Those that giveth can also taketh away
By Mark Ballard
<http://www.theinquirer.net/articles/flameAuthor/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/15/ooxml-trophy-conditional>:
Tuesday, 15 April 2008, 1:24 PM
*THE COVETED* international standard gong which the ISO awarded to
Microsoft's OOXML could be retracted if the software giant starts
getting mean over patents it has invested in the standard, the
organisation said today.
Otherwise, the body expects Microsoft's OOXML and the open source ODF
document formats to face one another in a direct competition for
"survival". The outcome will be decided by the market, it said.
In the wake of Microsoft's promise
<http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx> to make its OOXML
specification freely <http://standardslaw.com/wordpress/> available (a
move that has been met with scepticism), the International Standards
Organisation issued a statement
<http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease/faqs_isoiec29500.htm> today that
said how it would hold Microsoft to its promise, with the most severe of
penalties for any shirking.
The ISO said how its patent policy
<http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink/fetch/2000/2122/3770791/customview.html?func=ll&objId=3770791&objAction=browse>
demanded that licences were awarded on RAND (reasonable and
non-discriminatory) terms.
"If, after publication of the standard, it is determined that licences
to all required patents are not so available, one option would be to
withdraw the International Standard," it said.
If Microsoft doesn't misbehave, the standards body said that the
standards would be left to prove themselves: "After a period of
co-existence, it is basically the market that decides which survives," a
spokesman said.
The market had already determined through the ISO voting procedures that
OOXML would become an official international standard, it said.
The statement also said that it had put OOXML into its fast-track for
adoption after it was proposed by Ecma International, the commercial
custodian of the standard. ยต
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/15/ooxml-trophy-conditional
--
Q: what's the difference between a teddy bear and Steve Ballmer?
A: they both have sawdust for brains but one is smart enough to
keep his mouth shut.
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