Submitted by “For the last year or so, one of the questions I’ve been asked again and again has been: “Can I use the new Office user interface in my own product?” On one hand, it’s an immensely satisfying question to hear, because it means that others in the industry believe in the value of what we’ve built and see how the sound UI research we’ve done can benefit their own products. Creating the new user interface has been our team’s passion for the last three years, and we love sharing the fruits of this hard work. On the other hand, the new Office user interface was a huge investment by Microsoft and the resulting intellectual property belongs to Microsoft.”
and the resulting intellectual property belongs to Microsoft
I guess that means they have a patent on it ? If so, why don’t they say so ? IP in itself doesn’t mean a zilch.
“Intellectual Property” must be all the Microsoft PHBs’ new buzzword.
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http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/11/21/licensing-the-2007…
I think microsoft did a very good thing making everyone use their guidelines. This will add lots of consistency between various applications in the future.
“I think microsoft did a very good thing making everyone use their guidelines. This will add lots of consistency between various applications in the future.”
Sorry, I don’t think you’re right here. As you can see from the history of the many different flavours of MICROS~1 programs ans GUIs, the tendency goes to diversion, not to consistency. As long as application programmers that develop “Windows” programs are allowed to design their own UIs, they’ll do it. They won’t use the published recommendations (at least its preview), they will do their own thing instead.
I’m sure you can simply verify it for your own: Just compare the look of “Windows” applications you can use today. They all look different regarding the UI basics. (It has often been criticised that Linux programs look differnt, depending on the used toolkit.) Now “Windowx” user have this feature some years and they seem to be happy with this inconsistency. MICROS~1’s published guidelines (preview) are ugly, inproductive and consume more attention than standard GUI guidelines. Developers will laugh about this. Developers, developers, developers, developers.
The solution: Every program that a deleoper wants to distribute in order to have a user run it under “Windows” has to be certified by MICROS~1 – or it simply won’t run anywhere. Send them your source code, they’ll compile it for you.
I hope the MICROS~1 industry spied read this post and will include this idea in further “Windows” products – claiming it’s a revolutionary milestone. 🙂
So they will get rich as Microsoft are always using their UI …
They aren’t charging for the license, so what do you mean?
Wait, so does this mean I have to license the look and/or feel of something? Does that mean that if I have some sort of bar at the top with multiple function tabs I have to pay microsoft money? thats just plain stupid if you ask me.
I also can’t figure if I am licensing an UI idea/design? Or if I’m licensing some sort of extendable program library?
Edited 2006-11-22 14:03
Wait, so does this mean I have to license the look and/or feel of something? Does that mean that if I have some sort of bar at the top with multiple function tabs I have to pay microsoft money?
If Microsoft applies for a patent and gets it, then well… yes. Adobe sued Macromedia over those floating toolbox windows with tabs in them, so yes it’s entirely possible to patent a UI concept/idea and sue someone for using it without your approval.
“so yes it’s entirely possible to patent a UI concept/idea and sue someone for using it without your approval.”
In USA. Of course, you can patent others mothers too and sue them. Oh the Great *America, land of opportunities and richness… and stupid things.
If I recall correctly, Borland had that bar with tabs and buttons in their IDE a long time ago. So what IP are we talking about? A background image and a couple of icons?
Hum.. I noticed this too.. borland did it…
Firstly with delphi.. after with C++ builder and etc…
Monopolist is, Monopolist does.
Now FOSS office suites like OO.org, KOffice and so on will have only three alternatives if thew want to improve their UI:
* Pay MS and mimic the new MS Office UI.
* Keep using that ugly UI (c’mon, it’s been around since DOS MS Word).
* Start throwing new ideas.
I’m all for the latter one, I’m tired of seeing FOSS apps always trying to mimic propietary apps. With its huge manpower, FOSS doesn’t need to mimic anything. We can make it even better.
There is no need for licensing it, since MS cannot force us to license it. You cannot patent look’n’feel, nor have copyright to it (at least not in DK – perhaps you can in USA).
EDIT: In DK I don’t have to license anything in order to use it – I only need a license in case I’m going to distribute something that belongs to somebody else. Since I’m not going to distribute any libraries belonging to MS, there will be no need for a license. You cannot patent or own the copyright on look’n’feel.
Edited 2006-11-22 14:17
Now FOSS office suites like OO.org, KOffice and so on will have only three alternatives if thew want to improve their UI:
* Pay MS and mimic the new MS Office UI.
* Keep using that ugly UI (c’mon, it’s been around since DOS MS Word).
* Start throwing new ideas.
