Anybody who wants to use the WS-* specifications for Web services standardization won’t be sued by Microsoft. The company this week posted a bulletin stating it would not assert claims for usage of 35 specifications listed in the document. Microsoft has been a co-developer of these technologies and seeks to spread their usage by making what it calls its “Microsoft Open Specification Promise,” which now takes the acronym, OSP.“It was a simple, clear way, after looking at many different licensing approaches, to reassure a broad audience of developers and customers that the specification(s) could be used for free, easily, now and forever,” the company 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,” Tom Robertson, general manager for interoperability and standards at Microsoft, said in a statement released by the company.“This is a personal promise directly from Microsoft to you, and you acknowledge as a condition of benefiting from it that no Microsoft rights are received from suppliers, distributors, or otherwise in connection with this promise,” the bulletin states. All bets are off, however, for anyone who participate in a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft over any of the specifications. Among the specifications covered include WSDL, SOAP, WS-Enumeration, WS-Federation and several specifications related to WS-Security. Reaction to Microsoft’s move, posted with the bulletin, was favorable from open source advocates. “I see Microsoft’s introduction of the OSP as a good step by Microsoft to further enable collaboration between software vendors and the open source community. This OSP enables the open source community to implement these standard specifications without having to pay any royalties to Microsoft or sign a license agreement. I’m pleased that this OSP is compatible with free and open source licenses,” said Lawrence Rosen, of the technology law firm of Rosenlaw & Einschlag.Red Hat also endorsed the move.“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,” said Mark Webbink, deputy general counsel at Red Hat. Software Development