The Microsoft Open Specification Promise (or OSP), is a promise

Promise

A promise is a commitment by someone to do or not do something.In the law of contract, an exchange of promises is usually held to be legally enforceable, according to the Latin maxim pacta sunt servanda.- Types :...

 by Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

, published in September 2006, to not assert legal rights over certain Microsoft patents on implementations of an included list of technologies.

The OSP is an example of free Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms

Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms

Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms are a licensing obligation that is often required by standard-setting organizations for members that participate in the standard-setting process...

 for patents, also known as a Covenant Not to Sue.

The OSP licensing covers any use and any implementations of an appended list of covered specifications. It is limited for implementations to the extent that they conform to those specifications. This allows for conformance to be partial and does not require the conformance to be perfect.

Compatibility with open source licensing

The OSP is effectively a patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 sublicense to everyone limited to use with certain formats and required technology to implement OSP licensed formats.

Open source licenses, in general, deal with licensing of copyright

Copyright

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...

s of contributors to the software. GPLv2 is an example of such copyright licensing. GPLv2 does not grant you 3rd party (patent) rights.

The open source software (OSS) licensing deals with copyrights on the source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

 created by the contributors. Source code based on an OSP licenced format specification has its own copyrights and is therefore sublicensable by the contributors themselves. The OSP is only about patent rights. It grants additional rights to implementers and users to the OSS licensing.

Because Microsoft through the OSP grants patent rights to anybody that implements or uses technology required for OOXML there is no need for sublicensing of patent rights through the GPL. OSS users and implementers get the same rights automatically.

An OSS implementer that uses GPL software which implements an OSP licensed format, is granted certain copyrights on the software through his GPL license, which are granted by the prior software contributors. In addition to that he is allowed to use Microsoft patents for required format related technology through the OSP license.

Several standards and OSS licensing experts have expressed support of the OSP in 2006. An article in Cover Pages quotes Lawrence Rosen

Lawrence Rosen

Lawrence Rosen is an attorney and computer specialist. He is a founding partner of Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a Californian technology law firm, specializing in intellectual property protection, licensing and business transactions for technology companies...

, an attorney and lecturer at Stanford Law School, as saying,

"I'm pleased that this OSP is compatible with free and open source licenses."

In 2006 Mark Webbink

Mark Webbink

Mark Webbink is lawyer and a visiting professor of law at New York Law School . At NYLS Webbink serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Patent Innovations, the home of the Peer-to-Patent program....

; a lawyer and member of the board of the Software Freedom Law Center, and former employee of Linux vendor Red Hat

Red Hat

Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....

; said,

"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."

Standards lawyer Andy Updegrove said in 2006 the Open Specification Promise was

"what I consider to be a highly desirable tool for facilitating the implementation of open standards, in particular where those standards are of interest to the open source community."

Scope limitation

The Software Freedom Law Center

Software Freedom Law Center

The Software Freedom Law Center is an organization that provides pro bono legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen as Chairman. Initial funding of US$4 million was pledged by...

, which provides services to protect and advance free software and open source software, has warned of problems with the Open Specification Promise for use in free software / open source software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 projects. In a published analysis of the promise it states that

"...it permits implementation under free software licenses so long as the resulting code isn't used freely."

On March 12, 2008 the Software Freedom Law Center

Software Freedom Law Center

The Software Freedom Law Center is an organization that provides pro bono legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen as Chairman. Initial funding of US$4 million was pledged by...

 warned over a possible inconsistency with GPL and in specific the limited scope of the OSP. This applies specifically to the patent promise scope being limited to conforming implementations of covered specifications only.

Effectively when an implementer owns a patent and builds that patent technology in GPL3 licensed code, the implementer grants those first party rights patent rights downline to all re-users of that code. If you use third party OSP protected patents in GPL3 code, you cannot sublicense those, and the OSP scope is limited to required (normative) parts of the covered specification. This means that when the code is reused, the OSP only applies as long as the reuse of that code is limited to implementing the covered specifications. If the OSP was not limited in that way, you could implement all patented technology in a GPL3 code implementation after which the code patented technology could be reused freely for all other possible implementations. The limitations of a one-sided patent promise only applying to covered specifications is also present in the IBM Interoperability Specifications Pledge (ISP) and Sun Microsystems' OpenDocument Patent Statement.