I’m all for the latter one, I’m tired of seeing FOSS apps always trying to mimic propietary apps. With its huge manpower, FOSS doesn’t need to mimic anything. We can make it even better.
I agree the choice should be the latter one, however judging the current FOSS user interfaces, I disagree the FOSS communicy is anywhere near capable of doing so. It actually does take years of structured research to create a completely new UI paradigm, let alone a good one (and I’m not saying I think the new Office look is).
Hey, that’s what we’re doing! No ugly ribbons for us :-). It’s also partly why KOffice has had a design competition with interesting results: http://www.koffice.org/competition/guiKOffice2.php. While we won’t be able to implement the weirdest ideas, we’re working really hard to be a little original.
Boudewijn Rempt, Krita maintainer
According to the article, they aren’t charging for the license, it sounds like they are using it to enforce UI guidelines, please, read the article. It states:
“There’s no fee, you don’t owe Microsoft any royalties, and the license is perpetual”
The license will also not be granted if your application is a competitor to Office. So it is also being used to prevent competitors copying / mimicking the ribon.
Please read the actual microsoft press document linked to in the actual article here http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/nov06/11-21officeu…
except for applications that compete directly with the five Office applications that currently have the new UI (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Access).
//I agree the choice should be the latter one, however judging the current FOSS user interfaces, I disagree the FOSS communicy is anywhere near capable of doing so. //
Pfft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kde_4
http://oxygen-icons.org/
http://www.oxygen-icons.org/?cat=3
http://plasma.kde.org/
http://plasma.kde.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://plasma.kde.org/wiki/index.php/Usability_Principles
http://phonon.kde.org/
http://appeal.kde.org/wiki/Appeal
http://appeal.kde.org/wiki/Concepts
http://appeal.kde.org/wiki/Content_Manager
http://appeal.kde.org/wiki/Coolness
http://appeal.kde.org/wiki/Usability_Ideas
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/01/12/kde4.html?page…
Edited 2006-11-23 05:42
You’re comparing a completed, available product with a bunch of mockups and ideas? Come back when KDE4 is final and can be compared with the then current iteration of Office, I highly doubt KDE4 will be anything near what’s been dreamt up so far.
//I highly doubt KDE4 will be anything near what’s been dreamt up so far.//
Why? What causes you to doubt it?
http://kde.org/info/3.80.2.php
All development on KDE 3 has ceased at version 3.5.5, and all effort is now geared at getting KDE4 out. Current development version is (as you can see) 3.80.2. KDE4 is about half-way there already, as far as I can tell.
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde-4.0-features.html
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde-4.0-release-plan….
It is not really close yet, but there are some “technical previews” happening. It is a lot further along than “a bunch of mockups and ideas”.
Look for it to release in the first half next year.
//You’re comparing a completed, available product with a bunch of mockups and ideas?//
Actually, no, I wasn’t doing that at all. I was responding to the mistaken notion (similar to yours in many ways) that FOSS could not design & implement innovations in desktop/application GUIs.
//Come back when KDE4 is final and can be compared with the then current iteration of Office//
Next year, combine KDE4, KOffice2/OpenOffice and Beryl/compiz and it will blow Vista/Office away as far as desktop GUI goes, IMO. So even then, it won’t compare.
Edited 2006-11-23 22:36
Nevermind, just read the article.
Edited 2006-11-22 14:19
Well, didn’t Microsoft set a precedent with the Mac OS vs. Windows look & feel lawsuit? I think the result of that was “you can’t patent/copyright the look & feel”. Are they having second thoughts now? Too late.
Well, didn’t Microsoft set a precedent with the Mac OS vs. Windows look & feel lawsuit?
I love it when Microsoft does things that come back to get them. I think the Buddhists call it Karma.
There is no charge. All you have to do is fill out a few forms, basically describe your product and then follow the guidelines for implementing the ribbon so as to enforce consistency.
The second part is probably the biggest issue for most people.
Not sure if they have patented the user interaction mechanism – if amazon can patent one click then I think they could patent the way the ribbon works. Or if there is some other way to enforce their claimed IP.
This would make sense if there were an SDK or code to implement the UI in a downloadable package.
That does not appear to be the case, its just guidelines to follow. I can copy the way something looks and come up with my own implementation already, why would I need a license to do this? Developers have been doing that for years, including MS!
I’m assuming some SDK will eventually be offered or this things sounds DOA to me.
IF you don’t follow the guidelines, then it isn’t really copying but innovating (in either good or broken way).
“For the last year or so, one of the questions I’ve been asked again and again has been: “Can I use the new Office user interface in my own product?”
