Microsoft: Open Standards Are Good... If They're The Open Standards We Get Paid For

from the but-of-course dept

Wed, Apr 18th 2012 8:17am — Mike Masnick

Our own Glyn Moody has been doing some digging and has come up with some interesting info about how Microsoft has been trying to derail an effort in the UK by the government to use open, royalty free standards wherever possible. Microsoft, apparently went on the offensive, arguing strongly that the government should reconsider and also include FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licenses. FRAND is better than nothing, but it's not royalty free, and can certainly limit access to information for those who cannot afford to pay. But what's impressive is how much Microsoft tries to demonize royalty free offerings -- even as it admits in its initial letter than it contributes to "dozens" of royalty free standards.

Moody also notes that Microsoft is misleading in trying to show just how popular FRAND is in open standards when it comes to software:

In a further attempt to downplay RF standards, the letter claims:
one recent study found that a typical laptop contains over 250 technical interoperability standards - with 75% of these being developed under FRAND terms, and only 23% under Royalty Free terms.
But when we look at the study itself, this is what we find:
we created a set of broad categories - display, graphics, sound, storage, BIOS, input device, processor, power, file system, networking, wireless, I/O ports, memory, software, codecs, content protection, security and “other” - and sought relevant standards.
As this makes clear, those "250 technical interoperability standards" were mostly about hardware interoperability. Of the purely software standards a far greater proportion were in fact made available under RF terms. Even more interesting, those RF-licensed standards included many of the absolutely core ones like HTML5, HTTP and HTTPS.

In other words, when it comes to software, the royalty free stuff is the core software that's used to power much of the internet itself. But Microsoft goes on to suggest that royalty free software is somehow limiting, mainly by highlighting some confusion people have had with the open document format. It's the typical Microsoft play: spread FUD to try to push people to its (more costly) solutions. Apparently competing on the merits is just too difficult.

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Filed Under: frand, fud, glyn moody, open standards, royalties
Companies: microsoft

36 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:23am

the UK is just a bunch of freetards
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- The eejit (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:47am
  
  Re:
  Says the guy stealing the mask of Guy Fawkes.
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blaktron (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:24am

Right. RF standards are the old ones (TCP for example). The FRAND standards used include MPEG, FAT, 802.11, x86 etc. Find me a processor architecture that is royalty free, and then start talking.
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- crade (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:43am
  
  Re:
  Obviously we would want to use open standards when possible.
  Paying to be allowed to follow someone's standard or other rules is a stupid idea and should only ever be considered if circumstance have you trapped.
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  - blaktron (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 10:01am
    
    Re: Re:
    Why? What if an open standard ends up costing more than a closed one (which they frequently do). This is the same open-source vs closed-source software debate, where each has its advantages and disadvantages, but blanket decisions to use one or the other are ALWAYS wrong. The best tool for the job should be used, not the one that 'feels best'.
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    - crade (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 10:34am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      It's not quite the same discussion, standards aren't software, they are rules. Charging a tax on following the rules means people will only follow them if they are otherwise pressured into doing so somehow which is not what you want when you are trying to standardize. You want people to want to follow the standard, not to be deterred.
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    - Rich Kulawiec, 18 Apr 2012 @ 11:04am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      I don't agree. Closed-source software is inherently unethical, insecure and intellectually dishonest. But that's a much longer and different debate than the one over open formats.
      
      (Let me pause to note that the entire Internet is built on open standards, open protocols, open formats, and open source. Those are key factors at to why it's the most successful computing project ever by an enormous margin.)
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      - LDoBe, 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:20pm
        
        IPX/SPX
        That reminds me of the cisco ipx format. I learned about it in a network class, and was told that I would never see it outside the classroom. I came across it a few days ago. It was being used as a "security measure" to transmit patient data from an mri computer onsite to another hospital over a leased line setup when they first bought the machine years ago. The idea was that nobody used ipx, so it was secure from packet inspection. That's what the oldtimer network guy said at least.
        
        It's unsupported. God help the tech who has to deal with the outage when the lease line operator changes out a switch or router that's incompatible
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    - techflaws.org (profile), 19 Apr 2012 @ 2:36am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      What if an open standard ends up costing more than a closed one (which they frequently do)
      
      [citation needed]
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2012 @ 9:03am
  
  Re:
  OpenSPARC?
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Open_microprocessors
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2012 @ 9:16am
  
  Re:
  OpenRISC ?
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- Richard (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 10:45am
  
  Re:
  Find me a processor architecture that is royalty free, and then start talking.
  
  According to Wikipedia Itanium and SPARC are open and royalty free.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:26am

FRAND-lexic?
Did anybody else read FRAND as FRAUD at first glance?

