No patent agreement?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| number6x Jul 11, 2007 8:21 AM EDT |
The article states there is no patent agreement. Turbolinux and MS will work on implementing a 'technical bridge' between OOXML and ODF formats. Why couldn't Novell and the rest just have done this? [sarcasm]OOXML is an legitimate open standard approved by the ECMA isn't it? [/sarcasm] |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 11, 2007 8:43 AM EDT |
I would still like to know what you'd have to agree to when joining MS's "interoperability" platform. If you weren't bound to something that's not compatible with FOSS, OOXML would have been in OpenOffice.org by now. |
| tqk Jul 11, 2007 9:27 AM EDT |
Quoting:If you weren't bound to something that's not compatible with FOSS, OOXML would have been in OpenOffice.org by now.I don't care if I ever manage to "interoperate" with OOXML. If OOo ever manages to support it, I won't care. If MS wants to "interoperate", they can write ODF format. Problem solved. If OOXML ever does manage to gain "interoperable" status, I expect it would very quickly be Embrace & Extended once again beyond reach. Fsck 'em. I won't play. |
| number6x Jul 11, 2007 9:43 AM EDT |
My completely uneducated guess is that you have to sign something in blood. That just wild speculation. |
| dinotrac Jul 11, 2007 10:02 AM EDT |
>If you weren't bound to something that's not compatible with FOSS, OOXML would have been in OpenOffice.org by now. Seems likely, but there are alternative explanations: 1. The spec is ridiculously long -- thousands of pages 2. OpenOffice is Sun-driven and they may not be all that excieted about OOXML 3. If you've got OpenOffice, how much do you care about OOXML anyway, given that pretty much nobody is using it yet? 4. Say OOXML 3 times fast. Feels kind of funny in the throat, doesn't it? |
| tqk Jul 11, 2007 10:05 AM EDT |
Quoting:My completely uneducated guess is that you have to sign something in blood.NDA plus first born ought to do it. |
| vainrveenr Jul 11, 2007 10:36 AM EDT |
Quoting:If OOXML ever does manage to gain "interoperable" status, I expect it would very quickly be Embrace & Extended once again beyond reach.Embrace, Extend...... then Extinguish (cannot forget that last part!!) Quoting:My completely uneducated guess is that you have to sign something in blood. Quoting:first born ought to do it.... yep, same sentiments exactly! "First born" here would be any any Turbolinux binaries or imitations of the same that prove successful enough to be skimmed by Microsoft. |
| Abe Jul 11, 2007 10:55 AM EDT |
Quoting:2. OpenOffice is Sun-driven and they may not be all that excieted about OOXMLOh they are excited alright, they did develop their own for Star Office didn't they? They are just excited about it for themselves unless it is available under GPL. Quoting:4. Say OOXML 3 times fast. Feels kind of funny in the throat, doesn't it?That was funny. I was trying it and a peer in the office next to mine came in running asking if I was OK. Well, I gave him a lecture about MS OOXML. |
| Abe Jul 11, 2007 11:05 AM EDT |
OOXML-ODF converters will never be 100%. There will always be problems. MS will make sure of that. MS used interoperability to get whatever contracts they can to include patents, now those are not as easily obtained as initially were (I credit GPLv3 for that), so they are lessening their requirements. The best they can get now is more outfits who claim to support OOXML and MS can show the ISO committee and corporations/organizations how widely OOXML is being supported and adopted. They are pretty much buying those adoptions. You've got to give them credit for their persistence. |
| tuxchick Jul 11, 2007 11:06 AM EDT |
Don't you feel sorry for microsoft? The only way they can have any friends is to buy them. |
| jdixon Jul 11, 2007 11:10 AM EDT |
> ...Say OOXML 3 times fast.... Hmm, ...OOXML... Doesn't that sound like one of those old corny Superman villains which had to tricked into saying his name backwards? |
| jdixon Jul 11, 2007 11:12 AM EDT |
> ...The only way they can have any friends is to buy them. And bought friends are just like bought politicians, you always have to worry about someone else offering more. |
| montezuma Jul 11, 2007 11:14 AM EDT |
or throw chairs at them..... |
| tracyanne Jul 11, 2007 1:03 PM EDT |
As I stated, in an earlier post on the this subject, the point of what Microsoft is doing is to create a situation where the industry is normalised on OOXML, such that with or without ISO approval OOXML will be the standard, that's the the point of each of these Translator projects. The ODF/OOXML translation is occuring outside of the Microsoft Domain, in the Linux/ODF/FOSS domain. This is not about interoperability, this is about the entrenchment of OOXML. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 11, 2007 1:43 PM EDT |
