[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

RE: Word 2003 schemas available

• To: 'james anderson' <james.anderson@s...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Word 2003 schemas available
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 17:18:58 -0600

If you mean the implementation, you may be right.
If you mean the surface characteristics of rich UI 
markup languages, read on.

I think that one will look inside the system and find 
lots of prior art.  The patents they vaguely refer to 
may or may not exist.  They are using the license to 
FUD the market because they know the schemas will 
get into the public anyway so they are pre-empting. 
OpenOffice scares them.  That's good.  It should. 
When MS indemnifies as HP and SUN have, I'll take 
their licensing more seriously.  Otherwise, take 
exception to it when you contract with them and 
let them deal with changing it or losing the sale.

If all one looks at is XAML, there is too much 
publically documented prior art that precedes both 
it and XUL.  Smart players should acknowledge that 
quickly and publically before the perception builds 
that this language originates from the web.  Otherwise, 
they face yetAnotherMisinformedJudge.

If they attempt to patent the Longhorn UI, they 
will lose their business.  That would be an incredible 
blunder on the same scale for them as Netscape 
ignoring XML was for Netscape.  If they have any 
business brains in Redmond, they will find a means 
to standardize royalty-free and time that to be 
approved just as Longhorn is being released.

If they can find something beneath the UI to patent, 
that will be interesting, but the best course of 
action for their competition is to get a standard 
ready before Longhorn is fielded.  MS would be smart 
to help do that.  Avoid the courts this time and take 
notice that the emnity toward MS is building at every 
level of society.  At some point, the different scales 
of that will connect and cascade.  How to dampen that 
should be a question of some concern for Balmer; or 
otherwise he is leading with his ego instead of his 
excellent business sense.

I also suspect patent protection as a FUD strategy 
is going to lose steam sooner than later.  It is 
mucking with the economy and that is a nice election 
talking piece for the Democrats.

**Standard service-oriented architectures should not 
care what or who is picking up the SOAP.**

len

-----Original Message-----
From: james anderson [mailto:james.anderson@s...]
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 5:01 PM
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject: Re:  Word 2003 schemas available


it's like .net .

microsoft has (or intends to) patent the particular terms and relations 
specified in their schemas in so far as they are used as a "mechanism" 
to annotate documents.

they are not the "can-opener". they are the mechanism used to 
manufacture the can-opener.

one can be sure they will do the same with their longhorn ui 
description mechanism. i'm curious if their licensing terms for that 
will be as amenable to third party development.

len, your turn.

• Prev by Date: Re: Word 2003 schemas available
• Next by Date: RE: XUL != Mozilla
• Previous by thread: RE: XUL != Mozilla
• Next by thread: RE: Word 2003 schemas available
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread