| Software Freedom Law Center: Don't trust Microsoft's promises |
Mar. 13, 2008
If you're a Linux or open-source developer, should you trust Microsoft in relation to its recent major announcement about its Open Specification Promise? The knee-jerk Linux user answer is "No!" Now, the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) has published a paper that goes into fine legal detail about what Microsoft says it promises and what it actually promises.
The short paper, "Microsoft's Open Specification Promise: No Assurance for GPL," concludes that Microsoft can't be trusted for three main reasons: "Microsoft's ability to revoke the promise for future versions of specifications, the promise's limited scope, and its incompatibility with free software licenses, including the GPL."
Specifically, the SFLC looked at the promise's scope and stated, "Because of this narrow definition of the covered specifications, no future versions of any of the specifications are guaranteed to be covered under the OSP. Each new version is subject to Microsoft's ongoing discretion on a case by case basis. In other words, every time a specification changes, Microsoft can effectively revoke the OSP as it had applied to previous versions of that same specification."
The SFLC also interprets the Microsoft clause that states that "the OSP does not apply to any work that you do beyond the scope of the covered specification(s)" as something of a poison pill. From a legal standpoint, the OSP doesn't cover any code implementing the specification that could be used for some other purpose. In other words, "it permits implementation under free software licenses so long as the resulting code isn't used freely."
In addition, the SFLC said, Microsoft deliberately tries to tar the GPL as a confusing license by saying, "Because the General Public License … is not universally interpreted the same way by everyone, we can't give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL or other OSS licenses, but based on feedback from the open-source community we believe that a broad audience of developers can implement the specification(s)."
The SFLC said, "Microsoft wrongly blames the free software legal community for Microsoft's failure to present a promise that satisfies the requirements of the GPL. It is true that a broad audience of developers could implement the specifications, but they would be unable to be certain that implementations based on the latest versions of the specifications would be safe from attack. They would also be unable to distribute their code for any type of use, as is integral to the GPL and to all free software."
Karen Sandler, SFCL counsel, concluded in a statement, "Based on our review of the OSP, we do not recommend that free software developers rely on it for assurance."
The SFLC also noted, "Microsoft issued the OSP to address the issue of patent liability for implementers of Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) file format." A few days after Microsoft released its Open Specification Promise, the ISO began considering making Open XML an ISO standard.
In addition, as we now know, the European Union was getting ready to slam Microsoft with a record 899 million Euro ($1.35 billion dollar) fine for not being more forthcoming with its proprietary intellectual property.
-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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