This means, for example, that use of the required Sun patented StarOffice-related technology for OpenDocument should be protected by the Sun Covenant, but reuse of the code with the patented technology for non-OpenDocument implementations is no longer protected by the related Sun covenant.

The OSP similarly can be used to freely implement any of the covered specifications in OSS but its scope is limited to the covered specifications and cannot be used to transfer Microsoft patent rights to other implementations of non covered specifications for instance by using the technology in code that has a patent transferring software license.

For this reason the SFLC has stated:

"The OSP cannot be relied upon by GPL developers for their implementations not because its provisions conflict with GPL, but because it does not provide the freedom that the GPL requires."

The SFLC specifically point out:

• new versions of listed specifications could be issued at any time by Microsoft, and be excluded from the OSP.
• any code resulting from an implementation of one of the covered specifications could not safely be used outside the very limited field of use defined by Microsoft in the OSP.

The Microsoft OSP itself mentions the GPL in two of its FAQs. In one it says,

"we can’t give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL or other OSS licenses"

In another, it specifically only mentions the "developers, distributors, and users of Covered Implementations", so excluding downstream developers, distributors, and users of code later derived from these "Covered Implementations" and it specifically does not mention which version of the GPL is addressed, leading some commentators to conclude that the current GPL 3 may be excluded.

Q: I am a developer/distributor/user of software that is licensed under the GPL, does the Open Specification Promise apply to me?
A: Absolutely, yes. The OSP applies to developers, distributors, and users of Covered Implementations without regard to the development model that created such implementations, or the type of copyright licenses under which they are distributed, or the business model of distributors/implementers. The OSP provides the assurance that Microsoft will not assert its Necessary Claims against anyone who make, use, sell, offer for sale, import, or distribute any Covered Implementation under any type of development or distribution model, including the GPL.

Web Services

• Devices Profile for Web Services
  Devices Profile for Web Services
  The Devices Profile for Web Services defines a minimal set of implementation constraints to enable secure Web Service messaging, discovery, description, and eventing on resource-constrained devices....
  
   (DPWS)
• Identity Selector Interoperability Profile v1.0
• Identity Selector Interoperability Profile v1.5
• Remote Shell Web Services Protocol
• SOAP
• SOAP 1.1 Binding for MTOM
  MTOM
  MTOM is the W3C Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism,a method of efficiently sending binary data to and from Web services.MTOM is usually used with XOP .-Status:MTOM is a W3C Recommendation....
  
   1.0
• SOAP MTOM / XOP
• SOAP-over-UDP
  SOAP-over-UDP
  SOAP-over-UDP is an OASIS standard covering the publication of SOAP messages over UDP transport protocol,providing for One-Way and Request-Response message patterns.- References :...
  
  
• Web Single Sign-On Interoperability Profile
  Web Single Sign-On Interoperability Profile
  Web Single Sign-On Interoperability Profile is a Web Services and Federated identity specification, published by Microsoft and Sun Microsystems that defines interoperability between WS-Federation and the Liberty Alliance protocols.-External links:*...
  
  
• Web Single Sign-On Metadata Exchange Protocol
  Web Single Sign-On Metadata Exchange Protocol
  Web Single Sign-On Metadata Exchange Protocol is a Web Services and Federated identity specification, published by Microsoft and Sun Microsystems that defines mechanisms for a service to query an identity provider for metadata concerning...
  
  
• WS-Addressing
  WS-Addressing
  WS-Addressing or Web Services Addressing is a specification of transport-neutral mechanisms that allow web services to communicate addressing information...
  
  
• WS-Addressing End Point References and Identity
• WS-AtomicTransaction
  WS-Atomic Transaction
  Web Service Atomic Transaction is an OASIS standard.To achieve all-or-nothing property for a group of services, it defines three protocols , and a set of services...
  
  
• WS-BusinessActivity
• WS-Coordination
  WS-Coordination
  WS-Coordination is a Web Services specification developed by BEA Systems, IBM, and Microsoft and accepted by in its . It describes an extensible framework for providing protocols that coordinate the actions of distributed applications...
  
  
• WS-Discovery
  Web Services Dynamic Discovery
  Web Services Dynamic Discovery is a technical specification that defines a multicast discovery protocol to locate services on a local network. As the name suggests, the actual communication between nodes is done using web services standards, notably SOAP-over-UDP.The protocol was originally...
  
  
• WSDL
  Web Services Description Language
  The Web Services Description Language is an XML-based language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a Web service. A WSDL description of a web service provides a machine-readable description of how the service can be called, what parameters it expects and what data structures...
  
  
• WSDL 1.1 Binding Extension for SOAP 1.2
• WS-Enumeration
• WS-Eventing
  WS-Eventing
  WS-Eventing defines a protocol for web services to subscribe to another web service, or to accept a subscription from another web service. It is used to provide asynchronous notifications to interested parties.-External links:**...
  
  
• WS-Federation
  WS-Federation
  WS-Federation is an Identity Federation specification, developed by BEA Systems, BMC Software, CA Inc., IBM, Layer 7 Technologies, Microsoft, Novell, Ping Identity, and VeriSign...
  
  

• WS-Federation Active Requestor Profile
  WS-Federation Active Requestor Profile
  WS-Federation Active Requestor Profile is a Web Services specification - intended to work with the WS-Federation specification - which defines how identity, authentication and authorization mechanisms work across trust realms. The specification deals specifically with how applications, such as...
  
  
• WS-Federation Passive Requestor Profile
  WS-Federation Passive Requestor Profile
  WS-Federation Passive Requestor Profile is a Web Services specification - intended to work with the WS-Federation specification - which defines how identity, authentication and authorization mechanisms work across trust realms. The specification deals specifically with how applications, such as...
  
  
• WS-I Basic Profile
  WS-I Basic Profile
  The WS-I Basic Profile , a specification from the Web Services Interoperability industry consortium , provides interoperability guidance for core Web Services specifications such as SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI...
  
  
• WS-Management
  WS-Management
  Web Services-Management is a DMTF open standard defining a SOAP-based protocol for the management of servers, devices, applications and various Web services. The DMTF has published the standards document DSP0226 with version v1.1.0 of 2010-03-03....
  
  
• WS-Management Catalog
• WS-MetadataExchange
  WS-MetadataExchange
  WS-MetaDataExchange is a Web Services protocol specification, published by BEA Systems, IBM, Microsoft, and SAP. WS-MetaDataExchange is part of theWS-Federation roadmap; and is designed to work in conjunction with WS-Addressing, WSDL and WS-Policy to allow retrieval of metadataabout a Web...
  
  
• WS-Policy
  WS-Policy
  WS-Policy is a specification that allows web services to use XML to advertise their policies and for web service consumers to specify their policy requirements.WS-Policy is a W3C recommendation as of September 2007....
  
  
• WS-PolicyAttachment
• WS-ReliableMessaging
  WS-ReliableMessaging
  WS-ReliableMessaging describes a protocol that allows SOAP messages to be reliably delivered between distributed applications in the presence of software component, system, or network failures....
  
  
• WS-RM Policy
• WS-SecureConversation
  WS-SecureConversation
  WS-SecureConversation is a Web Services specification, created by IBM and others, that works in conjunction with WS-Security, WS-Trust and WS-Policy to allow the creation and sharing of security contexts...
  
  
• WS-Security
  WS-Security
  WS-Security is a flexible and feature-rich extension to SOAP to apply security to web services. It is a member of the WS-* family of web service specifications and was published by OASIS....
  
  : Kerberos Binding
  Web Services Security Kerberos Binding
  Web Services Security Kerberos Binding is a Web Services specification, authored by IBM and Microsoft, which details how to integrate the Kerberos authentication mechanism with the Web Services Security model. The most recent draft of the specification was released in 2003 and is identified as...
  
  
• WS-Security: Kerberos Token Profile
• WS-Security: Rights Expression Language
  Rights Expression Language
  A Rights Expression Language or REL is a machine-processable language used for Digital Rights Management.Most REL are expressible in XML, but this is not a requirement and any format could be used.XrML began in Lisp. Some use RDF and RDF Schema...
  
   (REL) Token Profile
• WS-Security: SAML Token profile
• WS-Security: SOAP Message Security
• WS-Security: UsernameToken Profile
• WS-Security: X.509
  X.509
  In cryptography, X.509 is an ITU-T standard for a public key infrastructure and Privilege Management Infrastructure . X.509 specifies, amongst other things, standard formats for public key certificates, certificate revocation lists, attribute certificates, and a certification path validation...
  
   Certificate Token Profile
• WS-SecurityPolicy
  WS-SecurityPolicy
  is a WS* specification, created by IBM and 12 co-authors, that has become an OASIS standard as of version 1.2. It extends the fundamental security protocols specified by the WS-Security, WS-Trust and WS-SecureConversation by offering mechanisms to represent the capabilities and requirements of web...
  
  
• WS-Transfer
  WS-Transfer
  WS-Transfer is a specification defining the transfer of an XML-representation of an WS-addressable resource, as well as creating and deleting such resources.The Candidate Recommendation specification summarize the scope like this:...
  
  
• WS-Trust
  WS-Trust
  WS-Trust is a WS-* specification and OASIS standard that provides extensions to WS-Security, specifically dealing with the issuing, renewing, and validating of security tokens, as well as with ways to establish, assess the presence of, and broker trust relationships between participants in a secure...
  
  

Web

• OpenService Format Specification (a.o. Accelerator)
• Web Slice
  Web Slice
  Web Slice is a web feed technology introduced in Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 that allows certain portions of a web page to be subscribed to. Internet Explorer allows users to preview the subscribed Web Slices in fly-out preview window...
  
   Format Specification introduced with Internet Explorer 8
  Internet Explorer 8
  Windows Internet Explorer 8 is a web browser developed by Microsoft in the Internet Explorer browser series. The browser was released on March 19, 2009 for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. Both 32-bit and 64-bit builds are available...
  
  
• XML Search Suggestions Format Specification

Virtualization Specifications

• Virtual Hard Disk
  VHD (file format)
  A Virtual Hard Disk is a virtual hard disk file format, meaning it can contain what is found on a physical hard disk drive, such as disk partitions and a file system, which in turn can contain files and folders. It is typically used as the hard disk of a virtual machine...
  
   (VHD) Image Format Specification
• Microsoft Application Virtualization
  Microsoft Application Virtualization
  Microsoft Application Virtualization is an application virtualization and application streaming solution from Microsoft. It was acquired by Microsoft during the acquisition of Boston, Massachusetts-based Softricity on July 17, 2006...
  
   File Format Specification v1
• Hyper-V
  Hyper-V
  Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian and formerly known as Windows Server Virtualization, is a hypervisor-based virtualization system for x86-64 systems. A beta version of Hyper-V was shipped with certain x86-64 editions of Windows Server 2008, and the finalized version was released on June 26,...
  
   Functional Specification

Security

• RFC 4406 – Sender ID
  Sender ID
  Sender ID is an anti-spoofing proposal from the former MARID IETF working group that tried to join Sender Policy Framework and Caller ID. Sender ID is defined primarily in Experimental RFC 4406, but there are additional parts in RFC 4405, RFC 4407 and RFC 4408.- Principles of operation :Sender ID...
  
  : Authenticating E-Mail
• RFC 4408 – Sender Policy Framework
  Sender Policy Framework
  Sender Policy Framework is an email validation system designed to prevent email spam by detecting email spoofing, a common vulnerability, by verifying sender IP addresses. SPF allows administrators to specify which hosts are allowed to send mail from a given domain by creating a specific SPF...
  
  : Authorizing Use of Domains in “Mail From”
• RFC 4407 – Purported Responsible Address in E-Mail Messages
• RFC 4405 – SMTP Service Extension for Indicating the Responsible Submitter of an E-Mail Message
• U-Prove
  U-Prove
  U-Prove is a cryptographic technology for claims-based identity management developed by Stefan Brands and the company he founded, Credentica. It aims to offer greater security, scalability, and privacy than existing identity management frameworks, and allows for claims to be tied to the use of...
  
   Cryptographic Specification V1.0
• U-Prove Technology Integration into the Identity Metasystem V1.0

XML file formats

• Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas
  Microsoft Office XML formats
  The Microsoft Office XML formats are XML-based document formats introduced in versions of Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007...
  
  
• Office Open XML 1.0 – Ecma-376
• Office Open XML ISO/IEC 29500:2008
• OpenDocument Format for Office Applications v1.0 OASIS
• OpenDocument Format for Office Applications v1.0 ISO/IEC 26300:2006
• OpenDocument Format for Office Applications v1.1 OASIS

Binary file formats

• Word 97-2007 Binary File Format (.doc
  DOC (computing)
  In computing, DOC or doc is a filename extension for word processing documents; most commonly for Microsoft Word. Historically, the extension was used for documentation in plain-text format, particularly of programs or computer hardware, on a wide range of operating systems...
  
  ) Specification
• PowerPoint 97-2007 Binary File Format (.ppt) Specification
• Excel 97-2007 Binary File Format (.xls) Specification
• Excel 2007 Binary File Format (.xlsb) Specification
• Office Drawing 97-2007 Binary Format Specification

Structure specifications

• [MS-DOC]: Word Binary File Format (.doc) Structure Specification
• [MS-PPT]: PowerPoint Binary File Format (.ppt) Structure Specification
• [MS-XLS]: Excel Binary File Format (.xls) Structure Specification
• [MS-XLSB]: Excel Binary File Format (.xlsb) Structure Specification
• [MS-ODRAW]: Office Drawing Binary File Format Structure Specification
• [MS-CTDOC]: Word Custom Toolbar Binary File Format Structure Specification
• [MS-CTXLS]: Excel Custom Toolbar Binary File Format Structure Specification
• [MS-OFORMS]: Office Forms Binary File Format Structure Specification
• [MS-OGRAPH]: Office Graph Binary File Format Structure Specification
• [MS-OSHARED]: Office Common Data Types and Objects Structure Specification
• [MS-OVBA]: Office VBA File Format
  Visual Basic for Applications
  Visual Basic for Applications is an implementation of Microsoft's event-driven programming language Visual Basic 6 and its associated integrated development environment , which are built into most Microsoft Office applications...
  
   Structure Specification
• [MS-OFFCRYPTO]: Office Document Cryptography Structure Specification

Graphics formats

• Windows Metafile
  Windows Metafile
  Windows Metafile is a graphics file format on Microsoft Windows systems, originally designed in the 1990s. Windows Metafiles are intended to be portable between applications and may contain both vector graphics and bitmap components....
  
   Format (.wmf) Specification
• Ink Serialized Format
  Ink Serialized Format
  Ink Serialized Format or ISF is a Microsoft format to store written ink information.The format is mainly used for mobile devices like Personal digital assistants, tablet PCs and Ultra-Mobile PCs to store data entered with a stylus....
  
   (ISF) Specification

Microsoft computer languages

• [MS-XAML]: XAML Object Mapping Specification 2006 (Draft v0.1)
• [MS-XAML]: XAML Object Mapping Specification 2006 (v1.0)
• [MS-WPFXV]: WPF
  Windows Presentation Foundation
  Developed by Microsoft, the Windows Presentation Foundation is a computer-software graphical subsystem for rendering user interfaces in Windows-based applications. WPF, previously known as "Avalon", was initially released as part of .NET Framework 3.0. Rather than relying on the older GDI...
  
   XAML Vocabulary Specification 2006 (Draft v0.1)
• [MS-WPFXV]: WPF XAML Vocabulary Specification 2006 (v1.0)
• [MS-SLXV]: Silverlight
  Microsoft Silverlight
  Microsoft Silverlight is an application framework for writing and running rich Internet applications, with features and purposes similar to those of Adobe Flash. The run-time environment for Silverlight is available as a plug-in for web browsers running under Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X...
  
