[CLUE-Talk] ms patenting xml ??

[Timothy C. Klein]

* bill ehlert (ehlert_b at yahoo.com) wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Microsoft Justifies Its XML Patent Moves
> 
> By Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft Watch 
> January 24, 2004   
> 
> 
> Microsoft watchers are questioning yet again
> Microsoft's intentions toward XML, the Worldwide
> Web Consortium (W3C) Extensible Markup Language
> standard.
> 
>     . . .
> 
> 
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1460095,00.asp
> 
> 
> **  i really don't understand this.
> 
>     but i have the feeling it's a  Bad Thing
>     for open-source software

This is just off the cuff, but I think MS has committed (or already
created?) to Office document's format being described in an open XML
description.  Well, this allows anyone to see how Office documents work,
and thus interoperate with MS Office.  The proprietary, binary-only, and
constantly-changing format of MS Office documents is MS's cash cow.

Thus, they are trying a PR move.  They 'open' up their Office format,
but patent it.  Thus, they can claim openness and fairness, but maintain
complete control.

Typical Microsoft.  You get what you get when you work with convicted
criminals :-P

Tim
--
==============================================
== Timothy Klein || teece at silverklein.net   ==
==  Vanity Page: http://tinyurl.com/vkhp    ==
== ---------------------------------------- ==
== Hello_World.c: 17 Errors, 31 Warnings... ==
==============================================