Patent Threats In OOXML 109
An anonymous reader notes an initiative by the New Zealand Open Source Society to weigh in on the question of standardizing Microsoft's OOXML. The organization has authored a white paper (available in several formats, HTML here) laying out the ways in which the OOXML spec falls short of what a standard should be. From the article: "'If OOXML goes through as an ISO standard, the IT industry, government and business will [be] encumbered with a 6,000-page specification peppered with potential patent liabilities' said New Zealand OSS President Don Christie. 'Alarm bells are going off in many parts of the world over OOXML. Normally ISO draft standards would be drawn up by a number of stakeholder organizations, involving an often slow process of consensus building and knowledge sharing. Since many aspects of the office document format remain proprietary, OOXML has not taken this development track.'"
Why am I not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
In my opinion, the right solution to these patent problems is eliminating software and/or business process patents.
There can be only one (Score:4, Interesting)
ODF has been gaining ground in the EU and in other parts of the world, whereas OOXML has to start from a dead stop. It's only asset is the marketing power of MSFT behind it, but that may not be enough. It is already clear (from other
Re:Why am I not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Cost of patenting based on the wealth of the patentee. This should help the small garage inventor + actual real good innovations. Patent trolling will be less effective.
2. Patent to be supported by product within a period of 3 years. It is the responsibility of the patent holder to provide proof that a product that was created by his patent has been made after 3 years. This product has to be a) made by the patent holder or b) the patent holder has given license to the company which creates it. Otherwise the patent lapses. This would again take care of the patent trolls + help actual good inventions
3. The cost of patent to be borne across the years. Every 5 years the patent has be re-issued with quite a high fee (again based on the wealth of patentee). This means that only good useful products are under patent for the complete duration of the patent. This again will support the basic idea of patenting, i.e. really good useful ideas not to be kept under wraps, and not the small ideas.
I guess these ideas should help modify the patent system so that
a) Patent office gets more money which means more people, which means better results
b) Small guy inventor is supported
c) Real good ideas can be patented for the whole duration
d) Company still can work freely without struggling with frivolous patents, while producing real good products under patents themselves.
Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:3, Interesting)
But why there are so many there that wants to create an bad standard ?
Dont ask me that.
Not all standards are equal (Score:1, Interesting)
So it is possible that the ISO finds that to be a similar case here. Perhaps they find that the MS standard is better. I'm not saying you necessairily find the same thing, however it is fairly clear that you have an extreme anti-MS bias. That's fine, you are entitled to your viewpoint, but you should recognise that it may bias the way you perceive things. Your statement that "Clearly the ISO bodies are being corrupted," is not a true one. I'm not saying that it is untrue that it is happening, I am saying the truth can't be established thus it is not clear. You are inferring that from the fact that the ISO isn't doing what you want.
I'm not trying to say you are wrong, I am just saying you need to take a step back and evaluate how your dislike for Microsoft colours your views of the situation. You also need to understand that, from a standards point of view, patents are ok. Many open standards are parented. SDRAM would be another one, that's a major point of JEDEC. The RAM makers get together, decide on RAM specs, and come to an agreement on patents so that everyone can use patented technology.
Also I'm not sure why the standard being 6000 pages is a problem. A complex standard will be lengthy. If it isn't, that means things aren't well defined and there can be implementation problems. I mean consider that the CSS2 standard is 338 pages by itself. Just CSS2, never mind the rest of the standards that go along with it for the modern web (HTML 4 is about 400 pages for example). I could well see a print document standard, especially one intended to contain all sorts of rich media formats, to need to be a few thousand pages. As another example, the Adobe PDF reference spec is over 1300 pages (for version 1.7).
A short, simple, standard means either that what you are specing is something that doesn't do a whole lot, or that your spec is very, very incomplete and leaves a whole lot up to the app to decide. Well we know that a document format isn't simple, especially if we are talking something to replace the
All I'm saying is you need to consider that it isn't as cut and dried as "patents vs no patents." Outside the OSS community, patents aren't considered so evil. You can argue they should be, but that isn't the case. Thus considering a patented format isn't anything out of the ordinary. So long as the criteria such as RAND licensing and such are met, the standards body is probably happy. I mean remember that MS has a standard video format, a competitor to MPEG-4 called VC-1. It is controlled by SMPTE and is used on HD-DVD and Blu Ray (many HD-DVD titles seem to like to use VC-1) along with MPEG-4 Part 10 and MPEG-2. Like the others, it isn't free, is encumbered by patents (not just MS patents) but is an open standard.
Re: Open standards often are patented (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No, sorry doesn't work that way (Score:2, Interesting)
free software may not be "free as in I'm sleeping on your couch", but it certainly is "free as in you're free to use, modify and redistribute it without needing an army of lawyers and negotiating thousands of different licensing agreements", a position to which neither the MPEG standard nor OOXML is helping in any way.
Re:There can be only one (Score:3, Interesting)
I googled, and found: http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2006/07/06/microsoft-o
Which says that MS themselves said that you cannot change the default 'save as'.
Re: Open standards often are patented (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree with a couple of the things you've said:
but I don't think it is unreasonable for people to want compensation for their work
The fact that a person wants compensation for work does not make it reasonable for that person to receive it. I may want compensation for writing a novel that no one wants to read. Tough luck. I may want compensation for parenting. Again, tough luck. Having some rights to the fruits of one's labour is different from demanding fruits from that labour. I'm sure you would agree that this scenario (expecting to be paid regardless of the costs to society) is just as problematic as that in which all software is free as in beer. Patents and copyright impose costs on society, and so those costs have to be balanced against the benefit of patent and copyright policy. The benefits must outweigh the costs or the policy must be attenuated. Like you, I'm trying to point out that this issue is not black and white or cut and dried.
