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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => General Internet News => Topic started by: dreamcast270mhz on December 22, 2009, 11:29:24 PM
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"Office workers of America, enjoy your Christmas break. Because come the new year, things could get a little hairy around the office. Microsoft Word is now scheduled to be prohibited from sale beginning January 11, 2010. That's less than three weeks away. The good news: Microsoft has promised a fix, one which will be rolled out before the deadline arrives.
If you don't understand, you might have simply missed this story, or dismissed it as something that Microsoft would ultimately use its considerable clout to have pushed under a legal rug.
But it's no joke. In August of this year, a court sided with a small Canadian company called i4i that holds a 1998 patent on the way the XML language is implemented, finding that Microsoft was in violation of that patent. The result: Microsoft was told to license the code in question from i4i or reprogram it, or else Microsoft Word would have to be removed from sale in the market. The original ruling gave Microsoft until October to get its legal affairs in order, but appeals pushed that out a bit.
Now a federal court has upheld that original ruling -- plus a fat, $290 million judgment against the company -- imposing the new January 11 D-Day on the matter. Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office will both be barred from sale as of that date -- though naturally you'll still be able to use copies of Word and Office that you already own, and Microsoft will be allowed to keep supporting those copies."
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/158160 basically, a court ruled they can't use XML language. They have 3 weeks to release a "fix" or its gone for good.
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YAY! FinalWriter will make a comeback! lol..
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Death by 1000 cuts
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Apparently the offending code reads and saves DOCX files, maybe old Amiga word processors will get a second life....
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What is concerning to me is what exactly was MS getting sued for?
Was it the entire use of XML in their new Word document format(finally opening up the format for others) which would effectively put every IT company at peril, or was it a particular implementation or customisation that they objected to?
There's a lurking danger that MS wont be the last company to be sued, and this could effect the little guy as much as the big guy.
Is this going to be become the debacle that was the GIF format?
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The court document is http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/pdfs/JudgesRulingOnAppeal.pdf?tag=mncol;txt (http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/ne/pdfs/JudgesRulingOnAppeal.pdf?tag=mncol;txt)
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What is concerning to me is what exactly was MS getting sued for?
Was it the entire use of XML in their new Word document format(finally opening up the format for others) which would effectively put every IT company at peril, or was it a particular implementation or customisation that they objected to?
No, it seems to only concern the "custom XML" feature of MS Word. (http://gcn.com/articles/2009/08/17/federal-future-microsoft-word-uncertain.aspx)
greets,
Staf.
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As someone who still uses Office 2003 and is unaffected by this ruling, it is just business as usual.
I wonder what the chances of convincing the IT department to install WinUAE on the office machines and instructing everyone to use Wordworth are? ;)
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When I use MS Word, which is less and less since I discovered Pages, I always save in docx, does this mean my files will be made unreadable in some future update? Is it DocX in general or some specific part of DocX?
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Microsoft is not going to let a cash cow revenue producing app like office or word stop selling. They will pay off this other company, or buy the whole company, as they have done things like that in the past.
Microsoft has bought whole companies just to get one little piece of tech, or prevent a serious market competitor from competing with them.
They will not allow word to get shelfed, they will pay the people off and move on... thats what they do. Personally, I don't see why anyone would buy word or office because of openoffice now, but hey... thats just me.
Steven
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Microsoft is not going to let a cash cow revenue producing app like office or word stop selling. They will pay off this other company, or buy the whole company, as they have done things like that in the past.
If company isn't public, it is impossible to buy it. It's a private property. And if I was an owner, by seeing these figures already (300M fined)... I would play poker with MS. They can be really in trouble.
Saving docx format can be worth 1 B$, who knows...
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"Office workers of America, enjoy your Christmas break. Because come the new year, things could get a little hairy around the office. Microsoft Word is now scheduled to be prohibited from sale beginning January 11, 2010. That's less than three weeks away. The good news: Microsoft has promised a fix, one which will be rolled out before the deadline arrives.
If you don't understand, you might have simply missed this story, or dismissed it as something that Microsoft would ultimately use its considerable clout to have pushed under a legal rug.
But it's no joke. In August of this year, a court sided with a small Canadian company called i4i that holds a 1998 patent on the way the XML language is implemented, finding that Microsoft was in violation of that patent. The result: Microsoft was told to license the code in question from i4i or reprogram it, or else Microsoft Word would have to be removed from sale in the market. The original ruling gave Microsoft until October to get its legal affairs in order, but appeals pushed that out a bit.
Now a federal court has upheld that original ruling -- plus a fat, $290 million judgment against the company -- imposing the new January 11 D-Day on the matter. Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office will both be barred from sale as of that date -- though naturally you'll still be able to use copies of Word and Office that you already own, and Microsoft will be allowed to keep supporting those copies."
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/158160 basically, a court ruled they can't use XML language. They have 3 weeks to release a "fix" or its gone for good.
Since October 2009, Microsoft hasl remove "Custom XML functionality" from Office 2007 and it doesn't ship with Office 2010. Custom XML is the support for custom-defined schemas. It enables integration of documents with business processes and business data.
http://www.askwoody.com/2009/custom-xml-demise-office-2007-2/
Such outcome may also affect OpenOffice.
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Yeah, well I think if it does, that'll be okay because MS losing a cash cow would be glorious
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In the end they'll remove the offending code and carry on, they've got a virtual monopoly on the WP business, it doesn't matter. I've stopped using MS Word in favour of Pages, but that's one person out of millions....
Yeah, well I think if it does, that'll be okay because MS losing a cash cow would be glorious
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**cough** Open office.....
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@persia
We abandoned Word for Pages as well. We also use cool applications like PageStream.
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Hi,
@Persia and Pyromania,
Never heard of Pages, is this freeware for the PC?
I don't use Word either, I use either Open Office (Primary) or Final Copy II on my Amiga 4000.
smerf
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Hi,
@Persia and Pyromania,
Never heard of Pages, is this freeware for the PC?
I don't use Word either, I use either Open Office (Primary) or Final Copy II on my Amiga 4000.
smerf
Pages is Mac OS X only and is part of the iWork suite. Final Copy II is older but still cool and brings back fond memories.
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*rant mode on* sorry you may skip my post :)
I would like to know exactly why the courts didn't rule every copy of the offending version of Word be recalled and the purchaser refunded (including bundles of MS Office).
Now that would give me faith in the US legal system, the amount of crap MS have got away with is ridiculous and they should have been smashed to pieces decades ago and forced to break up into separate companies for Xbox/MS Office/Server market/Desktop OS with forced litigation if ANY kind of cross financial benefit was transferred between the two departments.
I guess making the IRS swell with MS tax dollars is more important than justice. A hollow victory at best....the right thing to do was force a complete and utter recal just like when Nintendo sued Rainbow Arts over Great Gianna sisters, allowing copyright infringing code to remain out their is pathetic, and shows just how lenient the courts are.
I hope the EU take this a step further and require MS to refund every purchaser, and pay for shipping to return their crap.....and then force Microsoft to advertise Open Office on their product packaging as a free alternative and donate programmers from MS to help Open Office compatibility.
Time the world courts grew a pair and dealt MS the beating with the shitty end of the stick they so deserved since 1985 with Windows v1 if you ask me.
lol