Microsofts Strategy Changes Announcment for Open Source Soft. Interoperability Issues

[Krazy_About_Technology]

Hey Guys,

Today I got the February 2008 issue of Microsoft At a Glance newsletter which had link for this exciting announcement about change in Microsoft's strategy to ensure better interoperability with Open Source Software and provide better means for non-commercial as well as commercial developers to create open source applications that have high level of interoperability with Microsoft's "High Volume Software" (includes Windows and Office i Guess ).

To summarize, Microsoft is making changes to its strategies in 4 ways:-

1. They will document all of the APIs and communication protocols that are used by other Microsoft products. Developers will not need to take a license, or pay a royalty, or other fee to access any of that information. As an immediate first step to apply the principles they've published to the Web over 30,000 pages of documentation for Windows client and server protocols that were previously available only under a 4D trade secret license. In addition, protocol documents for additional products like Office 2007 will be published in the upcoming months. This, however, is not true for commercial developers and companies. They'll have to take liscences if they want to use any of these patented technologies in their commercial products, even if they obtained it as a freely developed implementation. This will be available at reasonable royalty fee.

2. In the area of data portability, They've announced that they're designing new APIs for Word, Excel and PowerPoint that will allow developers to plug in additional document formats, and enable users to set those formats as their default for saving documents.

3. In the area of standards, Microsoft is also going to document how they support various standards, including documentation of extensions they make to the standards. This should allow developers to understand how a standard is used in a Microsoft product and provide improved interoperability in their products.

4. Lastly, In the area of industry engagement, They set out some years ago to form an interoperability executive council, which has been incredibly valuable in terms of input to them on important interoperability needs, but they'll also launch, what they're calling their open source interoperability initiatives. This will provide a set of labs, plug-fests, technical contents, and other information to promote more interoperability between Microsoft software and open source software. They'll also create an ongoing dialogue with customers and developers, as well as open source software communities, through an online interoperability forum available much more broadly than their interoperability executive council.

The full transcript of the press release can be read here. Audio recording of this transcript is available here (mms streaming format).

So all in all, this seems to me like a nice step forward into this direction. What do you guys think? Only healthy comments are welcome .

[mind021]

nice thread started dude...
looking forward how it proceeds

[gxsaurav]

Originally Posted by Krazy_About_Technology

1. They will document all of the APIs and communication protocols that are used by other Microsoft products

Means Windows Live Messenger support in Pidgin better then right now including proper file transfer, webcam & voice chat.

Office XML file format support in OOO.

i am in.....

2. In the area of data portability, They've announced that they're designing new APIs for Word, Excel and PowerPoint that will allow developers to plug in additional document formats, and enable users to set those formats as their default for saving documents.

This is already available.

[The Conqueror]

Good news

[Krazy_About_Technology]

Originally Posted by gx_saurav

Means Windows Live Messenger support in Pidgin better then right now including proper file transfer, webcam & voice chat.

Cant say about Live Messenger is in their "High Volume Products" list or not. But lets hope for good

Originally Posted by gx_saurav

Office XML file format support in OOO.

Open XML is another issue thats under progress for standardization. A reporter asked about it too. (BTW have you read or listened to the full press release ? ).

Originally Posted by gx_saurav

i am in.....

Mee too

Originally Posted by gx_saurav

This is already available.

Hmm.. Are you sure... that one can define their own formats and then plug them in the ms office environment and user can select them as their default saving format? i dont think so, but i would like to know about it. And then why they will announce it again?

[MetalheadGautham]

does anyone know the patent status of M$OXML ? I hear that its supposed to be an open standard ?

and this news is good, as I can now communicate with my poorer friends(who lack brain power) who are stuck with and know to use nothing ecept MSN Messenger. And Once Yahoo is bought by M$, we can easily communicate with lots of people.

[Voldy]

Nice one dude
thanks for the info

[blueshift]

This will make MS more better!