On Thu, 17 Apr 2008, Andrew C. Oliver wrote:
in the community that the OSP is "good enough" protection. There are
That is not true either and you missed the doc that Nick posted that
explains the problem from a legalistic point of view around "conforms".
I've just noticed one interesting thing on the Microsoft OSP site[1]
"Q: What if I don’t implement the entire specification? Will I still get
the protections under the OSP?
A: The OSP applies whether you have a full or partial implementation. You
get the same irrevocable promise from us either way. In all cases, the OSP
covers only your implementation of the parts of the specification(s) that
you decide to use."
While that doesn't answer the question of what happens if we aim to
implement part of a specification but have the odd bug in it (and hence
may not be covered by "to the extent it conforms to a Covered
Specification"), it does indicate we're covered if we only implement
certain parts
Another thing to be aware of is the legal concept of Estoppel. We can
certainly argue THAT IF microsoft has patents covering the ooxml stuff,
AND IF we infringe upon them, then Microsoft ought to know (since they've
sponsored some of the work, issued press releases, I've talked to
Microsoft employees about the POI OOXML stuff etc). One could posit that
were Microsoft to turn around in a few years and say that there are
patents the POI infringes upon (which don't forget there might not be),
someone could argue that Microsoft's support and silence on the matter in
the mean time would lead to estoppel on the attempt to take the patent
thing forward.
Just a thought - does anyone have a contact with Microsoft legal / with an
organisation that has contacts with Microsoft legal?
While I am personally happy with using the OSP for a partial and possibly
buggy implementation, I can see that Andy isn't. If we could get Microsoft
legal to make a statement on a "best-effort implementation of the spec
that might happen to have some bugs", in the same way as they have done
for partial implementations of the spec, that could leave everyone happy
and the poi ooxml stuff in the clear.
Nick
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp/default.mspx
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