Bonum Certa Men Certa

Now Comes the OOXML Patent Tax (Microsoft Lied)

When you pay Novell for semi-baked OOXML support, you actually pay Microsoft

Endlessly we kept insisting and showing that there are serious patent issues associated with OOXML (e.g. in [1, 2, 3, 4]). Unsurprisingly, Microsoft resorted to bald-faced lies. It needed the false perceptions in order to lure in innocent supporters. And now comes the real Microsoft. [mind highlight, which is ours]

Microsoft today launched an update of its OpenXML and ODF translator for its Excel and Powerpoint applications and pledged to keep churning out more documentation to enable interoperability — and more patents to protect that IP.

[...]

Microsoft would not disclose pricing for its protocol licensing but pledged today that going forward it will be offered at a “reasonable and non discriminatory” (RAND) manner. Late last month — just days after Microsoft launched its multi-faceted interoperability initiative –the European Union fined Microsoft $1.4 billion for allegedly failing to comply with a three-year-old order to supply server interoperability data for competitors. Some rivals, including Samba and other open source players, argued in the past that that the costs were too prohibitive for ISVs.


Here comes Joe Wilcox comparing such an 'interoperability' to a public relations stunt.

Microsoft's idea of a Document Interoperability Initiative is to put together a bunch of businesses that profit from file format incompatibilities. And that is supposed to demonstrate—quoting from the press release—"Microsoft's commitment to implement a set of strategic changes in its technology and business practices to expand interoperability through the implementation of its interoperability principles."


With such tricks being played, it's hardly surprising that Sun is already adopting the (L)GPLv3 for OpenOffice.org. We wrote about this yesterday and here comes a later observation about the timing of the announcement.

OpenOffice.org has announced that the project will be moving from its current LGPLv2 licensing to the LGPLv3 with a coming version 3.0 of the open source office software suite.

[...]

Interestingly, OpenOffice.org’s announcement comes on the same day Microsot has made another interoperability announcement, this time centered on document formats.


The main man of the Open Source Initiative is at the same time praising Sun's Simon Phipps, who was the first to announce this adoption of (upgrade to) the LGPLv3.

I believed that no matter what the process, a standard should be judged by the product. Watching the fallout settle from the BRM in Geneva, I'm beginning to think that you were right and I was wrong.

What you got right is that when a process is allowed to go out of its way to exclude legitimate participation, we must withdraw from the presumption that the standard can be legitimate, even if the end product does not overly exclude the possibility of an open source implementation. This is what I have leared by reading the Groklaw report on the BRM.


To conclude, Microsoft's OOXML is a case of charging competitors money. OOXML is not free. The next few posts will also show that OOXML support simply cannot be provided by anything other than Microsoft Office, one of the company's last remaining cash cows. Microsoft wants to control a second 'standard' not in order to facilitate choice, but in order to make more money.

OOXML



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
 
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996
We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading"
Panama: Windows Down From 97% "Market Share" to Less Than 30%
In 2009, Windows was measured at 97.24% (compared to 62.32% right now or less than 30% if one also counts Android)
The UEFI 9/11 - Part I - Introduction to Impending Catastrophe (Microsoft Preventing People From Booting Non-Windows Systems)
eight-part series
Why Techrights is Slow Today (Bot Floods)
We don't know if those bots are connected to LLMs (we have not checked), but that is a possibility
Slopwatch: DDoS Slop, LinuxBSDos.com Spam, and Slopfarms in Google News, Including webpronews.com
Among the news we also found fakes, albeit not so much today
Links 26/08/2025: "Ballooning Debt" in France and "Transnational Repression in the UK"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/08/2025: Listening to Alcest and Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited)
Links for the day
Links 26/08/2025: DNS Tampering and TikTok Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows "Market Share" Overestimated
Microsoft's income sources are shrinking
We Shall See...
My wife and I are hardly the first victims of Brett Wilson LLP
This New Determination on a Case Echoes the Modus Operandi of Microsoft's Serial Strangler vs Techrights (Its Online Decision/Judgment Says Truth and Public Interest Defend the Publisher)
Noel Anthony Clarke hopefully has enough money left to pay his victims, which include the publishers
Going Offline
There was life before the Net
The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
It is basically a fake address on the face of it
There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025