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Microsoft pledge excluding primary competitors
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:46:38 -0800
________________________________________ From: Gregory Hicks [ghicks () cadence com] Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 5:49 AM To: David Farber Cc: ghicks () cadence com Subject: Microsoft pledge excluding primary competitors Dave: For IP ... From the Free Software Foundation - Europe Microsoft pledge excluding primary competitors. Yesterday's media briefing by Microsoft on its its pledge to release interoperability information for flagship products contained little actual news. Over the years Microsoft has made multiple similar pledges and they at times proved to be detrimental rather than beneficial for interoperability. Examining the terms of the Microsoft's latest action shows no major change of policy. The announcement confirmed that Microsoft was planning to use its software patent portfolio against interoperating products by requiring a patent license for all commercial activity. This is consistent with its previous attempts at allowing competition only where it provides no actual challenge to its monopolies. Microsoft's patent licences are incompatible with Free Software, the primary competitor to Microsoft in many markets. Almost all major competitors have made significant investments in Free Software and built substantial parts of their business on the principles of freedom of competition and innovation. Free Software's freedoms to use, study, share and improve software without additional restrictions are key to the success and utility of Free Software in both commercial and non-commercial ICT infrastructure. They are also the basis for many of today's working examples of interoperability and competition. Microsoft's announcement contains little more than a statement that they will support interoperability only under terms that disallow fair competition. Their press statements may indicate otherwise, but terms of release highlight this explicitly. There has never been a shortage of promises by Microsoft, but results are what must be considered rather than words. Regrettably, the lack of substance in the pledge and the timing suggest that Microsoft is primarily hoping for positive media coverage and not an examination of the substance of their limited interoperability release. It can be no coincidence that delegates are meeting in Geneva for the Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) during this period to discuss serious issues in the proposed MS-OOXML format[1], through which Microsoft aims to reaffirm their control over standards in the global marketplace[2]. If Microsoft truly means to facilitate interoperability and fair access they should spare delegates the BRM, retract MS-OOXML from ISO and converge this work into the global effort for the Open Document Format, the existing Open Standard at ISO for office documents. They should also release full interoperability information for all their products without restrictions of any kind. [1] http://www.france.fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-idiosyncrasies.en.html [2] http://news.zdnet.co.uk/leader/0,1000002982,39292519,00.htm ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- Microsoft pledge excluding primary competitors David Farber (Feb 24)