It's not cheap or easy to develop new compression technology, I work at a university that does JPEG 2000 research and there's a lot of time and money spent on it. That's got to come from somewhere, and the people that put it up want a return.
Many universities (I would guess most, but I don't have the statistics handy) are funded largely by taxpayers. There's a good reason for that: You can't journey into the unknown on a budget and with a rigid five-year plan. Private industry would be almost entirely economically incapable of advancing human knowledge. If you do research work inside a university, the work has already been compensated. Wanting a cut of the royalties is more than just wanting "compensation for work".
Universities have begun playing the patent game because they are chronically underfunded and they need money desperately. As universities are starved for research money, patents and copyright play a greater role in generating creative output than they used to. In other words, less money for universities means more reliance on patents and copyright as the key policy instruments for advancing human knowledge. I think that is a very unfortunate trend.
I also think that patents in communication and file format standards are very different from other kinds of patents. Patents in communication standards prevent me from participating in culture without a private firm's permission. A communication standard (such as a file format standard) is no different than a language. I shouldn't have to pay a private company to participate in human language. Not only would that be a huge pain in the ass for everyone, it would make it even more difficult for dissenting opinions to be heard than it already is. Would you like to pay a fee to some private company for the right to speak English? Or pay based on the number of people who read your writing? That would be counter-productive from the perspective of encouraging the advancement of human society, which is the reason patents exist in the first place.
This leads, I think, to a homogenization of public discourse and a gradual concentration of power in the hands of fewer voices. That can't be a good thing for a developing a healthy, engaged populace.
Software Patents are Odious (Score:3, Interesting)
MPEG-4 would be an excellent example. It is an open standard, but has a whole lot of patents covering it.
That's an example of a scandal, not good practice. You can only believe that it's good practice if you believe in software and business method patents. Both of those things have been discredited as a corruption of the patent process and both are stiflingly anti-competitive. RAND is an obfuscation that reasonable standards bodies reject [slashdot.org].
OOXML would be an even bigger scandal because it does not even pass your ludicrously low qualifications.
1) The format is open and not subject to change/closure at the whim of a company (generally controlled by a standards body).
OOXML is neither open nor complete because it contains insane specifications that basically say, "do this exactly like Word for Mac with a HP Laser Jet printer did" without further instructions.
The whole point of OOXML is for M$ to have a "standard" they control. If they wanted an open and reasonable standard, they would be using ODF.
All patent holders have agreed that the format can use their parents and that the only compensation they'll get is from those fees.
M$ always presses their advantage. You may wish they did not, but company history proves otherwise, and people who partner with or trust M$ are always crushed.
Re:There can be only one (Score:3, Interesting)
When your boss e-mails you ODF files, what are the chances that you won't have the upgraded software needed to read it? Bosses are dumb and will use whatever format the computer uses for them by default. However, the upgrade to MSO '07 will be a large expense for an IT staff to shoulder... and it is needed by everybody and not just the PHB.
Really, to defeat MOOXML, it is important to avoid the upgrade to MSO '07. The slow acceptable rate of Vista in businesses is a boon to this, because it takes away the chance for MS to package the 2-for-1 OS+Office Suite in a reasonably priced "package deal".
The plateau of desktop hardware is another boon. Three years ago, it would have been painful to run a computer purchased in 2001. Today, computers from 2004 run about the same as when they were new. If there is no reason to upgrade... there is no reason to get a new version of Microsoft in the organization.
But Microsoft is patient... and they have until 2009 or so to push Vista and MSO '07 into the market to win the current fight to be the continued "de facto" standard. Does ODF/OO have enough steam to become the standard, preferred Office software when people get their post-XP upgrades?
1900 is my personal favourite (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically they are saying that although the Gregorian calendar says 1900 is NOT a leap year, from now on it should be, otherwise a certain program's spreadsheet data wouldn't be correct anymore because one programmer screwed up getting the dates right in said legacy program, many years ago.
Never mind that the world didn't start in 1900 (dates before either 1900 or 1904 are NOT IMPLEMENTED)
Never mind bothering to implement other calendars (Islamic, Chinese etc.) which might be of interest in large parts of the world.
WHY didn't they just use ISO 8601, like ODF did?
Speaking of ODF, this is what they put in par. 14.7.11 (p. 523) if you don't believe me:
So basically, my gripe with OOXML is not that it's legally unclear, or not open enough, it's that it's clearly not written to be A STANDARD. Think with me pls:
If the OASIS people overlooked an important calendar/date problem, and there is consensus, it can be added in the next version of the standard. All existing ODF documents are safe.
vs.
If the ECMA/Microsoft people decide one day to correct this bogus "1900 should from now on be a leap year" feature, all OOXML text documents that contain dates will have to be checked, and the ones that turn out to have dates from 1900 have to be corrected.
See the difference?
Re:Open standards often are patented (Score:2, Interesting)
> and I really don't understand why.
Actually, as a serving member of sc71l (the technical subcommittee
tasked with providing a recommendation to our ISO representative to
vote on behalf of the country)in South Africa, I object to this blatant
painting of all the committee members with the same brush.
Some of us have worked immensely hard to ensure that the OOXML
'spec' is never a 'standard'. We spent a great deal of time preparing
arguments, presentations and getting people from IBM, SUN and our
local FLOSS businesses to present as well.
We voted against OOXML as a standard 13-2-2 (broken down as
"NoWithComments-YesWithComments-YesWithoutComment
real vote was more realistically 15-2 against!
You can read one of
http://www.meraka.csir.co.za/~lmanickum/stansa/ [csir.co.za]
Trust me, we worked very hard, and some of us are
still working on this (cleaning up the comments that
go with a "no" vote, etc
goose