[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: MS Word (.doc) file format
From:       Pau Garcia i Quiles <pgquiles () elpauer ! org>
Date:       2007-05-31 7:57:32
Message-ID: 20070531095732.2g0t0huzt40gso80 () www ! elpauer ! org
[Download RAW message or body]

Quoting Thomas Zander <zander@kde.org>:

> I have spoken with a Microsoft employee and he assured me that any person
> can contact Microsoft and request the full specification of the binary
> fileformat of MSOffice before 2007.
> I have not looked at the actual license, but the direct question if that
> person can use it to implement a loader in open source for an open source
> office suite was answered affirmative.  The only thing I found is not
> possible is that I can request it and then give it to other people. The
> license forbids that. The other people have to request the document from
> microsoft themselves.
>
> The document was almost 2 cm thick, on double sided A4. So a bit thicker
> as the 6000 pages OOXML spec ;)
>
> I gather from MS that they fully go for the new XML fileformat and
> therefor its not needed anymore to be closed about the previous
> fileformat.
>
> If someone has the inclination, this certainly is a nice opportunity.

What about patents and royalties? Giving away the spec to anyone is  
one thing, not asking for royalties is a different animal.

-- 
Pau Garcia i Quiles
http://www.elpauer.org
(Due to the amount of work, I usually need 10 days to answer)


_______________________________________________
koffice-devel mailing list
koffice-devel@kde.org
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/koffice-devel
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]