Chris Gehlker wrote:
> Yesterday MS published the XML-Schema for Word .doc files and granted 
> everyone a royalty free license to any patents that they may have on the 
> format. I suspect that they did this precisely because they realized 
> that they had more to gain by maintaining the .doc format as the 
> standard for word processing documents than they could  get by keeping 
> it closed.
> 
> I consider this a victory for folks like Derek who had the courage to 
> say "Please resend that .doc attachment in some open format."

EXCEPT, is is not a license for everyone.  MS patented the schema 
(whether or not that would hold up in court).  So, if you want to use 
the schema, you need to follow the patent license.  Read it here:

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpatentlicense.asp

Now, carefully read paragraphs 5 and 6 of the "Patent License" section. 
  That part of the patent license is incompatible with GPL.  That fact 
is best explained here:

http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=86136&cid=7496572

So, if you use MS schemata in GPL software, you cannot transfer your 
license to use the schemata to someone else, as the GPL requires.  This 
means that GPL software cannot use the open specs to read and write the 
new MS files.  They still have to "clean-room" reverse engineer them 
all, just as before.

They have pulished the spec but it cannot be directly used by Free 
Software because of the patent and the patent license terms.  So, how 
open is it really?  :^|  And, if you ever plan on writing Free Software 
that reads and writes the new MS file formats, don't contaminate 
yourself and the Free Software project by reading the specs.

Alan