Anyone who has ever dealt with Microsoft Outlook will know the .pst file format - it's the binary, undocumented file in which all data from Outlook is stored - emails, contacts, calendar, you name it, it's in there. Microsoft has announced that it will release detailed technical documentation on the Outlook .pst data format.
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Member since:2005-07-06
It is very important.
The documentation and the patent indemnifications are both part of the Open Specification Promise. I'm not a lawyer, but it looks like using the documentation is fine but the patent indemnification may not be (according to the SFLC). Without patent indemnification, the patent holder (in this case, Microsoft) reserves the right to demand royalties be paid for the use of software that uses the patented portions of the spec.
The GPL is one licence that this may not be compatible with. There are probably other licences with this problem too. This does need to resolved on a licence-by-licence basis.
Member since:2006-12-28
I see what you mean. I've done a bit of reading up and from what I can find out, the argument boils down to the patent indemnification promise only applying to the original software created and no other upstream software created on the strength of the original. This would make MS's OSP incompatible with the GPL version 3, as far as I can see. Version 2 of the GPL should be fine though, as long as you don't mind leaving yourself open to a potential patent suit on the part of MS.
Obviously, for GPL version 3 software this is a problems but surely for this kind of thing BSD would be just as good?
Member since:
2006-12-28
Surely, for this story, it's of no importance? After all, MS are talking about documenting how you would access a pst file, not releasing code that would enable you to do so.
I suppose that maybe the patent indemnification promised by the Open Specification Promise could be questioned in light of using the GPL to license any software created to access pst files but I just don't see it.
What's your opinion? I'm not up to scratch on the arguments of both sides and would love to hear what you think.