Quoting:4. Say OOXML 3 times fast. Feels kind of funny in the throat, doesn't it? Best. Argument. Ever. I suggest you submit it to ISO. Microsoft doesn't stand a chance :-) |
| SamShazaam Jul 11, 2007 2:17 PM EDT |
I think tracyanne has it right. Why does Microsoft need a partner to bridge between ODF and OOXML formats? If MS wants a translator they could simply write one. All the work in this area is being done by other companies. My guess is that they will continue in their past form and change OOXML or its APIs, thus making all translators useless. Because all translators are made by others, MS can then blame the other companies. |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 11, 2007 2:26 PM EDT |
Quoting:change OOXML or its APIs, thus making all translators useless No they won't. I think you're perhaps missing tracyanne's point. And ODF-OOXML translator in Linux land would enable Linux people to use OOXML. And ODF-OOXML translator in Windows land would enable MS folk to use ODF. Notice which of the last two MS is persuing and which one not. This is Microsoft's strategy for beating ODF. Currently ODF has OOXML beat, so they want to create a situation where it's easy to move from ODF to OOXML but hard to move from OOXML to ODF. They hope to establish OOXML as the defacto standard, ISO recommendation or not. The ISO recommendation is only for beating ODF in government contracts, not for beating ODF on the desktop of Joe Average user. The only translator that Microsoft is going to botch is the one that runs on Windows/Office. |
| Scott_Ruecker Jul 11, 2007 3:18 PM EDT |
Quoting:My completely uneducated guess is that you have to sign something in blood. Not Blood, your souls.. Explain to me how you can look yourself in the mirror after signing with them? How do you justify that? How? |
| Aladdin_Sane Jul 11, 2007 4:06 PM EDT |
>>How do you justify that? There is an argument from naivete, albeit very very weak, that Xandros, Linspire, and TurboLinux just did not know. But such argument is unsupportable in the case of Novell. They've been through it, and would not have survived, except for taking up the FOSS banner. There is no excuse for them. See Novell v. Microsoft (3 different suits in the past 6 years) at http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107... They are currently suing MS for the destruction by of WordPerfect by anti-competitive means under Sherman and Clayton Acts. See http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041112184610953 'It's filed under the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. §15, "for damages suffered by Novell by reason of the anticompetitive conduct of Microsoft in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act 15 U.S.C.§§ 1, 2."' |
| dinotrac Jul 11, 2007 6:23 PM EDT |
Alladin_Sane - The bad thing about the internet is that nobody can see how blue in the face I am from repeating that Novell is not the same as the other companies. Novell had a rather large agreement with Microsoft that had been in the works for a long time involving hundreds of millions of dollars and far more than its Linux business -- which is barely more than 10% of its total revenues. Microsoft threw the IP stuff in at the last minute (at least in terms of the time it takes to do a major deal). The question from Novell's perspective was not "Do we enter an IP deal with Microsoft" so much as "Is this provision a deal-breaker?" |
| Aladdin_Sane Jul 11, 2007 7:36 PM EDT |
dinotrac: I understand that Linux-related business is barely more than 10% of Novell's current business. I did not post about that. Notably, my intent was to point out the quality of MS-Novell relations, not their quantity. The term "IP" does not enter in to my thoughts about the types of deals. What does, is the results. Repeated law suits is not a business strategy that anyone admires. |
| dinotrac Jul 11, 2007 7:44 PM EDT |
>Repeated law suits is not a business strategy that anyone admires. Those law suits are not the result of broken agreements, but of ruthless and illegal competition. I should add that Novell had won at least $500 million from Microsoft in lawsuits, though I can't remember how much more it might be. As to admirable business strategies, getting more than $300 million from somebody for what amounts to very little is a strategy many people will admire. |
| moopst Jul 11, 2007 9:50 PM EDT |
As to admirable business strategies, getting more than $300 million from somebody for what amounts to very little is a strategy many people will admire.
