I'm not sure the point of such articles, except perhaps to confuse the concept of "open" in the minds of the general population. These articles contain an egregious amount of spin and little factual content supplemented by speculation.
So far MS has not said more that it would be relaxing licensing restrictions, but not how or how much. No note has been made if MS will actually document the formats or the relevant APIs which, IIRC, was mandated by the anti-trust remedies from the DOJ vs MS trials long ago.
Without the documentation or access to the APIs, the format is as good as secret.
-Lars
Lars Nooden ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The Internet is for Everyone:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3271.txt?number=3271On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Deepankar Datta wrote:
Microsoft makes Office an 'open standard' ----------------------------------------- "Microsoft is loosening licensing rules on Office 2003 formats in order to get around new "open standard" restrictions to be adopted by the US state of Massachusetts, according to a state official.
The move puts Microsoft on a better footing to compete against open-source applications and non-proprietary document formats. Governments around the world have begun to reconsider the use of proprietary formats, which usually lock them into using particular applications and may hinder archiving efforts."
http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?NewsID=2952
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