Microsoft is so optimistic with the look and feel of its new Office suite that it thinks that other developers will want to incorporate the style used in it.
Taking the above approach in mind Microsoft announced a royalty-free licensing program for developers who want to use the distinctive style of Office 2007.
Microsoft said that the original license will be a 120+ page document containing all the terms of use and all developers should abide by the rules if they want their licenses to remain protected.
Any developer can sign for the program by giving just minor details of the application that he is willing to produce. Microsoft won’t charge anything and the licenses are perpetual meaning that their terms won’t change.
The guidelines have yet to be completed though a license is available and it mandates that the licensees should maintain the terms and conditions that will be mentioned in the main license agreement.
The license also tells that if Microsoft believes that a licensee is breaking some rules then it will inform the developer to change the program and he will be given six months to do so.
The preview document has been released by the company that tells us a bit about the main license.
As Microsoft general manager for the Office client Takeshi Numoto stated in a scripted Q&A on Microsoft’s corporate Web site today, the Office UI license isn’t necessary for companies wishing to build add-ins for Office, or new classes of so-called Office Business Applications (OBA). The license applies to individuals or companies that wish to produce new, stand-alone software that follows Microsoft’s established look-and-feel.
Via: betanews
