Comparison of OpenDocument and Office Open XML licensing

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This article compares the licensing terms for the OpenDocument standard and Office Open XML standard, which both market themselves as open, XML-based document file formats for saving and exchanging editable office documents such as text documents (including memos, reports, and books), spreadsheets, charts, and presentations.

[edit] OpenDocument

OpenDocument is an approved ISO standard.^[1]

OpenDocument is royalty-free. It can be used without charge by anyone.^[2]

An irrevocable intellectual property covenant has been made by Sun Microsystems regarding its intellectual property rights (IPR), subject solely to reciprocity requirements, that it will not seek to enforce any of its enforceable U.S. or foreign patents against any implementation of OpenDocument. This statement is not an assurance that (...) an OpenDocument Implementation would not infringe patents or other intellectual property rights of any third party.^[3]

[edit] Office Open XML

Office Open XML is an approved Ecma standard.^[4]

Ecma Standards and Technical Reports are made available to all interested persons or organizations, free of charge and copyright.^[5]

Microsoft has released a covenant not to sue for the Microsoft Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas, stating that Microsoft irrevocably covenants that it will not seek to enforce any of its patent claims necessary to conform to the technical specifications for the Microsoft Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas (...) against those conforming parts of software products.. This statement is not an assurance (...) that such an implementation would not infringe patents or other intellectual property rights of any third party. (...) Microsoft will make the covenant above available for the Ecma International Standard on Office Open XML file formats.^[6]

In its Microsoft Open Specification Promise Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing or distributing any implementation to the extent it conforms to a Covered Specification ("Covered Implementation"). The Office XML File Formats are among the covered specifications.^[7].

In support of the licensing arrangements Microsoft commissioned an analysis from the London legal firm Baker & Mckenzie. ^[8] However, according to the website Groklaw, both the OSP and the 'Covenant Not to Sue' are worded using what are for practical purposes identical grammatical constructs that as far as we can tell grant no rights whatsoever despite what at first glance might appear as a grant of rights.^[9].

[edit] References

1. ^ ISO. ISO/IEC 26300:2006. Information technology -- Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0. ISO.
2. ^ OASIS foundation. FAQ. OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC. OASIS foundation. FAQ 15
3. ^ Sun Microsystems, Inc.. Sun OpenDocument Patent Statement. OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC. OASIS foundation.
4. ^ Ecma International. Standard ECMA-376: Open Office XML Formats. Ecma International Web site. Ecma International. Retrieved on December 15, 2006.
5. ^ Ecma International. Ecma formal publications. Ecma International Web site. Ecma International. Retrieved on December 15, 2006.
6. ^ Microsoft Covenant Regarding Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas. Office XML Reference Schemas Licensing. Retrieved on December 28, 2006.
7. ^ Microsoft Open Specification Promise. Microsoft (2006-10-23). Retrieved on December 28, 2006.
8. ^ Baker & McKenzie / London Information Technology Practice (June 2006). Standardisation and Licensing of Microsoft's Office Open XML Reference Schema. Baker & McKenzie. Retrieved on December 15, 2006.
9. ^ Carrera, et al. (January 2007). The Microsoft covenants not to sue grant no rights. Groklaw. Retrieved on January 25, 2007.