real world weight.

If you accept both as given, you could try to come up with enough
helping hand or funding for someone
to do a good Free Software implementation.
--
FSFE -- Founding Member of the GA blogs.fsfe.org/bernhard
Support our work for Free Software: https://fsfe.org/support/?ber
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[Mirko Boehm]

Hi,

Post by Matthias Kirschner
http://fsfe.org/activities/os/msooxml-interoperability.en.html
Example #3: Microsoft's Open Specification Promise is not reliable
legal coverage for complete interoperability

In this regard, I am trying to understand risks involved with the oData "standard". I think the OOXML case is different in that now with oData, competiting implementations are developing from the beginning (the spec is available while Microsoft develops their own product, not after).

Do you think that makes a difference?

Cheers,

Mirko.

[Matthias Kirschner]

Post by Mirko Boehm

Post by Matthias Kirschner
http://fsfe.org/activities/os/msooxml-interoperability.en.html
Example #3: Microsoft's Open Specification Promise is not reliable
legal coverage for complete interoperability

In this regard, I am trying to understand risks involved with the
oData "standard". I think the OOXML case is different in that now with
oData, competiting implementations are developing from the beginning
(the spec is available while Microsoft develops their own product, not
after).
Do you think that makes a difference?

I am not sure at the moment. I would need to look more into the details
again. What do others here think?

Regards,
Matthias

[Andreas K. Foerster]

Post by Mirko Boehm
In this regard, I am trying to understand risks involved with the oData
"standard". I think the OOXML case is different in that now with oData,
competiting implementations are developing from
the beginning (the spec is available while Microsoft develops their own
product, not after).
Do you think that makes a difference?

Sorry, I cannot tell you more.
I don't know much about it.