What About This Guy, Does He Have Rights To OpenXML IPR?
Last night I had the honour of sharing dinner with a couple of guys who have been very vocal throughout the current process to standardize OpenXML within ISO. They have added a lot to the debate, not always in a form that has been easy for myself and my colleagues to swallow, but they have pushed hard and for that we’re grateful.
As we come up towards the final hurdle of this particular part of the process I like to think that we can point to concrete examples of how their work has improved the OpenXML specification, and I hope they agree.
It was a pretty enlightening conversation (on several fronts) and somehow I walked away with a bunch of work that I need to do in response to some of the things we talked about, sometimes I’m just not that smart when it comes to avoiding adding items to my task list.
One of the questions that came up in conversation centred around the ability for the chap in the picture to the left to implement OpenXML, specifically if he had the IPR rights that he needed to implement and distribute an application or tools based upon the specification.
The answer is the same as the one for the 30,000 marathon runners yesterday. Under the Open Specification Promise he has been directly granted all the rights he needs to any intellectual property that Microsoft owns that he might need to implement or distribute his integrated OpenXML application.
Like some of yesterday’s marathon runners, I’m not sure this guy will do much with this particular grant of rights but if he ever decided he wanted to then he has all that he needs to go ahead and build out his application.
I am not so sure about this. Microsoft guys always stress the difference of Open Source and Free Software. The OSP seems to be incompatible with the GPL and not sublicensable. Of course this was fully intentional.
I would prefer if ISO had a standard contract/license for patent indemnification or RF licensing, so you don’t need to rely on Microsoft to provide it which is probably no trustworthy party.
The whole sublicence debate makes no sense, it is a piece of classic FUD that somebody somewhere started. Whoever started it needs a round of applause, they have got a lot of mileage out of it.
You don’t need to pass me any rights to something that I already have.
It has been variously suggested that the OSP is GPL mispelled. If that is the case, why do we have to split hairs and have YAL (yet another license)? If Microsoft is truly and honestly interested in more than just handwaving, just make OSP == GPL. Then, add to the mix, a pooling of all software patents that MS holds into the Open Invention Network, and let the next billion developers florish. Would you be so keen as to join us?
One is a grant of IP rights, the other is a software license. It is pretty hard to mix them up.
One is complicated legalise that lawyers around the globe are unable to comprehend.
The other is the GPL.