========= I couldn't disagree more. The only ethical way of making money is to exchange value for value. Novell gets $300 million pilfered from the computing public by M$ while M$ rakes in $10 billion in revenue off it's Office business. The former is a legal redress but neither of them are good for the world as a whole. |
| azerthoth Jul 11, 2007 10:13 PM EDT |
Mixing legal and ethical seldom works as one has very little to do with the other. Example, phen phen is illegal in the US because it kills people, alcohol and tobacco however are completely legal. Even though either of the later kill more people annually than phen phen ever did. Ethically all 3 should be outlawed, legally only the lesser is ... go figure. |
| dinotrac Jul 12, 2007 5:12 AM EDT |
>I couldn't disagree more. You are not disagreeing at all. You are simply mis-analyzing. In a negotiated agreement (and this one took months to hammer out), value is presumed to be exchanged for value. Novell clearly offered something that Microsoft valued. As to "pilfering from the computing public", that's just weird. Novell didn't take anything from the computing public. Microsoft had that money and wasn't about to give it to any one of us. Novell also had nothing to do with the money Microsoft makes from Office, other, perhaps, than being crushed by Microsoft's unfair and illegal business practices. You could argue that Novell blunders crushed WordPerfect, but that presumes that WordPerfect could have fared better against Microsoft than Novell did. |
| jdixon Jul 12, 2007 5:23 AM EDT |
> Mixing legal and ethical seldom works as one has very little to do with the other. > Example, phen phen is illegal in the US because it kills people, alcohol and tobacco however are completely legal. Even though either of the later kill more people annually than phen phen ever did. Phen phen killed people when used as directed, with no expectation of that being the case. We have thousands of years experience with alcohol. When used properly, it does not kill people. People who use it improperly kill others, or themselves, but that's not the same thing. Tobacco does kill the people who use it, but everyone knows this, and the threat is not immediate. Those who use tobacco do so knowing the risks involved. All three are different in both degree and kind. You can kill yourself by drinking too much water. Should water also be outlawed? In theory (at least in a republic), the laws are based upon the ethics of the voting population, once you allow for a sufficient lag time. That's not completely true, but it's closer to the truth than what you're saying. That said, you are correct that in any given legal situation, ethics may have little to do with the matter. However, if you want to convince people of your position, you'll have to do better than your arguments above. |
| Aladdin_Sane Jul 12, 2007 7:00 AM EDT |
>>Novell had won at least $500 million from Microsoft in lawsuits "The CEO of Novell, Ray Noorda, stated publicly that he would rather compete in the marketplace than in court." --McKusick, Marshall Kirk, _Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution - Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix_, 1999 O'Reilly 1-56592-582-3, http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/kirkmck.html... (emphasis added) (Couldn't find the actual first-person Noorda quote) |
| dinotrac Jul 12, 2007 7:11 AM EDT |
Ummm... A) Noorda is dead. He hasn't been the CEO of Novell for years. B) It is better to compete, but, faced with illegal competition, it's OK to seek legal redress. Noorda's statement, BTW, came well before Microsoft's loss in the federal antitrust suit. The federal case made life much easier for Novell by rendering the question of whether or not Microsoft possessed a desktop monopoly res judicata. |
| azerthoth Jul 12, 2007 9:15 AM EDT |
jdixon, agree after reading it again it is a weak analogy. Can I chalk it up to trying to comment during a bout of insomnia at 1 am? |
| jdixon Jul 12, 2007 9:22 AM EDT |
> Can I chalk it up to trying to comment during a bout of insomnia at 1 am? Sure. I'm pretty sure everyone here has had one or more of those. :) |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 12, 2007 10:53 AM EDT |
Quoting:I'm pretty sure everyone here has had one or more of those. :) Oh yes. Daily :-) |
| dinotrac Jul 12, 2007 12:05 PM EDT |
Some of us never have bouts of insomnia, rather, our minds are so brilliant and energy-packed that there is little need to sleep. We are always sharp. In fact, in the middle of the night, we may be better than at other times as we slow down to a level that the merely extremely intelligent can comprehend. You buying any of this? |
| tuxchick Jul 12, 2007 12:34 PM EDT |
quite true, dino. Oh, to be so brilliant, and so under-appreciated! Tis such a burden. |
| jdixon Jul 12, 2007 12:47 PM EDT |
> Tis such a burden. Yes, but Dino bears it with such grace and dignity it's difficult to even notice at times. :) |
| jrm Jul 12, 2007 1:34 PM EDT |
> as we slow down to a level that the merely extremely intelligent can comprehend. A similar thing happens to me. I have these incredible moments of brilliance. Then later, when I read what I've written, I find that I am no longer able to comprehend the meaning of my own words. Well, maybe that's not so similar. (See what I mean? It just happened again.) |
| dinotrac Jul 12, 2007 4:04 PM EDT |
>Well, maybe that's not so similar. It's OK. We understand. |
| tracyanne Jul 13, 2007 2:01 AM EDT |
An interesting aspect of these agreements between Microsoft and third parties- the Linux Distributors - is: If OOXML is an open standard why is it necessary that Microsoft sign agreements (that contain non disclosure elements) with third parties in order to build translators. If OOXML is an open standard than surely all one need do is obtain the specifications, and implement it in code. |
| dinotrac Jul 13, 2007 2:23 AM EDT |
>why is it necessary that Microsoft sign agreements Bingo. |
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