Office 2007 UI License 281
MikeWeller writes, "Microsoft has recently announced a new licensing program for the Office 2007 user interface. This page links to the license and an MSDN Channel9 interview about the program (featuring a lawyer). The program 'allows virtually anyone to obtain a royalty-free license to use the new Office UI in a software product. There's only one limitation: if you are building a program which directly competes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, or Access (the Microsoft applications with the new UI), you can't obtain the royalty-free license.' What does this mean for OpenOffice? Will traditional menus/toolbars hold up to an ever-increasing number of features, or will OO be forced to take on a new UI paradigm? With the gap between OO and MS Office widening, how is this going to affect users trying to move between the two platforms?" You need to sign the license before you can get the 120-page UI implementation guidelines, which are confidential.
Fair enough (Score:2, Insightful)
so, what this seems to say (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what this seems to say: Microsoft will allow anybody and everybody to plant their seed (the ribbon UI), to start the viral/grassroots campaign to their way of doing things. Unless and until it conflicts with their existing products.
It's royalty free... translation: Microsoft gets a free ad campaign. But for those who may not be familiar with the company Microsoft, Microsoft is not likely to be friendly about anyone using their UI on any product down the road they decide should be protected.
So are these the dying rattle breaths of a behemoth unable to compete today? Or is it one more salvo (consider Ballmer and his innuendo about Microsoft's Novell-Linux pact) in a war to control even more tightly the computing business world?
Ingenuity (Score:5, Insightful)
The Gap (Score:3, Insightful)
Well this is an interesting statement full of subjective possibility. I could probably argue a half dozen different interpretations.
The myth of Windows GUI consistency. (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows has just as little GUI consistency as X. This new Office interface totally deviates from anything they've done in the past. The IE7 interface is completely different, as well. It used to just be that it was certain apps, like iTunes and WinAmp, that used their own stylings. But with Microsoft's new GUIs, user interface consistency has become a thing of the past on Windows.
I wonder if we'll still hear such Windows advocates use the point that most Windows applications tend to use a consistent interface style. If they do, we can surely shoot their sorry asses down. As it stands, the only platform offering consistent UIs is Mac OS X. Otherwise, Windows has become just as much of a hodge-podge of different appearances and UI layouts as a typical X installation.
Re:Ha-ha! (Score:2, Insightful)
Did they? I seem to recall that the majority of reviews (I have read) actually thought the ribbon was a bad idea, until they tried it - at which point they thought it a great enhancement in managing the function bloat.
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:4, Insightful)
Couldn't have said it better myself. This is Microsoft's way of trying to get a 'unique new interface' rolled out as rapidly as possible. If you're not using this 'unique new interface' then you know you're behind the time - hell, knowing Microsoft products, it also means you're probably about to be EOL [microsoft.com]'d!
"Dude, You're still using XP with those crappy flat menus.... wow..."
I genuinely hope that the public don't buy this latest round of Msft. bullsh-t, Office 2003 is still perfectly capable, why should users be forced to upgrade?
*sigh*
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of stupid to offer development tools and then restrict developers, especially if you're interested in convincing people that you're not using your monopoly improperly. It looks bad. But I gotta ask, why on Earth should open source developers care?
Do you want to be in Microsoft's shadow? Are you an "almost as good" substitute for MS, or are you actually better? Do you have origional ideas?
AMD didn't get where it is now by continuing to copy Intel. It got here by at some point realizing it could do better. Intel ended up following them. If you want to look, act and be just like Microsoft, then you should be upset over this. If you want to look and act like something better, then this is just a good reminder that that is your goal.
TW
So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course I didn't RTFA, but considering that OO.o is a) multiplatform, b) open source, and c) doing fine as it is, I'd imagine the folks at OO.o will be filing this under D for Don't Give A Shit.
Seriously - would you lose any sleep because MS won't give you a new toy? Even if OO.o wanted it, and even if MS gave them it, they probably couldn't use it because it'll probably be Vista- (or at least Windows-)only.
And seeing as most critics have slammed the new MS Office UI as being generally awful, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that OO.o's similarity to the "old" MS Office UI might pick them up a few users.
C
Compatibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Office for the most part has had a good UI. It has served people well over the years with millions of people getting used to it and being productive with it. Copying the interface and features of Office is a good way to get people to switch (Hey, it's free and it does the same thing, cool!).
But in the end I think all this "we can do that too" mentality ends up stifling free software. While I applaud the efforts of OO and am grateful for it's inclusion in modern distros I would also love to see them wake up one day and deceide they were going to take a "and now for something completely different" approach. Forget chasing the MS UI. Come up with your own, or stick to the one that's in there already and work on optimizing OO's use of resources. Create more filters for different file formats. Expand on the scripting capabilities to make OO a better tool for office automation. The UI is fine the way it is! Tweak it, yeah, but redo it to make it look like MS every few years? Screw that!
I understand why they do it but watching the OO team spend the next few years implementing knock offs of ribbons only to see these supplanted by some new inane concept in Office 2010 just seems like a waste to me.
what what what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Brain explodes.
What gap ? (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean Microsoft Office 2007 is so much worse than OpenOffice.org 2.0 and Microsoft Office 2003 ?
It still doesn't number paragraphs (1.1, 1.2) or update references automatically whitout dirty hacks ?
It still retains locks on directories when closed ?
It still somehow corrupt your document once in a while (*) ?
...
(*) Last month I needed to save the document as an XML document because saving it as
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, the strong implication in this is that Microsoft has defensible intellectual property underlying the Office 2007 UI. It wouldn't surprise me to find that there are a bunch of patents involved. So
Re:I think the courts have made it pretty clear (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't about (AFAICT, and I'm not clicking through their legal stuff from work) "copying", it's about the licensing terms for their library. Which, for the benefit of the "dying rattle breaths of a behemoth unable to compete today" guy, are the same terms they've always used.
Re:Compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)
Of the 500 or so users who work for my customers, only two individuals use any of the "advanced" features of Office. And both of these only use Mail Merge to create mass mailings. Hardly justifies the expense.
Most people do not even understand how to even properly format documents in MS Word, yet they blindly drop $400 every time a new version comes out. Ridiculous.
One again: Trying to trick the customers. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a social breakdown happening at Microsoft. Bill Gates is, apparently, no longer interested. The company is becoming more and more unable to complete projects.
Microsoft never competed very well on technological merits, but now things are becoming worse. People think that Microsoft has been successful, but the company's success has always depended on tricking customers who don't have much technical knowledge. As customers become more technically knowledgeable, they realize more and more that Microsoft is adversarial.
We who read Slashdot can make a difference. We can explain the issues to everyone we know and meet.
--
Comedy and Tragedy of the Bush administration [futurepower.org]
Lipstick on a pig (Score:3, Insightful)
I would venture to say that the overwhelming majority of MS Office users do not need to use, or even want to use, most of the features that are present in those bloated applications.
Re:Ingenuity (Score:3, Insightful)
For developers creating Windows products, this is a great license to obtain. I really don't see much of an impact on OpenOffice, as it doesn't even attempt to place any restrictions on what competitors can do, it just states that competitors can't use their Ribbon interface. Since OpenOffice is cross-platform, its developers would probably never choose to use the MS Interface outright, but likely develop their own similar Ribbon interface (if it was even worth porting, which is debatable), since it would be more compatible accross platforms and limit legal liability.
Microsoft will always spend Billions on creating slicker and easier to use interfaces. This has almost zero impact on Linux's server market (and advantages), which is why Linux has made such market share inroads on the server side. The impact is greatest though on the Desktop, where ease of use, ease of installation, and UI friendliness are far more important (and these are areas that are given a relatively lower priority by the programmers than by the Microsoft Marketing and Strategy departments).
Ever-increasing number of features (Score:4, Insightful)
How about turning that on it's head? "Will the paradigm of an ever-increasing number of features hold up to the reality of having to present them in a UI of some sort?"
I've been using office-style apps heavily since about Office 4, and I haven't seen many new features at all that I consider essential -- *especially* not ones that require adding UI elements to accommodate them. MS's own focus group studies show time and time again that 90% of Office features end up in the "rarely used" category anyway.
I use Office 2007 some, and I'm pretty neutral on the ribbon since I do most tasks via keyboard shortcut anyway. For my money (or lack thereof), let OOo keep its traditional menus & toolbars. Just make keyboard shortcuts consistent across an office suite, get the fundamental features right, minimize the bugs & make the memory & disk footprints as light as you can.
The Ribbon may be da new shiznit and whatnot, and by virtue of MS's market penetration may even end up being the "look" that all others are compared to. Even if that happens, though, I have a hard time seeing *feature bloat* being the driving factor behind what UI paradigm wins out.
ZOMG look at the INNOVATION (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the obvious use of technology here and the subjectiveness of what may constitute a ribbon, and how broadly companies like Microsoft tend to paint their patents, I would contend that their "ribbon" is simply taking the Adobe Creative Suite's toolbar scheme that has been around for a decade and simply repainting it to fit in Microsoft Office components. Likewise, one can argue that since context-sensitive toolbars have been around for about 20 years, and buttons in those toolbars have optionally spawned menus when clicked for at least ten years, that there is NOTHING AT ALL new about a Microsoft "ribbon" aside from the artwork, which is covered by COPYRIGHT, not a patent.
Are you delusional? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but your flair for the dramatic is a little much, even by slashdot standards.
"dying rattle breaths?" "unable to compete?"
Please. Aside from the notorious cash reserves, they're still making profits hand over fist.
When they start posting red ink, then we'll talk, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you...
Re:Compatibility (Score:2, Insightful)
Is This Anti-Competitive? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:As usual, Slashdot doesnt get it. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Part of the reason that MS is successful is because there is nobody out there that makes development for their platform as easy as MS. Maybe if some other companies would have somebody screaming about developers and throwing chairs, then those companies would be just as successful in this way. MS gives me tools, and makes it EASY. The OSS community tells me to RTFM. I'll give ya' one guess what I use to develop my business tools.
Re:how about prior art? (Score:2, Insightful)
Pure marketing without meat (Score:3, Insightful)
So if you are doing word processing, document editing, email, calendars, diagramming, data storage/database, reporting, presentations, or anything else useful for end-users, there is no royalty-free option.
If you are doing a Mickey Mouse IM, media player, or something else that can't generate revenue due to widespread competition, feel free to implement a UI that is incompatible with any platform other than Windows. (See above.)
Read what is said, people, not what you want to hear.
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:3, Insightful)
Why face competition when you can stifle it? Saying you can make GUIs which look just like ours unless you compete with us gets their paradigm adopted but ensures they don't have to compete with another product which ahs incorporated their (ugly) GUI changes.
Re:so, what this seems to say (Score:3, Insightful)
Behind the 8-ball because of a data format (Score:2, Insightful)
You're stuck in that position because of the file format and wouldn't be in that position if
The solution's been visible for a long time. It's only lately that it's been within grasp [opendocume...owship.org].