We went through this many times in the eighties, with companies producing software that looked like those of rival companies and people trying to sue each other right, left and centre. No one could protect their user interfaces in any way whatsoever, because even subtle changes rendered the whole thing null and void.
“On the other hand, the new Office user interface was a huge investment by Microsoft and the resulting intellectual property belongs to Microsoft.”
I’m afraid not. The only thing Microsoft got out of this was getting their version of this type of interface to market first.
It’s a load of absolute claptrap.
From the licensing page (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/nov06/11-21officeu…)
The license is available for applications on any platform, except for applications that compete directly with the five Office applications that currently have the new UI (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Access).
So you can use the ribbon interface in your app if you are not going to compete with office. In light of the potential threat to Office from debatably lesser but functionaly adequate competition I wonder if the new UI was also a tool to insulate Office from competition. Create some IP that makes applications like Think Free office – which try to copy the UI of office identically – legally impossible. Then they turn around and tell everyone how wonderful they are giving away millions of dollars worth of R&D. Really it was just a ploy to protect a huge revenue stream. Encouraging use of the ribbon in other applications also gets people familiar with the interface and therefore unwilling to switch in the future. With no legal means to implement this UI is becomes harder to convince people and companies to switch.
No really sure how I feel about it. They did spend a lot on R&D to develop the ‘ribbon’.
“Today, we’re announcing a licensing program for the 2007 Microsoft Office system user interface which allows virtually anyone to obtain a royalty-free license to use the new Office UI….
There’s no fee, you don’t owe Microsoft any royalties, and the license is perpetual—meaning that the terms won’t change….
In the guidelines you’ll find REQUIRED sections and OPTIONAL sections. The REQUIRED sections are exactly that—sections that you must implement in order to stay within the letter of the license.
There’s only one limitation: if you are building a program which directly competes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access (the Microsoft applications with the new UI), you can’t obtain the royalty-free license.”
There’s no fee, you don’t owe Microsoft any royalties, and the license is perpetual—meaning that the terms won’t change….
I have read the article, and I don’t care one fig about whether Microsoft has been so kind and generous as to not make people owe royalties. Why? Because licensing it is not necessary and a load of rubbish.
You can’t license user interfaces, or try and protect them in ways that many companies tried in so many ways to do in the eighties.
Stop making it look as if Microsoft is doing everyone a gracious favour.
End.
If Amazon can patent one click surely Microsoft could patent elements of the ribbon?
By the way I am not saying that the patent should have been granted.
That cluttered confusing real estate hogging menu sucks even worse than the old one. License it to your customers detriment if you wish, hope they patent it to insure no competing product will be able to emulate that mess and leave some decent choices available.
Isn’t this really just licensing the technology than the right to actually do something. I’m sure that anyone is fine to create whatever UI they want.
Microsoft are licening their technology so they give you the SDK and tools to implement the technology in your own application.
Of course they are not going to let competing products use their technology it’s how the corporate world works.
No code or SDK is being licensed. From http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/nov06/11-21officeu…
PressPass: How does the licensing program work?
Numoto: Microsoft is licensing its intellectual property rights in the UI (which cover both design and functionality) and offering a comprehensive Design Guidelines document that is a roadmap for developers implementing the UI. Licensees can sign up on the Web and register their products with us on the Web site as well. We are not licensing any code at this time. As I mentioned before, the program is royalty free.
Edited 2006-11-22 15:45
Of course they are not going to let competing products use their technology it’s how the corporate world works.
Umm, no. You don’t have to pay Hovis for use of a patent if you want to make bread.
“You don’t have to pay Hovis for use of a patent if you want to make bread”
That’s only because prior art goes back to Neolithic times. Just wait and see what happens to patent infringement cases when time-travel becomes possible.
Microsoft is licensing its intellectual property rights in the UI (which cover both design and functionality)
Why would you want to license a UI that takes up even more space than older toolbars. In actuality users of laptops and small screens need a way to keep all the toolbars closed and just work on their document full screen. I have never understood this design philosophy of taking up a lot of screen space to enhance the UI. I find it easier to just select the text and right-click to format it. Avoid the toolbars and regain your screen space.
click on the currently-selected ribbon tab and the whole thing goes away, leaving you with a nearly full-screen document. It seems to do what you want.
The ribbon does not take up more screen space.
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/04/17/577485.aspx
Microsoft: “WHOA! WE’RE GREAT! NOBODY MAKES SOFTWARE LIKE US!!!”
World: “Whoa! Yeah! Cool!” /drool.
