[odf-discuss] OpenDocument traps, was: UPGRADE monograph about OpenDocument and OOXML

[M. Fioretti]

On Sun, Apr 01, 2007 13:07:37 PM +0200, Thomas Zander (zander at kde.org)
wrote:

> The bigger issue I have with your story is that this specific item
> does not give problems for long term storage of the content. For the
> simple reason that a patent is time limited.

One thing I forgot to answer to this comment is that there is no
absolute value of "long term" and that while *one* patent is time
limited, a software program and its file formats can be patent
protected for much longer times.

In most cases, "long term" is, say, 10 or 15 years. Only a few public
documents are actually needed for longer than that. Since that
interval is less than patent duration, it is "long term" enough to
stop accessibility to those files for all the time it was needed, and
to prevent migration to FOSS in the same time frame.

Secondly, all you have to do is to patent-protect MYOFFICE_2007 and
its file format for 5 years and ship it for 3 years: then in 2010
release MYOFFICE_2010 which can read the previous file format but has
another patent-protected file format which expires 3 years later, than
repeat the trick ad libitum...  The net effect is that yes, the
documents created this year _may_ become usable with FOSS when *their*
patent expire, but in the really long term there would *always* be a
large percentage of the most useful documents which are not accessible
due to patent problems.

Unless we stop as soon as possible the whole concept that a
proprietary file format in the office space makes any sense at all, of
course.

Thanks for helping me to clarify my points.

Marco.

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