Star Microsoft Makes Office 2007 Protocols Available
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 8th Apr 2008 20:14 UTC
Microsoft "Microsoft will make available the preliminary versions of technical documentation for the protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, SharePoint Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007. This documentation, which defines how these high-volume Microsoft products communicate with some of its other products, is 14000 pages and is in addition to the 30000 pages posted when the software giant first introduced its new Interoperability Principles last month. They will be made available April 8."
E-mail Print r 0   42 Comment(s) http://osne.ws/f4f
Thread beginning with comment 308750
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE: read the fine print
by BrianH on Tue 8th Apr 2008 21:10 UTC in reply to "read the fine print"
BrianH
Member since:
2005-07-06

That fine print hasn't been released yet, according to the article. You should probably wait until they release even a hint of what the patent restrictions will be before criticizing them.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2

RE[2]: read the fine print
by karl1 on Tue 8th Apr 2008 23:37 in reply to "RE: read the fine print"
karl1 Member since:
2005-06-29

That fine print hasn't been released yet, according to the article. You should probably wait until they release even a hint of what the patent restrictions will be before criticizing them.


Fine print may have been the wrong terminology, but the fact of the matter still remains that some of these are patented protocols which will require patent licenses to use the protocols. Don't forget that Microsoft is trying to court the OSS community here. It's a move against Red Hat and IBM and others who benefit from the community work that haven't signed patent agreements with Microsoft.

From the article:

In June, Microsoft will also publish a list of the protocols that are covered by patents, and will make available a patent map containing a list of the specific Microsoft patents and patent applications that cover each protocol, when the final version of the protocols are available, Robertson said.

The company will also release the final patent pricing and licensing terms at that time. “As we work over the coming months on feedback on the protocols themselves, we are also going to be completing the patent map for each of these protocols,” Robertson said.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2