   XAML Vocabulary Specification 2008 (Draft v0.9)

Robotics

• Decentralized Software Services Protocol – DSSP/1.0

Windows Rally Technologies

• Windows Connect Now
  Windows Rally
  Windows Rally is a set of technologies from Microsoft intended to simplify the setup and maintenance of wired and wireless network-connected devices. They aim to increase reliability and security of connectivity for users who connect the devices to the Internet or to computers running Microsoft...
  
  – UFD
  USB flash drive
  A flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
  
   and Windows Vista
• Windows Connect Now – UFD for Windows XP

Published protocols

The Open Specification Promise applies to a long list of communication and internet protocols including:

• AppleTalk
  AppleTalk
  AppleTalk is a proprietary suite of protocols developed by Apple Inc. for networking computers. It was included in the original Macintosh released in 1984, but is now unsupported as of the release of Mac OS X v10.6 in 2009 in favor of TCP/IP networking...
  
  
• [MC-BUP]: Background Intelligent Transfer Service
  Background Intelligent Transfer Service
  Background Intelligent Transfer Service is a component of Microsoft Windows XP and later operating systems that facilitates prioritized, throttled, and asynchronous transfer of files between machines using idle network bandwidth...
  
   (BITS) Upload Protocol Specification
• [MC-CCFG]: Server Cluster: Configuration (ClusCfg) Protocol Specification
• [MC-COMQC]: Component Object Model Plus (COM+) Queued Components Protocol Specification
• [MC-FPSEWM]: FrontPage Server Extensions
  FrontPage Server Extensions
  FrontPage Server Extensions are a software technology that allows Microsoft FrontPage clients to communicate with web servers, and provide additional functionality intended for websites. Frequent security problems have marred the history of this Microsoft proprietary technology...
  
  : Website Management Specification
• [MC-SMP]: Session Multiplex Protocol Specification
• [MC-SQLR]: SQL Server Resolution Protocol Specification
• 1394 Serial Bus Protocol 2
  Serial Bus Protocol 2
  Serial Bus Protocol 2 standard is a transport protocol within Serial Bus, IEEE Std 1394-1995 , developed by T10....
  
  
• IBM NetBIOS Extended User Interface (NetBEUI) v 3.0
  NetBEUI
  NetBIOS Frames or NBF protocol is a non-routable network- and transport-level data protocol most commonly used as one of the layers of Microsoft Windows networking in the 1990s. NBF protocol or NetBIOS over IEEE 802.2 LLC is used by a number of network operating systems released in the 1990s, such...
  
  
• IEC 61883-1
  IEC 61883
  IEC 61883 is a 1998 digital interface that is used by IEEE 1394 devices for audio and video equipment. The standard for these devices is maintained by the International Electrotechnical Commission....
  
  
• IEEE 1284 – Interface - Parallel
  IEEE 1284
  IEEE 1284 is a standard that defines bi-directional parallel communications between computers and other devices.-History:In the 1970s, Centronics developed the now-familiar printer parallel port that soon became a de facto standard...
  
  
• IEEE 802.1x - 2004
  IEEE 802.1X
  IEEE 802.1X is an IEEE Standard for port-based Network Access Control . It is part of the IEEE 802.1 group of networking protocols. It provides an authentication mechanism to devices wishing to attach to a LAN or WLAN....
  
  
• Infrared Data Association (IrDA) Published Standards
  Infrared Data Association
  The Infrared Data Association defines physical specifications communications protocol standards for the short-range exchange of data over infrared light, for uses such as personal area networks ....
  
  
• Intel Preboot Execution Environment (PXE)
  Preboot Execution Environment
  The Preboot eXecution Environment is an environment to boot computers using a network interface independently of data storage devices or installed operating systems.PXE was introduced as part of the Wired for Management framework by Intel and is described in the specification The Preboot...
  
  
• Novell Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX)
• Novell Sequenced Packet Exchange (SPX)
  IPX/SPX
  IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocols used primarily on networks using the Novell NetWare operating systems.-Protocol Layers:...
  
  
• Novell Service Advertising Protocol (SAP)
  Service Advertising Protocol
  The Service Advertising Protocol is included in the Internetwork Packet Exchange protocol. SAP makes the process of adding and removing services on an IPX internetwork dynamic...
  
