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Lounge => General Computers and Gaming => Topic started by: coldReactive on August 12, 2009, 12:13:38 PM

Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: coldReactive on August 12, 2009, 12:13:38 PM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/6015902/Microsoft-banned-from-selling-Word-in-US.html

Holy crap. Oh and, BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Also, Openoffice infringes on the same thing, and i4i can file "lost profits" against OpenOffice.
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Alex S on August 12, 2009, 01:00:26 PM
Wow. This basically kills Microsoft Office, because although I don't know about whether PowerPoint works with XML files, Excel and Word certainly do.

Also, if this company goes after OpenOffice.org, I will be annoyed, as then people would be less able to obtain a good word processor.
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: VonDaab on August 12, 2009, 01:06:28 PM
I sense Butthurt.
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Aurora Borealis on August 12, 2009, 07:58:16 PM
Now this is just ridiculous!
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Red-Machine on August 13, 2009, 03:05:56 AM
Well, I still have my copy of Office XP, so I'll be fine.
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: IanDanKilmaster on August 13, 2009, 03:24:28 AM
When I first read about this, I was hoping it was just another case of "patent-trolling" that seems so prevalent in Texas, but after reading the Ars Technica article (http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/court-gives-microsoft-60-days-to-stop-shipping-word.ars) about it, I'm a little worried.  Microsoft says they're going to fight it, and chances are they'll wind up just buying out the company (as they did with other companies).  I'd be a little more worried if this affected more than the .docx and .docm formats (formats that OpenOffice currently does not natively support, afaik), but given that I have hated those ever since Microsoft introduced them, I'm a bit comme-ci comme-ca about this.
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: coldReactive on August 13, 2009, 05:16:34 AM
Quote from: "IanDanKilmaster"When I first read about this, I was hoping it was just another case of "patent-trolling" that seems so prevalent in Texas, but after reading the Ars Technica article (http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/court-gives-microsoft-60-days-to-stop-shipping-word.ars) about it, I'm a little worried.  Microsoft says they're going to fight it, and chances are they'll wind up just buying out the company (as they did with other companies).  I'd be a little more worried if this affected more than the .docx and .docm formats (formats that OpenOffice currently does not natively support, afaik), but given that I have hated those ever since Microsoft introduced them, I'm a bit comme-ci comme-ca about this.

docx can be read by OpenOffice, it just can't save them.
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: IanDanKilmaster on August 13, 2009, 01:16:58 PM
I knew there was an unofficial patch that would allow it to open .docx, but I don't think OO has done anything official regarding it yet. O_o

If they have, they'll be forced to remove that support as well (I guess it won't matter much if MS Office doesn't have it).
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Red-Machine on August 14, 2009, 09:41:47 AM
lol, sound strategy.  If someone sues you over patent/copyright issues, just buy them out, then you'll own it.
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: NejinOniwa on August 16, 2009, 09:32:03 AM
Epic lulz achieved, approved by staff.

Drinks all round, gentlemen!
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Chocofreak13 on August 16, 2009, 01:36:52 PM
*facepalm*
well, this is pure logic, right here. *please note the HEAVY sarcasm*

eeh, if all else fails and everyone attacks each other in an all-out word processor war, we'll just fall back to the 90's, when all we had was basic wordpad. that's all someone really needs, when you get right down to it.
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: NejinOniwa on August 16, 2009, 06:27:54 PM
That, or people will just stop caring about the copyrights altogether (and wouldn't that be just wondarfuuhl!?)...
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: IanDanKilmaster on August 17, 2009, 12:49:25 AM
Well I'd say this is the problem with software patents, but I never liked the .docx format anyway so I find it as a bit of blessing in disguise.

No one's trying to take away your Word, chances are Microsoft will: A) as I said before, just buy out this company, or B) just release a new version of Word, sans patent-infringing XML-formatting.  It all really depends on what option is the most economic.
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Smokey on August 18, 2009, 06:19:10 PM
Heh, back in the early 90s we still had the clone wars and things were barely standardized... you had a whole host of word processors and their clones to choose from... ^_^
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Aurora Borealis on August 18, 2009, 06:26:49 PM
Back then was compatibility (or lack of?) between the different word processors an issue back then?
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Smokey on August 18, 2009, 06:29:13 PM
heh, no, not really... most text was processed in .TXT files back in them days... :D
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: NejinOniwa on August 18, 2009, 06:36:09 PM
Back in the day, there wasn't anything to format anyway, only OS/2 could do those things before MSWord monopolized shit halfway -w-;
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Smokey on August 18, 2009, 06:37:54 PM
Well, you could give your files any extension you want, but they'd still be simple TXT files... That's where .NFO comes from...

Added after 28 seconds:

Before M$ stole it and used it for theys sysinfo crap...
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Aurora Borealis on August 18, 2009, 06:50:51 PM
Oh, I had nearly forgotten that files were a lot simpler back then so there wasn't need for different, fancy formats! I thought word processing platforms were like the home computer market overall in the 70's and 80's: A large variety of platforms each with their proprietary formats and accessories, all of which are incompatible with any other platform. ^^;
Title: Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.
Post by: Smokey on August 18, 2009, 07:03:53 PM
naah they were too busy ripping off hardware and turning it into completely incompatible stuff in those days