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Microsoft Sets SOAP Free

Home › Microsoft Sets SOAP Free

By Dick Weisinger

Buried in the recent news is an olive branch from Microsoft to the Open Source community.  Microsoft has a large list of patents related to SOAP and Web Services specifications.  Last week Microsoft announced that they would not seek claims on these patents, and they have dubbed their new policy the Open Specification Promise (OSP).

This new policy covers Microsoft’s patents on WSDL, SOAP, and WS-* technologies like WS-Security and WS-Trust.  Developers are free to implement or make use of any of these patented technologies at no cost and with no need to reference Microsoft as a part of their implementation.  Currently there are 35 specifications covered by the OSP.

Open Source developers try to distance themselves from patented technology.  With Microsoft’s announcement, Open Source developers can use the technology without having to pay any royalties to Microsoft or to sign any kind of license agreement.

Tom Robertson, general manager for interoperability and standards at Microsoft said “Because Web services are a being widely adopted across the industry and with our customers, we decided to remove any potential questions about the widespread use of our IP in the implementation of these specifications.”

Open Source vendors have endorsed the Microsoft policy.  Mark Webbink, deputy general counsel at Red Hat commented:  “Red Hat believes that the text of the OSP gives sufficient flexibility to implement the listed specifications in software licensed under free and open source licenses. We commend Microsoft’s efforts to reach out to representatives from the open source community and solicit their feedback on this text, and Microsoft’s willingness to make modifications in response to our comments.”

WS-* standards have been bogged down for some time.  This new stance from Microsoft might be what’s needed to encourage a wider use of these standards within Open Source projects.  That should lead to broader support of Web Services and SOA in general.

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September 20th, 2006
Category: Content Management, Open SOurce, SOA, Web Services
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