I know I sure did...
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- TtfnJohn (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:41am
  
  Re: FRAND-lexic?
  Yup. Seeing the name Microsoft followed closely by a five letter word beginning with F will often get that response because the two are so closely linked. At times it's a bit difficult to tell MS's FUD from fraud as what happens when a customer switches from IIS to Linux or BSD and suddenly gets all these messages from MS about how hard it is to set all this non-microsoft stuff up, how poorly it's supported, that it's stuffed with "old" technology and so on. Which is then repeated by trolls on sites like this as gospel truth. The same trolls who, on other subjects call us "freetards" and other labels.
  
  I'm getting a tshirt whipped up that says "I'm a freetard and PROUD with the Linux penguin on the lower left of the quote and the BSD devil on the upper right". Might as well go public!
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  - :Lobo Santo (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:44am
    
    Re: Re: FRAND-lexic?
    I always figured this pic would be pretty cool for a Linux tshirt...
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    - TtfnJohn (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 10:19am
      
      Re: Re: Re: FRAND-lexic?
      That one's very cool :)
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- Lowestofthekeys (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:42am
  
  Re: FRAND-lexic?
  It's the subconscious association it has with Microsoft in this article
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ashley sheridan, 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:31am

I got involved in a debate with a friend about open formats a few years back when Microsoft announced their Office Open XML format, the naming of which is remarkably similar to Open Office and their sponsered format Open Document Format. He was adamant that the Microsoft way was better because it was ISO certified (despite there being some dubious irregularities about how they got that at the time)
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2012 @ 9:10am
  
  Re:
  Tell your friend he is an idiot ISO certified means they fallow very broad often forgiven GUIDELINES, being ISO certified is not the same thing as completely and absolutely compatible or problem free.
  
  Doubt?
  
  Read what is required to achieve ISO certification for anything and what you see is that they talk about processes but nowhere they tell you how you should implement those and as long as the processes are there you are ISO worthy even if the processes don't work. Which makes sense why choose one or two ways of doing things but there is no requirement in ISO to test or verify the methods ISO only requires that you have the processes in place and it doesn't bother to see if they work or not.
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- techflaws.org (profile), 19 Apr 2012 @ 2:39am
  
  Re:
  And what did he say about the fact that ODF was ISO certified before that (which by it's own rules would actually forbid ISO to adopt a competing standard)?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:44am

and just how is Microsuck supposed to compete with free?
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- crade (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:51am
  
  Re:
  Marketting and bogus lawsuits as usual.
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Mr. Smarta** (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:51am

Closed good. Open bad. OPEN BAD!
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:58am
  
  Re:
  Competition good. 99% market share better.
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Rich Kulawiec, 18 Apr 2012 @ 8:52am

If your data isn't in an open format...
..then it's not YOUR data.

(By "open" I mean "free", in case that's not clear.)
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lexieliberty (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 9:02am

Oligopoly righteous, Capitalism sin.
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Albe23 (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 9:13am

How?
How does Microsoft have such awesome engineers that are passionate for tech, yet has increadibly heavy handed/out of touch people calling the shots.
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- Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2012 @ 10:02am
  
  Re: How?
  Isnt that just about every company that exists for more than 10 years?
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- The eejit (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 11:13am
  
  Re: How?
  ONly idiotd and sociopaths fail upwards. Anyone competent is staying right where they are.
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- TtfnJohn (profile), 19 Apr 2012 @ 4:42pm
  
  Re: How?
  The illness MS suffers from is called "Steve Ballmer Syndrome" complete with airborne office chairs :)
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Apr 2012 @ 11:07am

Microsoft is not able to compete on the merits, ever.
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terry (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 1:04pm

Microsoft is dying a slow painful death
I think I'll close my eyes and just ask are they gone yet?
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techflaws.org (profile), 19 Apr 2012 @ 2:43am

Microsoft goes on to suggest that royalty free software is somehow limiting, mainly by highlighting some confusion people have had with the open document format.

Which of course was their plan when they named their crappy format "Office Open XML".
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- techflaws.org (profile), 19 Apr 2012 @ 2:45am
  
  Re:
  BTW, you must read this letter in which Congressman Villanueva rips the General Manager's of Microsoft Per� arguments against open solutions to shreds. Best rebuttal of their sales pitch bullshit ever!
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  - Anonymous Coward, 19 Apr 2012 @ 8:31am
    
    Re: Re:
    Thanks for linking to that. It was incredibly good and well written.
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nka2, 21 Jun 2013 @ 1:32am

SERIOUS case
It's not quite the same discussion, standards aren't software, they are rules. Charging a tax on following the rules means people will only follow them if they are otherwise pressured into doing so somehow which is not what you want when you are trying to standardize. You want people to want to follow the standard, not to be deterred.
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