Microsoft banned from selling Word in US.

[coldReactive]

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.

[Alex S]

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.

[VonDaab]

I sense Butthurt.

[Aurora Borealis]

Now this is just ridiculous!

[Red-Machine]

Well, I still have my copy of Office XP, so I'll be fine.

[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 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.

[coldReactive]

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 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.

[IanDanKilmaster]

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).

[Red-Machine]

lol, sound strategy.  If someone sues you over patent/copyright issues, just buy them out, then you'll own it.

[NejinOniwa]

Epic lulz achieved, approved by staff.

Drinks all round, gentlemen!

[Chocofreak13]

*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.

[NejinOniwa]

That, or people will just stop caring about the copyrights altogether (and wouldn't that be just wondarfuuhl!?)...

[IanDanKilmaster]

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.

[Smokey]

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... ^_^

[Aurora Borealis]

Back then was compatibility (or lack of?) between the different word processors an issue back then?