Promise Lowers WS-* and VHD Legal Barrier

To remove a roadblock that could delay implementation of some 38 Web service standards and its Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) image format, Microsoft is making an Open Specification Promise (OSP), which essentially states that if third parties implement the covered standards and comply with minimal conditions, Microsoft will not assert any “necessary claims” over its patents related to those standards. The move will reduce the legal risk for developers who want to support the latest Web services or Microsoft virtualization technologies. However, the OSP still contains confusing legal terms, and it does not address several major barriers to the widespread acceptance and use of the covered standards.

Web Service Standards

The OSP deals primarily with the WS-* protocol specifications, which were co-developed by Microsoft and a handful of key partners, such as BEA, IBM, and VeriSign. (The names of these specifications tend to begin with the prefix WS-, so they have collectively come to be called WS-*, sometimes pronounced “WS-star.”) The WS-* protocols are designed to support integration of applications and systems across OSs and middleware platforms by addressing problems currently solved by proprietary systems, including the following: