Talk:Office Open XML/Archive 10

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Licensing of patents and copyright, and the word "additional"

since hAl and I have been discussing this via edit summaries¸ we might as well get it on the talk page:

I (and the lawyers who have come to the IETF to give advice) regard the IPR with regard to patents as being two independent issues:

• Copyright is the basis for the control over the text of the standard. The license given by the copyright holder (or the one who asserts copyright - there's a subtle difference) controls whether you can get a copy of the standard, and what you can do with the copy you have (read it, lend it to a friend, hand out copies on street corners, post it on the Internet, perform a public recitation of its text.....). This license gives you no right to do what the standard describes (but doesn't prevent you in any way either).
• Patents are the basis for control over whether you can practice the technology described in the standard. If a patent describes a technique that any conforming implementation of the standard has to do, you need a license from the patent holder in order to make products that implement the standard. The patent holder may have nothing to do with the copyright holder, and may even have had nothing to do with the work of producing the standard. (note - patent law permits you to make *one* copy for your own use without a license - the reason given in the US constitution for patents was that people should be able to learn from them.)

The two referents for the word "license" are entirely orthogonal - thus, I believe the word "additional" is not useful. --Alvestrand (talk) 14:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

That is why I prefer additional. A patent license is not a patent on the format of the standard. The frasing might suggest that the standard or part of it are patented. I have seen several people claim such thing during the standardization proces. Comments like: "Micrsoft has patented parts of OOXML". However the patent license does not relate to the format or standard directly. The patent license is not a license for allowing use of the format or standard which is what many people percieve it to be. The patent licensing is not on the format but for any technology required to use or implement the format. It is a technology license and not a format license.

Sigh. "You need money to buy a car. You need a driver's license to drive it." You would insist on saying "additionally, you need a driver's license to drive it"? I wish that just one time, in one little issue, you would accept someone else's formulation. This is WP:OWN. --Alvestrand (talk) 22:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If I can just chime in for a second here, chaps. I haven't been around here long and I don't want to get into the habit of editing contentious articles, but it looks to me like the only problem here is the use of the word "additional" and the issue of confusion. You both agree that there aren't patented technologies in the standard itself, just some of the technologies that are required to implement it. So how about rewording the section to do just that? Royalty free licensing for any additional technologies required to implement the specification How about that? It's a little bit more verbose, and it does say pretty much the same thing as the sentence below it, so maybe that bit could change to explicitly address hAl's worries that people reading this will get the idea that the specification itself is patented. Sound good to you folks? Grumbox (talk) 02:51, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually there can't be patented technologies in the standard itself; the standard is words-on-paper, a technology on which the statute of limitations has long ago expired. Neither you, I nor hAl know (AFAIK) if there are patents required to practice the standard - Microsoft hasn't said that it holds any such patents, only that *if* they exist, they won't sue over them, and nobody else has said anything at all (as far as I know). My main problem is linguistic; "additional" implies two things that can be added together, and copyrights and patent rights just shouldn't be added together. They're orthogonal.

I think hAl and I are arguing the same side here - that we need to consider those two things separately. I'm in favour of words that emphasize the separation. But to me, the word "additional" does exactly the opposite. --Alvestrand (talk) 12:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I do know of Microsoft patents that could apply to OOXML. (for instance http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-329645.html) However those patents might not be valid (the example has likely prior art) and/or night not be required. However it does not matter as those are royalty free licensed for OOXML (and for Opendocument as well). hAl (talk) 18:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree there is some liguistic issue and we seem to have a similar view. However my english is probably not good enough to find alternative phrasing that would make the point more clear for readers that have little understanding of IPR licensing. hAl (talk) 18:48, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

COI

(splitting from the above, as it is off topic. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC))

Since I just noticed from both your user pages that you are actually employed by Sun Microsystems / Google, two of the main opponents of the Office Open XML standardization, I wonder whether you two might have a conflict of interest when working on this article. Even in case that your intentions are noble (which is what generally I assume), the fact that your employer might watch your edits might have an unintentional negative effect on the neutrality of this article. I'm disappointed that neither of you has made this fact clear in the discussion before. Ghettoblaster (talk) 21:54, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

If you'd bothered to read the large disclaimer I have on my user page, you'd know that I am expressly not editing on behalf of my employers. Frankly, it's more than a little insulting to take the time to disclose things like this on my user page and then have them cast back up at me in lieu of actually addressing my arguments. I've discussed this at length with my employer and frankly the flak I get for my honesty makes me wish I'd never bothered with it in the first place. Already one editor on here is apparently happy to cast aspertions as to the motives of those who disagree with him; I'd hoped that would be confined to that editor. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but if I were to first read the user page of everyone on Wikipedia who happens to discuss the content of an article that I'm also editing, I'd never had a chance to contribute anything of value to this project. Also, I don't understand what you mean with "disclosing things like this on your user page". I did not disclose anything. I just thought the people here should know. Wikipedia has guidelines for things like this and your should know this. If you two where working for Microsoft, then we could be reading this on /. any minute. Ghettoblaster (talk) 22:17, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Replying on your user talk, as this is off-topic. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, so user:Alvestrand joined in the Norwegian ISO committtee on behalf of Google and represented his companies views on this particular topic there. hAl (talk) 06:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that's fairly obvious. In fact the cart is a bit before the horse; the reason I joined the Norwegian ISO committee was because I disagreed with OOXML based on technical merit; the reason Google was willing to fund my participation was that Google agreed with me, but yes, that's one of the reasons I've not done anything but weigh in on points I saw as glaringly obvious in this article. Preventing speculation about that sort of thing is one reason why I wear my name and affiliation in the open, which is unusual on Wikipedia.

(Note: My first contribution in the archive seems to have been this: "At the risk of drawing other articles into the edit war - check out Open standard and Open format. It should be readily apparent from these articles that 1) there is no common consensus on what a standard has to be in order to be an "open standard", and 2) that ISO designation is regarded by many as neither necessary nor sufficient. --Alvestrand (talk) 10:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)" - I haven't said much new recently.) --Alvestrand (talk) 06:36, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

One should note however that you seem to apply your critical view in only one direction which. Google uses Opendocumnt as their default format but you seem to express critical views here on the page of the default format of google's biggest competitor and not a single critisism on the pages of Opendocument. Your employer has an interest in OOXML not being called free and open. That is worrying seeing the current discussion. hAl (talk) 07:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I haven't actually expressed my views about OOXML on this page. They are relatively acerbic, both with regard to the content of the specification and with regard to the process by which it got standardized; in both regards, I base them on personal experience. I wasn't involved in ODF's standardization, nor have I studied its internals, so can't speak to that (even though I've heard other people speak positively about them). But my views are not published by a WP:RS, so I keep them off the record here. --Alvestrand (talk) 17:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Representing a big competitor who has uses a competing format in its office product and sitting on the losing side in the standardization vote in Norway can't make you neutral on the ISO standardization or the ISO standard. hAl (talk) 09:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The usual "free and open" stuff.

I see that User:hAl is back to claiming that "free and open" belongs in the lede. It's still controversial, for all the reasons that were stated from 2006 to 2008. I still claim it doesn't belong there, while "freely available" does. I guess we'll just have to continue to take the logical action that comes from disagreeing, since none of us will budge. --Alvestrand (talk) 09:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

After all the long discussions that have taken place in the past, I am completely aghast that user:HAl is still re-adding the words "free" and "open" all over the introduction to this article. It is ignoring the discussions that have previously taken place.--Lester 10:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I have asked for relevant information in that discussion but noone has brought forward any info relating to the ISO/IEC 29500 standard that would suggest that this freely available ISO/IEC standard was not free and open. It just showed that several opposing editors work for Office software companies that use OpenDocument as their main document format. hAl (talk) 11:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Firstly even in 2006 and 2008 Office Open XML was an open standard as there were no restrictions on implementing the standard. The standard is free and there are no restrictions on implementations of the standards (having identical or even more free licensing than other open standards). However the current article information applies to the ISO/IEC standardized Office Open XML standard which has been published in november 2008. This amongs other things means that ISO/IEC have agreed the free availability and with the licensing, it means the standard specifcation has been improved to be more vendor neutral and the maintenance is in the hands of a vendor neutral organization (ISO/IEC) where many open standard are even still maintained by vendor controlled organizations. You suggest in contrary to already established wikipedia articles on the subject that this ISO/IEC 29500 standard is not free and open, whilst your employer uses the main competing open format and you seem to apply different points of view on identical properties of those formats/standards. The simple fact is that since the ISO/IEC standardization last year just about anybody has changed attitudes and started to implement the Office Open XML format, even in quite a few open source products. You seem to have some grudges left from your personal involvement in the standardization proces which you seem to have joined purely to oppose Office Open XML. hAl (talk) 10:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Long ago, the community asked user:HAl to back up his original research with some references that come from the mainstream media, outside the participants of the ISO, the IEC, and Microsoft. This has not been done. The wishes of the many editors who disagree with user:HAl's edits have been completely ignored. The continuous inserting of the words "free" and "open" into the article must stop.--Lester 11:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You suggest it is original research but I just refer to the relevant articles. hAl (talk) 12:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I too am appalled by this behaviour. hAl, please read WP:NPA, WP:CONS and WP:OWN. The object of contributing to a WP article is not to try to drive away all the other contributors until you are the only one left. No one contributes much to an article that they have no interest in or connection with, but that does not mean that we cannot reach a consensus, represent all significant points of view fairly, and so create a balanced and useful article - many of us do it all the time and have been doing so on many other articles for some years. --Nigelj (talk) 11:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You seem to miss that consensus was already established untill User:Lester removed that information a few weeks ago inclusing a bunch of references. He did not offer any reason for his removal of the information so it seems fully correct to restore the information. I even updated the information to show it to represent the current ISO/IEC standard. I have no problem discussing the content but you and other have failed to show in discussion why the ISO/IEC 29500 standard would not be open like similar standards as opendocment and/or the recently standardized PDF open format. hAl (talk) 12:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Once again, I repeat what many of us have been saying: It is not for us to ascertain here, once and for all, whether this spec is or is not anything. We have shown, repeatedly, that there is a controversy over this issue, and it is our duty to report that fact. We cannot state, baldly in the lede, one way or the other; just that there is a controversy and then we discuss this and other controversial matters in the main body of the article. Forget the ad hominem aspects - it doesn't matter who started it, or when. --Nigelj (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The "consensus" that existed for a while asserting (not proving by reference to sources saying that it is so) that the OOXML standard is free and open was, in my opinion, caused by the people who know how controversial this issue is having grown tired of pushing back against hAl's relentless "it's my way no matter what you say" editing. Tiredness is a bad basis for asserting facts.

What we have here is hAl citing a bunch of stuff that does NOT say "OOXML is free and open", and hAl saying "with these citations, I have proved that OOXML is free and open". It's freely available, yes. It's being modified by a process with known rules, yes. But both of these things can be true for a standard that is still in practice controlled by one party, many people (me included) feel that calling such a standard "free and open" is making a travesty out of those terms, and many people said so quite loudly during the standardization process. This has never been uncontroversial, either on or off Wikipedia. --Alvestrand (talk) 18:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You now show your personal point of view. The objective facts show that Office Open XML is a free file format and an open standard in the ways that wikipedia defines those. You apperantly have different standard of your own. It is evident that certain people will oppose anything related in some way to Microsoft. That however is not a valid reason to approach the wikipedia articles in that way. I suggest we keep the discussion on accepted pratises for what make a standard free and open and not some arbitrary feeling by some people and especially not those involved in the standardization proces. I think it is very good if you bring expertise on document format as a former participant in a document format standardization committee but you seem to have kept a deep resentment against the format relating to that proces that has little to do with a neutral point of view needed on wikipedia. hAl (talk) 19:54, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The objective facts show that it is freely available. The objective facts show that there are many definitions of "free and open". The objective facts say that it fits some of these definitions, but not all. The objective facts show that several people have protested against calling the standard "free". The fact that I happen to agree with those people is irrelevant to what Wikipiedia should say. It's still obvious. --Alvestrand (talk) 20:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed is what you say irrelevant to what wikipedia says and thus I will restore the wiki links that only confirm what I have stated. You will need to change the rest of wikipedia first and adapt it to concurr with your opinion. hAl (talk) 06:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

hAl, it is not right for you restore your opinion into the lede (again) in the face of such a clear consensus to discuss the matter more fully in the body of article. --Nigelj (talk) 08:35, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You are incorrect. I put in the information already contained in wikipedia. That you want to remove it is therefore personal view/opinion. hAl (talk) 16:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You put your interpretation of material already in Wikipedia in the article. That's 1) WP:OR and 2) using Wikipedia as a source, which is against WP:RS. --Alvestrand (talk) 18:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

No I did not put my interpretation of the material in Wikipedia. That is incorrect. hAl (talk) 21:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Given that nowhere else in Wikipedia (that I know of) has the phrase "OOXML is free and open", which part of your statement "I put in the information already contained in wikipedia" does not indicate that the phrase is your WP:OR based on using Wikipedia as a source? Listen to Nigelj. --Alvestrand (talk) 00:52, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Allthough not literally identical the same text this is exactly the nature of the referenced wiki articles. hAl (talk) 09:54, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

'Support' by Microsoft-run websites

I have again reverted User:hAl's addition of the small series of Microsoft-run websites that get listed here from time to time as part of the 'Support for Office Open XML' section. I think it is well established now that, while these sites may be relevant to this article in some way, they should not be listed as 'support'.

Again (like 'free'), there are at least two meanings of the word support. There's support like supporting a football team where someone says, "This is great and I want to express my full support for it". And then there's the business sense, like where a supplier supports their product with documentation or an online forum.

We do not want unexplained double-meanings to lead to any uncertainty or doubt in this or any other article. If the section is about people who support OOXML in the football sense, then these refs have no place here and, if anywhere, should be elsewhere in the article. If the section is about support in the sense of providing extra documentation, then we should make that clear, and ask what kind of support is offered by the other things listed.

I think, looking at the others, there is a third meaning of support in use here: if XYZ "have products with some support for OOXML", then that does not necessarily mean that they, as a business, support it in either of the two senses above, just that they have felt it necessary to enable their software to interact with it in some unspecified way.

The problem is that this section is unhelpful as it is due to all the uncertainty and doubt as to what it actually means. It needs to be tidied up and possibly split into three sections, with the meaning of each one explained in the text. --Nigelj (talk) 15:07, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The sites may be hosted by Microsoft but are actually sites representing numerous organizations that have organizaed themselves in supporting organizations for Office Open XML. You claim they should not be listed as support. That is just riduculous. For example the Opendocument article has simelar listings in a section about support for opendocument with organizations like the opendocument format alliance and the opendocument fellowship with I might add not a single third party reference on those. hAl (talk) 15:32, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

But are you going to address my point about three conflated meanings to the word support? Please restrict the discussion to this article and debate the ODF article on it's own talk page. --Nigelj (talk) 19:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

If the meaning of the word support can be interpreted diffrently then the nature of the support should be clear. I do not see a problem in that in this article. The article text seem clear enough in each case of what the support consists of. It is not the meaning of the word support that I object to, but the fact that you evidently tried to remove fully sourced information about organizations that support Office Open XML because those organization might have their sites hosted by Microsoft. hAl (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

You have tried to hide the fact that these sites are run by Microsoft. [[1]] Scientus (talk) 06:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The only thing you have shown is that Microsoft host the sites. Something that is even noted in the information you keep removing. That is something entirely different and also something very logical as Microsoft is the main user and contributor for the Office Open XML format. Noone is trying to hide that Microsoft supports the Office Open XML format. Essential however is that these supporting groups show that the support is much wider than just Microsoft with hundreds of other organisations joining Microsoft in supporting the Office Open XML file format. You seem keen on repeatedly removing those simple and fully sourced facts. hAl (talk) 08:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd be very interested to hear from User:Scientus why he is so keen on removing any mention of organizations supporting the Office Open XML standard. There are several independent and valid references such as www.infoworld.com [2] and www.macworld.co.uk [3] which for instance state that "About 40 technology companies have joined in the effort to learn how to use and support OpenXML on any platform" and that now "Over 750 developers have joined the Open XML Formats Developer Group." IMHO the given references prove that first of all the organizations/websites mentioned in the article do exist. And when looking on the websites it is clear from the content and the mission statement that they also do support this standard. Furthermore, several members of these organizations have issued press releases (published for instance in XML Journal [4]) confirming that they joined these organizations and support this standard. But still, User:Scientus is repeatingly completely removing any mention of these supporting organizations without discussing these references on the talk page at all, claiming that these "sites are Microsoft run" without provinding any references to back up his claims. IMHO as one of the founding members of an organization, a company is free to provide it with webspace and hosting or any other legal form of support. Other founding/joining members are supporting it by contributing content or other activities. So where is the problem here? Are you expecting that Microsoft is the only member that does not contribute anything to this organization? Then why should they join that organization in the first place? Are only organizations valid format supportes when Microsoft is not one of the members? Are IBM and Sun members of the OpenDocument Format Alliance? Does the OpenDocument Format Alliance support OpenDocument? To me it is very clear that User:Scientus is not fair-minded and not interested in creating a neutral and unbiased article. Ghettoblaster (talk) 17:32, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem is entirely based in the context. The present section was presented as 'Response' -> 'Support' and provides a longish list. It looks like 'support' in the football-team sense. If it was clear that, 'The following websites offer technical support for software developers who want to learn about OOXML' and separately, 'The following products can read and/or save documents in OOXML format' then we would not have this problem: none of it would look like 'support' in some sense like, 'These people all think OOXML is terrific', which is one possible reading at the moment. --Nigelj (talk) 21:02, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Frankly speaking, I'm having a tough time trying to understand your point here. All the organizations, individuals, governments and applications listed in this paragraph support this standard one way or the other, which means they generally support the usage/adoption/acceptance/etc of the standard. The criticism section does the opposite, which is absolutely fine. Aside from this, the analogous section on the OpenDocument article (Opendocument#Support_for_OpenDocument) contains a similar mixture of supporting companies, applications and organizations. Nobody has had any issues with that and I fail to understand why on earth do we need to apply double standards here again. Ghettoblaster (talk) 21:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You guys, all you seem to be interested in is competing with the ODF article! You don't think User:Scientus and others have had any issues here? I have an issue with this section, that's why I started this thread. --Nigelj (talk) 10:36, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Let me tell you something. I'm not competing at all. You might be suprised to learn that there are actually editors on Wikipedia who are indeed interested in getting the same level of quality and neutrality on both articles. I'm interested in improving this project because I honestly support free knowledge, free software, and free standards. If someone removed the support section from the ODF article, I'd be happy to be the first to restore it. If one article highlights notable sources of support, why should the other article not include this as well? Trying to remove it at all cost from one of them does not seem fair to me. Even if you don't like the existence of support for one of the standards, you have to admit that there is support for both of them out there. If one article lists notable applications that can work with that format, why shouldn't the other article include this as well? Editors like User:Scientus seem to have a special onesided demand for references for every obvious piece of information and gloat over fact tagging this article, but they never do this on the other article which they are also editing. A strange notion of improving Wikipedia. Why do people fight an endless edit war on getting the words free and open out of this article but never ask for references for this on any other free and open standard? These people should just admit that they are consciously applying double standards everytime they edit these articles in order to use Wikipedia as a tool that spreads their beloved point of view. They are not interested in improving this free and open encyclopedia at all. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. If you really have an issue with this section, tell me honestly whether you also have an issue with the corresponding section on ODF (Opendocument#Support_for_OpenDocument). If there are so many different definitions for open format that we can't be sure that all of them apply to OOXML, then how can we be sure that all of them apply to ODF? The sentence on the ODF article does not contain a single third party source to support this claim. Do you have an issue with that as well or are you applying double standards? Ghettoblaster (talk) 19:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It should be clear from what I wrote that I think the section conflates three meanings of the word "Support" (like a football team supporter, like a support agreement or supporting documentation, and like something that can open these filetypes). I suggest separating the three meanings into subsections. No-one has suggested removing the section. Please don't argue against a straw man, and keep to the facts: then we can all continue to improve this article - make it even better than ODF, maybe, so that they can come and learn from our clarity and good practice here. --Nigelj (talk) 11:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it's fine to have a section that lists people, organizations or entities that have stated publicly that they think adoption of OOXML is a Good Thing. But listing Sun, IBM or Google (who all have products that have some ability to read or write OOXML) in a way that can be read as stating that they have made such statements is Just Plain Ridiculous. --Alvestrand (talk) 11:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The wording in that section is clear enough. I do not see the problem. The kinds of support are all properly worded. hAl (talk) 12:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If you don't like the wording, then please go ahead and change and improve it, but don't remove the information altogether for no valid reason. This is unconstructive and one of the reasons for these edit wars. In my opinion the section was very clear, but I can try to come up with better wording and add the support information again. However, English is not my native language, so don't expect proper grammar from me. Ghettoblaster (talk) 20:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've tried to improve the wording by separating the "implementations that can read and write the format" from "people and organizations that encourage the use of the format". Is this an acceptable way to indicate the separation? --Alvestrand (talk) 15:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

It has not helped. user:Scientus keeps removing the information. The claim that his actions were related to the context was nonsense. The context has been changed to satisfaction of others but [[user::Scientus]] keeps destroying the article with his edits again removing the information discussed in this talk page section. hAl (talk) 17:41, 30 September 2009 (UTC)