Why does Microsoft not provide the SUN conditions? Microsoft's origincal CNS was a parody of the SUN CNS which the SFLC experts heavily criticized. Instead of getting the CNS right, they came up with the OSP.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Updated_Microsoft_clarifies_its_promise_not_to_sue_for_OOXML/1203096360

So apparently they are reacting.

May I add some points on the OSP
- We don't know the scope
- Deeply rooted in US private law, questionable if its applicable under continental private law, i.e. on a worldwide scale
- Microsoft's OSP does not protect us against potential SUN's patents on OOXML etc.

I believe Microsoft should join forces with major competitors and let draft a comprehensive patent model draft by a neutral trusted party. Then all relevant competitors should opt in that patent model that would cover OOXML and ODF and possibly also all relevant applications of the spec. It is hard research to make it right. Microsoft didn't discuss their OSP openly but when we look at http://www.patentcommons.org/ you see how complicated and diverse the landscape of patent pledges is.

Brian Jones stresses that additionally
* Windows Compound Binary File Format Specification PDF
* Windows Metafile Format (.wmf) Specification PDF
* Ink Serialized Format (ISF) Specification PDF
are made public.

Stephane Rodriguez comments there:

I think Microsoft should be commended for making this information available.

With that said, the specs is still incomplete.

I first gave a cursory look at BIFF.

1) Missing records : examples are 0x00EF and 0x01BA, just off the top of my head.

2) No specification : example is the OBJ record for a Forms Combobox : containing a ftCblsData but this is undocumented :

ftCblsData (12h)

Offset Name Size Contents

0 ft 2 =ftCblsData (12h)

2 cb 2 Length of ftCblsData

4 (Reserved) var Reserved

See this "reserved" area above?

Then I gave a cursory look at the Office Drawing specs (i.e. MSO). And again, just a cursory look at it showed unspecified records.

Here is one example :

msofbtClientData (F011)

host-defined

host-specific data

Those "host-defined" elements are used by Excel to store very relevant bits. But this just remains undocumented.

Save the files before they move ;-)

Breakdown:
Word: 210
Excel97: 349
Excel2007: 369
OfficeDrawing: 176
PowerPoint: 118

Total: 1222 (almost 6 times smaller than OOXML)

Microsoft adds OOXML to its promise not to sue
By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews
February 15, 2008, 12:26 PM

You need to know that betanews is a kind of inofficial Microsoft press agency.

Microsoft moved today to place its Office Open XML document formats under its Open Specification Promise (OSP).

praises Betanews the vendor. Thus, the Betanews article implies an important aspect: Before today OOXML was not covered by the Open Specification Promise (OSP) contrary to other statements.

It was pointed out before that the OSP has an unclear scope, is not sub-licensable (=probably GPL incompatible) and is of questionable validity in legal systems of nations other than the United States. Microsoft does everything it can to contribute to market confidence:

"We leave it to those implementing these technologies to understand the legal environments in which they operate. This includes people operating in a GPL environment."

The news we expected today from Microsoft was the public release of the Office binary specification under the OSP instead of the convenant not to sue. Public would mean that you don't need to individually request for it anymore. At least they announced it for today. We will keep you updated.