Thinkers: /yawn.
Microsoft should get a patent on bullshit. Then no-one else would be able to create it without paying huge royalties.
I think that would suit just about everyone fine and dandy, don’t you?
It would be a problem for farmers though. At least if they have a large stock of bulls.
Bear in mind that one can already get ribbon components for delphi (http://www.tmssoftware.com/advtoolbar.htm) that mimic the robbon interface exactly.
From the comments section of Jensen’s post:
“Regarding the use of components, the short answer is Yes. You do need to get a license from Microsoft to use the Office UI even if the component vendor already has a license to distribute the components to you. The component vendors cannot pass through the rights to you and we need to be able to distinguish licensed software from unlicensed software without placing a monitoring burden on the component vendors.”
I’m not saying I agree with this, but apparently that’s the way it is.
Haiku made your own Icon Guidelines..
http://svn.berlios.de/viewcvs/*checkout*/haiku/haiku/trunk/src/docu…
No royalty… no money.. only your appreciation…
http://vbaccelerator.com/home/VB/Code/Controls/Command_Bar/vbAccele…
While I do support the idea that a UI design should not be patentable, I do believe that the new UI is really innovative.
There is much critism above, and had been in many previous news articles. However I’m not sure the critics have really tried using the software.
It’s claimed that the ribbon uses too much screen estate in many places. Actually, if you measure you’ll see that it’s almost the same as file menu + two toolbars, and definately much less than Firefox with tabs open. And also the ribbon is collapsable.
It’s not only compact it also helps a lot. I was beta tester of the software and had prepared some of my later reports/presentations with it to test the suite. The new UI really helped me discover new features (and some I previously did not know about), and made using the features I know much easier.
It definately allows you to see; what your possible actions are, and what would the effect look like. It’s one good example of task oriented design.
If you do not beleive Microsoft can develop a nice interface, please take a ruler and actually measure the height, and also please try to use the software to do something real and make a fair comparison.
Edited 2006-11-22 16:57
i know i have seen the ribbon before
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Writer
ms use it in 1993!!!!
and they don’t improve it since then
bye
I guess MS needs money….who knew. So, let me be crystal clear about this…..I make an app that has a toolbar and some buttons and they can now sue me for stealing IP? That’s convenient.
I’m guessing the following will undoubtedly be a smidgen of the future court proceedings..
MS lawyer – “See….this button’s look and feel was STOLEN from Microsoft, your honor! It even has a shadow! We are suing for pain and suffering and $10mil of lost revenue.”
Defendant’s Lawyer – “Uh…yeah…bite me.”
That’s ok, though, I was really starting to miss the “look and feel” of Wordperfect 5.0.
… it’s just too bad that Microsoft is claiming to own the IP because I saw something very similar in WordPerfect for the Mac.
If you have a Mac that supports the classic Mac OS you should try WordPerfect 3.5e. Corel offered it as a free download a few years back and it will run handily on most dusty 68k’s through the latest PowerPCs.
As for FOSS developers coming up with innovative interfaces. I think it’s a great idea and there is plenty of room left for them to do so. The only problem is that they are criticized when they create anything innovative because people don’t appear to like change.
//As for FOSS developers coming up with innovative interfaces. I think it’s a great idea and there is plenty of room left for them to do so. //
Not only is it a great idea, it is also a quite old idea.
In fact, this very activity has been going on for quite some time:
http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=65&PHPSESSID=f30908d…
http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=37
Feel free to contribute your own ideas. That is very much in the spirit of the thing.
Having real users contribute ideas is far & away a better approach to getting a GUI how users want it than having a huge megacorp design something.
This is a list of new GUI ideas in the order of popularity:
http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=65&PHPSESSID=f30908d…
Edited 2006-11-23 06:12
If (as Microsoft claim) they are so interested in interface consistency, then why have they not bothered putting the ribbon interface into Outlook?
Microsoft are happy enough to approve a program for release that forces Office 2007 users to flip between old and new UI paradigms within the same application suite. This is UI consistency how exactly?
And let’s not forget the non-standard ‘File Open’ and ‘Save As’ dialogs used in previous Office versions (which not only break many 3rd party dialog add-on utilities, but which also does not even follow Microsoft’s own guidlines on the use of such dialogs).
I still curse everytime I open a browse dialog in Office and have to DOUBLE-click my my way down a tree, despite the fact that my Desktop has been set to SINGLE-click.
Every other application that I use (even those with customised dialogs) manages to respect my OS setting for item click activation and hover selection, but needless to say Microsoft Office does not.
Edited 2006-11-24 17:39