[odf-discuss] On covenants

[Alex Hudson]

Thomas Zander wrote:
> Well, you just proved my point.
>
> You assume that there are patents you _have_ to infringe upon to 
> implement the spec. There is no real reason for you to think this apart 
> from the fact that MS tells you its needed.

It's not Microsoft telling me that there are patents on the format; I
believe Thomas Zander
<http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice-devel&m=115313705121134&w=2>:

    "there are still patents on the fileformat itself"


I'm sorry, that's a really trite response :->, so to put it another way:
software patents are a sufficiently complex area that I'm not willing to
assume that Microsoft *don't* have patents that cover this type of software.

I think this is a separate argument to the one Marbux is making about
the intelligibility of the CNS, too.

-- 
Alex Hudson
IT Director, Stratagia Ltd.
P: 0845 226 17 13     W: http://www.stratagia.co.uk/
F: 0845 226 17 14     E: alex (at) stratagia.co.uk