  
• RFC 1001 and RFC 1002 – NetBIOS over TCP (NETBT)
• RFC 1055 – Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP)
  Serial Line Internet Protocol
  The Serial Line Internet Protocol is an encapsulation of the Internet Protocol designed to work over serial ports and modem connections. It is documented in RFC 1055...
  
  
• RFC 1058, RFC 1723, and RFC 2453 – Routing Information Protocol
  Routing Information Protocol
  The Routing Information Protocol is a distance-vector routing protocol, which employs the hop count as a routing metric. RIP prevents routing loops by implementing a limit on the number of hops allowed in a path from the source to a destination. The maximum number of hops allowed for RIP is 15....
  
   1.0, 2.0 (RIP)
• RFC 1112, RFC 2236, and RFC 3376 – Internet Group Management Protocol
  Internet Group Management Protocol
  The Internet Group Management Protocol is a communications protocol used by hosts and adjacent routers on IP networks to establish multicast group memberships....
  
   (IGMP) v1, v2, and v3
• RFC 1155, RFC 1157, RFC 1213, RFC 1289, RFC 1901, RFC 1902, RFC 1903, RFC 1904, RFC 1905, RFC 1906, RFC 1907, and RFC 1908: Simple Network Management Protocol
  Simple Network Management Protocol
  Simple Network Management Protocol is an "Internet-standard protocol for managing devices on IP networks. Devices that typically support SNMP include routers, switches, servers, workstations, printers, modem racks, and more." It is used mostly in network management systems to monitor...
  
   v2 (SNMP)
• RFC 1179 – Line Printer Daemon (LPD)
  Line Printer Daemon protocol
  The Line Printer Daemon protocol/Line Printer Remote protocol is a network protocol for submitting print jobs to a remote printer. The original implementation of LPD was in the Berkeley printing system in the BSD UNIX operating system; the LPRng project also supports that protocol...
  
  
• RFC 1191, RFC 1323, RFC 2018, and RFC 2581 – TCP/IP Extensions
• RFC 1256 – ICMP Router Discovery Messages
  Internet Control Message Protocol
  The Internet Control Message Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. It is chiefly used by the operating systems of networked computers to send error messages indicating, for example, that a requested service is not available or that a host or router could not be...
  
  

• RFC 1258 and RFC 1282 – Remote LOGIN (rlogin
  Rlogin
  rlogin is a software utility for Unix-like computer operating systems that allows users to log in on another host via a network, communicating via TCP port 513.It was first distributed as part of the 4.2BSD release....
  
  )
• RFC 1332 and RFC 1877 – Internet Protocol Control Protocol
  Internet Protocol Control Protocol
  In computer networking, Internet Protocol Control Protocol is a network control protocol for establishing and configuring Internet Protocol over a Point-to-Point Protocol link. IPCP uses the same packet exchange mechanism as the Link Control Protocol...
  
   (IPCP)
• RFC 1334 – Password Authentication Protocol
  Password authentication protocol
  A password authentication protocol is an authentication protocol that uses a password.PAP is used by Point to Point Protocol to validate users before allowing them access to server resources. Almost all network operating system remote servers support PAP.PAP transmits unencrypted ASCII passwords...
  
   (PAP)
• RFC 1393 – Traceroute
  Traceroute
  traceroute is a computer network diagnostic tool for displaying the route and measuring transit delays of packets across an Internet Protocol network. Traceroute is available on most operating systems....
  
  
• RFC 1436 – Internet Gopher
• RFC 1483, RFC 1755, and RFC 2225 – Internet Protocol over Asynchronous Transfer Mode (IP over ATM)
• RFC 1510 and RFC 1964 – Kerberos
  Kerberos
  Kerberos may refer to:* Cerberus, the hound of Hades * Kerberos saga, a science fiction series by Mamoru Oshii* Kerberos , a computer network authentication protocol* Kerberos Dante, a character from Saint Seiya...
  
   Network Authentication Service (v5)
• RFC 1552 – PPP Internetwork Packet Exchange Control Protocol (IPXCP)
• RFC 1661 – Point-to-Point Protocol
  Point-to-Point Protocol
  In networking, the Point-to-Point Protocol is a data link protocol commonly used in establishing a direct connection between two networking nodes...
  
   (PPP)
• RFC 1739 Section 2.2 – Packet Internet Groper (ping)
• RFC 1889 and RFC 3550 – Real-Time Transport Protocol
  Real-time Transport Protocol
  The Real-time Transport Protocol defines a standardized packet format for delivering audio and video over IP networks. RTP is used extensively in communication and entertainment systems that involve streaming media, such as telephony, video teleconference applications, television services and...
  
   (RTP)
• RFC 1939 and RFC 1734 – Post Office Protocol
  Post Office Protocol
  In computing, the Post Office Protocol is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by local e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a TCP/IP connection. POP and IMAP are the two most prevalent Internet standard protocols for e-mail retrieval. Virtually all modern...
  
  , v3(POP3)
• RFC 1962 – Compression Control Protocol (CCP)
• RFC 1990 – Multilink Protocol (MP)
• RFC 1994 – MD5
  MD5
  The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm is a widely used cryptographic hash function that produces a 128-bit hash value. Specified in RFC 1321, MD5 has been employed in a wide variety of security applications, and is also commonly used to check data integrity...
  
   Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol
  Challenge-handshake authentication protocol
  In computing, the Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol authenticates a user or network host to an authenticating entity. That entity may be, for example, an Internet service provider. CHAP is specified in RFC 1994....
  
   (MD5-CHAP)
• RFC 2097 – NetBIOS
  NetBIOS
  NetBIOS is an acronym for Network Basic Input/Output System. It provides services related to the session layer of the OSI model allowing applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network. As strictly an API, NetBIOS is not a networking protocol...
  
   Frames Control Protocol (NBFCP)
• RFC 2118 – Microsoft Point-to-Point Compression (MPPC)
• RFC 2125 – Bandwidth Allocation Protocol (BAP)
• RFC 2131, RFC 2132, and RFC 3361 – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
  Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
  The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is a network configuration protocol for hosts on Internet Protocol networks. Computers that are connected to IP networks must be configured before they can communicate with other hosts. The most essential information needed is an IP address, and a default...
  
   (DHCP)
• RFC 2205, RFC 2209, and RFC 2210 – Resource Reservation Setup (RSVP)
• RFC 2222 – Simple Authentication and Security Layer
  Simple Authentication and Security Layer
  Simple Authentication and Security Layer is a framework for authentication and data security in Internet protocols. It decouples authentication mechanisms from application protocols, in theory allowing any authentication mechanism supported by SASL to be used in any application protocol that uses...
  
   (SASL)
• RFC 2225 – Asynchronous Transfer Mode
  Asynchronous Transfer Mode
  Asynchronous Transfer Mode is a standard switching technique designed to unify telecommunication and computer networks. It uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing, and it encodes data into small, fixed-sized cells. This differs from approaches such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet that...
  
  
• Sun Microsystems Remote Procedure Call (SunRPC)
• T.120
  T.120
  T.120 is an ITU-T recommendation that describes a series of communication and application protocols and services that provide support for real-time, multipoint data communications...
  
  
• Tabular Data Stream
  Tabular Data Stream
  Tabular Data Stream is an application layer protocol, used to transfer data between a database server and a client. It was initially designed and developed by Sybase Inc...
  
   (TDS) v7.1, 7.2, 7.3
• Universal Plug and Play
  Universal Plug and Play
  Universal Plug and Play is a set of networking protocols for primarily residential networks without enterprise class devices that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other's presence...
  
   (UPnP)
• Universal Serial Bus
  Universal Serial Bus
  USB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices....
  
   (USB) Revision 2.0

External links

• Microsoft Open Specification Promise — Microsoft page describing the OSP and listing the specifications covered by it.
• Analysis of OSP by standards lawyer Andy Updegrove
• Analysis of OSP by Software Freedom Law Center
  Software Freedom Law Center
  The Software Freedom Law Center is an organization that provides pro bono legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen as Chairman. Initial funding of US$4 million was pledged by...
  
  . Rebuttal by Gray Knowlton, group product manager for Microsoft Office.
• MSDN Library: Open Specifications — Documentation for the covered specifications.