Microsoft's open specification promise
Yesterday, Microsoft
announced an
"irrevocable promise not to assert" for 35 web services-related
specifications (as far as I can tell all of the WS-* specifications that the company has contributed to), ranging from SOAP, WSDL, WS-Security through to WS-Management, WS-Trust and the
web SSO specifications developed with Sun. What this basically means is that Microsoft will not enforce its rights to any of the patents associated with the specifications. The commitment extends beyond technology developers and vendors through to the ultimate users of the technology.
I first came across the news on the
Identity Gang mailing list, where the response has been universally positive. I have previously highlighted the significant amount of open source
activity in the world of identity, including a possible implementation of Microsoft's CardSpace - via the
OSIS project. I said when OSIS and the related Heraldry project first reared their heads
Obviously, it is still very early stages for both Heraldry and OSIS (not least because the intellectual property issues need to ironed out!) but this is a good startYesterday's announcement from Microsoft gets the ironing board out and begins the pressing, which explains the positive response. It seems pretty clear that Microsoft's identity architect
Kim Cameron, who has been working so closely with the identity community, has played a significant role in this. Kim is an engaging and persuasive orator and these skills have undoubtedly been put to effective use in persuading the (multiple) powers that be in Microsoft to get to this point. (As an aside, take a look at
this post from Doc Searls - another driving force behind the open, collaborative work going on in the identity space which has been acknowledged with his fellowship at the
Berkman Center for Internet and Society - for this great description of Microsoft:
a legal department traveling as a software company).
I am not qualified to comment on the detailed legal aspects of Microsoft's promise. But that's the beauty of the blogosphere: there are others out there who are. I often find myself turning to
Andy Updegrove, over at the
ConsortiumInfo.org blog, on occasions such as this. Once again, Andy has a digestible and comprehensive
analysis, which concludes:
I think that this move should be greeted with approval, and that Microsoft deserves to be congratulated for this action. I hope that the standards affected will only be the first of many that Microsoft, and hopefully other patent owners as well, benefit with similar pledges.Andy also points out that IBM (and BEA) have proposed many if not all of these specifications and so I am looking forward to seeing what
Bob Sutor, IBM's VP of Standards and Open Source has to say.
The specifications have far broader applicability than just identity - SOA, IT service management etc etc. The promise is thus good news for organisations embarking on a wide variety of IT initiatives. It should allow for greater open source innovation and also help to allay some of the concerns about the adoption of open source so allowing organisations to actually benefit from that innovation.
