[ILUG] email sent to potiticians about Mary Hannafin's decision not to use open source

[Justin Mason]

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Colm Buckley writes:
> On 3 May 2004, at 13:20, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> 
> > That would mean, for example, that documents could not be provided in 
> > .doc format, but would have to be in XML, in a form which could be 
> > edited by anyone.
> 
> I would note that Microsoft Office's "XML" format, although technically 
> conforming to the rules for XML documents, still isn't an open file 
> format - it makes heavy use of XML's "binary object" class, with big 
> blobs of impenetrable data.
> 
> Saying "we support XML" in this context is about as useful as saying 
> "we support ASCII".

Also, MS have patented a word processor reading and writing documents
using an XML file format with an XSD schema file, in European patent
1376387 and several other identical patents and applications worldwide:

  http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=EP1376387&QPN=EP1376387

XML and XSD are open, sure.   However I think the use of "open standards"
here is immaterial if, at some point in the future, competing word
processor products may have to pay a license fee to interoperate, or may
be blocked outright from using this *idea* due to incompatibilities with
the software's own licensing scheme (as is the case with the GPL).

Some more details at:

  http://www.nzoss.org.nz/portal/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=290

- --j.
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