Jean Paoli and Brian Jones: More on Office Open File Formats

I've been looking at exactly those cases.  The Microsoft Office XML Reference Schemas license (the one proposed for the new formats too) does not permit derivative works.  Also, the royalty-free patent license works only for the portions of programs that read and write files that conform precisely to those schemas.

That's not the end of the world, but it is probably why the wording of the FAQ/Q&A response is a little uh, indirect. 

Basically, you can not envelop these schemas in an Open-Source Definition compatible license because that would violate the Microsoft license.  You can (and must) segregate the Microsoft material in a way where there is no license confusion, sort of like treating them as redistributables that can only be redistributed under their own licenses but are employed in works that have broader (that is, OSD-compliant) licenses for the added-value parts.

That's not a unique situation. I go into this more elaborately in my analysis of the Copyright part of these licenses on my blog.

Thinking about it a little more, this should be done even when same-license materials having different authors (that is, copyright holders) are comingled.  You need to know who the several copyright holders are in case there is a question or desire to negotiate a special license.

I replied and then I watched the Channel 9 video.

After the discussion on the video, I realized that it is a bit more complicated.  The pieces of open-sourced code that accomplish the reading and writing in conformance with the schema (isolated in an object of some kind, let us hope), must provide attribution to the royalty-free license.  I think I would segregate that code too, because anyone who modifies it must either preserve the license-required conditions or remove the license statement and not use the code to access the Microsoft format. 

I would use that arrangement because I would not want anyone who used an open-source offering of mine to get into difficulty and find themselves in infringement because the license conditions were not preserved in their derivative work.  (I have a summary of the conditions in a follow-up on my blog.  Notice that exactly the same thing must be done in using the OASIS OpenDocument formats and schemas.  Although Sun Microsystems does not require an acknowledgment of the license, I would make sure to put something in about that to protect downstream developers in the same way.)

With luck, we're talking about pieces that someone would either use intact (apart from fixes) or would replace completely in making a derivative work of the open-source portions.

I am delighted to see this Channel 9 presentation.  I share Jean Paoli's vision for the accessibility of cultural, social, and historical artifacts in open formats.  That's the real big deal here. 

It is great to be given an opportunity to be acquainted with him in this way, along with Brian and his enthusiasm for all of the heavy lifting that it takes to deal with the real complexity of a few billion legacy documents.

I have taken a more-careful stroll through the open-source combination case, and added a further blog entry about it. 

Sometimes I think I am making the situation murkier rather than adding any clarification.  We'll see how that sits after I've been away from it and maybe get some feedback.  Meanwhile, it has been an useful way to play hookie from my studies while convalescing a little.