Microsoft wants open sourcers to write an OOXML translator
Doomed to fail
MICROSOFT PLANS an open source project to write a translator from binary document formats into Office Open XML (OOXML) formats.
The project will kick off February 15th at Sourceforge, said spokesvole Brian Jones, the head chief program manager for Microsoft Office, at a press briefing Tuesday.
Rather than being licenced under either of Microsoft's so-called "open source" licences approved last year, the software produced by the project will fall under the Vole's all-time favorite BSD licence. The BSD licence allows anyone, including Microsoft, to take source code proprietary with no compensation to the authors.
Microsoft will make documentation on OOXML formats available under its Open Specification Promise wherein the Vole promises not to take legal action against those who use a covered specification.
One has to wonder where Microsoft thinks it's going to find anyone competent who's willing to write open source BSD licenced code that can only benefit the Vole itself, without any compensation except a promise not to get sued. µ
L'INQ
Eweek
Comments
An open format is NOT an open standard
For an open standard to take place:* All parties must agree on it.
* it must be free from royalty fees.
* It must be free from control of a single company.
AND
* it must be fully documented such that ANYONE can reproduce the implementation EXACTLY, simply by downloading the specs.
MS's OOXML is an open format by definition (although, even that's highly questionable). It is NOT, however, an open standard. A single company still controls the pace of it, and how it changes or develops. (What makes it worse, is that this company just happens to have a history of abusing its position in order to stay as the de-facto standard).
That's the difference between ODF and OOXML.
No one in the open source community is stupid enough to support someone who's being attacking them for a number of years now...Well, except maybe Novell and Miguel de Icaza. But that's another story for another day.