I think there is a misunderstanding. The material at the Microsoft site does not include copies of the patents, not even the identifiers for patents. Reading the specification of a format is going to tell you nothing about how implementing something according to those specifications might infringe a patent held by anyone, not just Microsoft.
And so long as the specification is under the Open Specification Promise, there is no problem with Microsoft patents, if there are any, so long as the OSP conditions are honored. Now, you might be so wary that this is not enough. Then there is ODF to deal with also. Sun provided a reassurance about ODF that is comparable (not literally the same) to the Open Specification Promise for the free-to-the-public specifications for the Microsoft binary formats and some of the common functions shared among them, such as [MS-OFFCRYPTO]. Microsoft personnel participated in preparation of ODF 1.2 and OpenFormula, where there is a lot of attention to providing functions and formulas that correspond to ones in Excel. It seems that one cannot avoid coming to grips with this. Microsoft has promised to treat Standards at OASIS and ISO/IEC for ODF 1.2 under the Open Specification Promise too. Approval of an OASIS Standard for ODF 1.2 should happen in the next month or two. ISO/IEC acceptance of ODF 1.2 will likely be resolved by next Summer, it seems to me. That seems like a good thing, yes? - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: Nuno J. Silva [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2011 02:36 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: Encrypted MSO files (docx,xlsx) in Libo On 2011-09-10, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote: > planas [mailto:[email protected]] wrote: >> On Fri, 2011-09-09 at 21:51 +0100, Dave Howorth wrote: >>> On Fri, 2011-09-09 at 09:27 -0700, NoOp wrote: >>> > Really? I see nothing hidden here: >>> > >>> > http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313071%28v=office.12%29.aspx >>> > >>> > <http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/4/8/24862317-78F0-4C4B-B355-C7B2C1D997DB/%5BMS-OFFCRYPTO%5D.pdf> >>> >>> I think the interesting bit is the following: >>> >>> "Microsoft has patents that may cover your implementations of the >>> technologies described in the Open Specifications. Neither this notice >>> nor Microsoft's delivery of the documentation grants any licenses under >>> those or any other Microsoft patents. However, a given Open >>> Specification may be covered ..." >>> >>> The emphasis, I feel, is on the word "may". [...] > I noticed that Haworth left of the part after the "may be covered > ... "? > > Is it not good to first check to see if the specification is indeed > covered or not? >From what I recall from some USENET talks about this, it's actually better *not* to check, as if you knowingly violate a patent, fines and the rest are heavier than if you didn't know there was a patent. > So until the US Congress decides to abandon the power to legislate > patents and copyrights stipulated in the US Constitution, this is > pretty much as good as it gets short of MSFT not having obtained any > patents in the first place (whether or not any apply to items under > the Open Specification Promise). We don't need the US Congress (and some other legislative branches over the world) to stop legislating patents, we just need them to stop screwing the definition of patent. Algorithm patenteability is a Pandora's box that should have never been opened. (Copyright has nothing to do with this, unless you plan to copy Microsoft's code in some way.) IANAL -- Nuno J. Silva (aka njsg) gopher://sdf-eu.org/1/users/njsg -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
