Here's where to find the comments

Here's where to find the comments

Posted Sep 16, 2005 16:54 UTC (Fri) by wookey (subscriber, #5501)
In reply to: Here's where to find the comments by dwheeler
Parent article: Microsoft Challenges Massachusetts on Open-Format Plan (eWeek)

The MS letter (whilst making a pretty good case for those who don't believe open formats are intrinsically important, or do believe that 'MS Office XML' is open) contains at least one factual error:
"StarOffice, Openoffice.org, Koffice and IBM Workplace. In reality, these products are slight variations of the same StarOffice codebase."

I don't know about IBM Workplace, but I'm pretty sure that KOffice is entirely independent of the StarOffice code. Maybe it shares an OpenDocument importer? This rather undermines the claim they then go on to make about this format only being supported by one bit of software. It's at least 2.

They claim their XML format is open. (available for public use under pertpetual royalty-free, nondiscriminatory, terms, and is fully documented). Presumably MAs objection lies in their version of 'non-disciminatory'? Or are they worried about retrospective patent-infingement attacks?

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