MS-Sun agreement re:OO.org

[Jeff Kinz]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 05:17:22PM -0400, Bob Bell wrote:
> (sorry lost original context)
> 
> I don't think that this has to be fake.  It seems to be like Sun and 
> Microsoft formed an agreement, and MS said "but I don't want any of this 
> to apply to that Open Office thing you've got there -- we don't really 
> like that", and Sun just said "fine".  Microsoft may just be wanting to 
> guard against MS Office-related patents being implemented in an open 
> source product.  Doesn't necessarily seem all that unreasonable to me...

Absolutely.

MS plans/desires to keep MS-Office free of competition from Open Source
products.

A while back MS published their XML schemas for Word and other MS-Office
documents with licensing that requires all implementors to pay royalties
to use those schemas.

This means MS can still sue OpenOffice(OO) (or get an injunction)
when/if OO implements those MS-Office XML schemas.

-- 
Linux/Open Source.  Now all your base belongs to you, for free.
============================================================
Idealism:  "Realism applied over a longer time period"

Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.