Thursday Microsoft promised “greater transparency” in its development and business practices. At least partially motivated by an antitrust case against Microsoft in the EU, it seems to suggest that the company is finally recognizing the impact that open source and open standards have had on the IT industry. Some see this as possibly the end of Microsoft’s patent threats against Linux.
Microsoft said it is implementing four new interoperability initiatives. These really seem to be huge moves for Microsoft.
- Microsoft will publish more than 30,000 pages of documentation for
Windows protocols that used to be available only
under a license. - Microsoft is promising not to sue open-source developers for development and non-commercial distribution of applications using Microsoft protocols. But if you intend to distribute commercial applications using these protocols, you need to get a license from Microsoft.
- Microsoft promised to create new APIs for Word, Excel and PowerPoint so developers can add other document formats and users will be able to set these formats as their default.
- Microsoft will use a new Open Source Interoperability Initiative to provide resources to the community for cooperative development. Microsoft says it is seeking a dialogue with customers, developers and open-source communities via an online Interoperability Forum.
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