Eben on: MS Office 2003 XML patented

(Forwarded from Patents list)

-----Original Message-----
From: Carsten Svaneborg <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 14:18:12 +0100
Subject: Re: [Patents] MS Office 2003 XML patented

On Monday 17 November 2003 13:48, Carsten Svaneborg wrote:
> so in other words Microsoft is using patents to prevent GPLed
programs
> from accessing the XML format that MS Word will be using.

FSF eases Microsoft schema patent fears
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 18/11/2003 at 09:40 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34045.html


"I don't think the alarm is justified," the FSF's pro bono counsel 
Eben Moglen told us last night. "This is not a license that I would 
like to accept; Microsoft is saying we might have some patents. But 
it's not a problem if Microsoft is making it available to everyone to 
make use and sell.

Moglen says that Microsoft's schema license conforms to the compromise 
that he worked out with community leader Bruce Perens when revising 
the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) proposed RAND license. Two years 
ago the W3C proposed to allow, in parallel to the web's tradition of 
royalty-free licenses which saw a developers revolt. 

-- 
  Mvh. Carsten Svaneborg