Preparing to convince to shift to non-propriety documents formats

[Oron Peled]

On Monday, 20 בFebruary 2012 17:24:20 Nadav Har'El wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 20, 2012, Dotan Cohen wrote about "Re: Preparing to convince to 
shift to non-propriety documents formats":
> > Here are the pre-2007 formats:
> > http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381461.aspx
> > 
> > And here are the current versions:
> > http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc313118.aspx
> 
> Amazing. These didn't exist previously!

MS "released" them few years ago as part of their OOXML plot.
This context would explain the rest.

> It appears that people may legally use these documents, and even copy
> them.

Oops, be carefull here. I just looked at one of them (Excel 97-2007)
and the first sentence on the first page (after the cover page) says:
  "This specification is provided under the Microsoft Open
   Specification Promise." (link to MS OSP)

If this doesn't ring a bell, have a look at what lawyers (not paid by MS)
had to say about this:
   http://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/osp-gpl.html
      "...Irrevocable but Only for Now..."
      "...The OSP Covers Specifications, Not Code..."

> So, I guess there's no reason to say any more that these formats are
> undocumented.

Not really, unless "I'll tell you my secrets and then sue you" is some
new documentation format ;-)

-- 
Oron Peled                                 Voice: +972-4-8228492
oron at actcom.co.il                  http://users.actcom.co.il/~oron
"Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability."
                        -- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra