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BRM Resolution 23: Thou Shalt Use Patent-Encumbered MP3 with OOXML

By Pamela Jones et al.

There are two more documents from the BRM meeting available now on Alex Brown's blog:

http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/ open/0989_reference_docs.zip

http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/ sc34/open/09891.pdf [PDF]

If you open the zip file and look at the document titled PT-62A2.doc and put it next to the Resolutions document [text], specifically Resolution 23, I think you'll find that they say, put together, that any applications wishing interoperability with OOXML in sound must use MP3. This is non-free, being patent-encumbered. If you go to Audiopeg.com, it tells us, "Audio MPEG is protected by a portfolio of patents covering a large number of countries." Therefore, by my reading, the proposed spec can't be implemented in free software and in a backhanded way, the GPL has just been exiled again. What kind of standard is OOXML if the GPL, which is what Linux is licensed under, can't freely interoperate? FOSS is a new factor that standards bodies simply must consider. It's not like the old, proprietary days, when it was like a club, and everybody had similar business plans.

Full post as published by Groklaw on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).