In the run-up to the ISO vote on the controversial OOXML specification, Microsoft - OOXML’s creator - announced that they would be funding development of the open source Java API to access Microsoft Office formats Apache POI to support the new standard. Information Week reported on this announcement, and made the following statement:
For patented protocols, Microsoft said it would offer licenses on “reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.” Open source developers can access the protocols for free for noncommercial use without fear of lawsuits, Microsoft said.
Now, as we mentioned a week ago Microsoft accompanied their submission of the OOXML standard to the OSI with an ‘Open Specification Promise‘ in the following words:
Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation to the extent it conforms to a Covered Specification (“Covered Implementation”), subject to the following. This is a personal promise directly from Microsoft to you, and you acknowledge as a condition of benefiting from it that no Microsoft rights are received from suppliers, distributors, or otherwise in connection with this promise. If you file, maintain or voluntarily participate in a patent infringement lawsuit against a Microsoft implementation of such Covered Specification, then this personal promise does not apply with respect to any Covered Implementation of the same Covered Specification made or used by you. To clarify, “Microsoft Necessary Claims” are those claims of Microsoft-owned or Microsoft-controlled patents that are necessary to implement only the required portions of the Covered Specification that are described in detail and not merely referenced in such Specification. “Covered Specifications” are listed below.
This promise is not an assurance either (i) that any of Microsoft’s issued patent claims covers a Covered Implementation or are enforceable or (ii) that a Covered Implementation would not infringe patents or other intellectual property rights of any third party. No other rights except those expressly stated in this promise shall be deemed granted, waived or received by implication, exhaustion, estoppel, or otherwise.
This would seem to be a blanket promise (or covenant) to avoid taking patent infringement action against anyone implementing the current OOXML standard or using such an implementation - for example Sourcesense and the users of POI who will be receiving their Microsoft-sponsored OOXML code. There is no mention of a different deal for commercial use of open source implementations, as the Information Week story seemed to imply. Does this discrepancy matter? Well it has certainly caused anger and confusion among some in the free and open source community. Michael Tiemann President of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and Vice President of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat Inc. quickly responded to the article with a blog post on the OSI site entitled ‘Microsoft’s new weapon against open source: stupidity‘. In it, Tiemann laments the unquestioning attitude of the media in reporting Microsoft’s seemingly discriminatory attitude to open source as cosy non-discriminatory affection. Trouble also kicked off on the Apache developer mailing list for POI, with a quotation of the Information Week article and a call for the Sourcesense code to be rejected from the project as it was ‘encumbered’ by Microsoft’s seeming insistence that patent licenses must be obtained for commercial use.
The mismatch between the Information Week article and the Open Specification Promise puzzled me, so I contacted Microsoft here in the UK to see what the truth of the matter was. The query found its way to Microsoft US’ Public Relations firm Waggener Edstrom who replied as follows:
Apache libraries are open source code, and available through broad licensing. Any required Microsoft patent rights relative to Office Open XML are available on a royalty-free, perpetual basis to all implementers, as outlined within the Microsoft Open Specification Promise.
So it would seem that the indirect quote from Microsoft in the Information Week article was either misreported or inaccurate, and the dismay in the free and open source community is the inevitable mistaken result of this mistaken account.
The question remains, though, how did the error occur? Certainly it could have been a typo somewhere, but I wonder if it is perhaps a result of the phraseology Microsoft adopts when discussing free and open source. To return for a moment to the web page of Microsoft’s ‘Open Specification Promise‘ we find that there is also a lengthy FAQ to elucidate the effects of the covenant. In this FAQ, Microsoft twice draws a distinction between ‘commercial’ and ‘open source’ software:
The Open Specification Promise is a simple and clear way to assure that the broadest audience of developers and customers working with commercial or open source software can implement specifications through a simplified method of sharing of technical assets, while recognizing the legitimacy of intellectual property.
and later
The Open Specification Promise is a simple and clear way to assure that the broadest audience of developers and customers working with commercial or open source software can implement the covered specification(s).
This is an odd way to speak, given that there are large commercial open source companies out there of whom Microsoft must be aware. While one can only speculate about Microsoft’s reasons for giving the impression that open source and commerciality are mutually exclusive, it certainly seems possible that this odd linguistic tic is the root cause of the confusion in Information Week and the resulting screams of protest from the free and open source community.
Notice: Sourcesense have provided speakers for OSS Watch events in the past, and a member of Sourcesense sits on our Advisory Committee.
