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SFLC Analysis of Microsoft's OSP: No Assurance for Developers

By Pamela Jones et al.

This is a significant development. The Software Freedom Law Center has now published an analysis of Microsoft's Open Specification Promise that it attaches to OOXML, and it finds that the promise provides no assurance for FOSS developers. One reason is because it can be revoked for future versions of specifications. It's also inconsistent with the GPL and other Free Software licenses, and the promise is limited in scope, SFLC states. Hence, SFLC urges that OOXML not be approved as an ISO standard. It also "cautions GPL implementers not to rely on the OSP." It's not that the OSP is incompatible with the GPL in the sense that the terms and the GPL's terms directly conflict. It's that the OSP is inconsistent with the freedoms that the GPL guarantees.

The part about the promise's limitation is particularly interesting:

The OSP covers any of the Covered Specifications, and Microsoft's promise applies to "full or partial implementation," according to its FAQ, but Microsoft also states:

The OSP does not apply to any work that you do beyond the scope of the covered specification(s).

This statement clarifies the qualification in the very first sentence of the OSP that the promise applies only "to the extent it conforms to a Covered Specification." The OSP will apply to implementations of the specifications, but only to the extent that such code is used to implement the specification. Any code that implements the specification may also do other things in other contexts, so in effect the OSP does not cover any actual code, only some uses of code. Free software is software that all users have a right to copy, modify and redistribute, and as Microsoft points out in the OSP, there is no sublicensing of rights under it. So any code written in reliance on the OSP is covered by the promise only so long as it is not copied into a program that does something other than implement the specification. This is true even if the code has not otherwise been modified, and code that conforms to the specification cannot be modified if the resulting modified code does not conform. Therefore the OSP doesn't permit free software implementation: it permits implementation under free software licenses so long as the resulting code isn't used freely.

In other words, I read that as saying that Microsoft says you can use it, but only in a very limited field of use defined by Microsoft, and only as long as you don't use it the way Microsoft knows FOSS developers use code. Like their lawyers didn't realize. Hardy har.

So, if and when Microsoft/Ecma/supporters try to tell you NBs any different, now you have this paper to rely upon. Please ask yourselves, if FOSS developers can't use OOXML, in what way can it be called a standard? A standard Microsoft's number one competition can't safely use?

Full post as published by Groklaw on March 12, 2008 (boomark / email).