Slashdot Mirror

Should be -1 Troll.

Wow, nobody has any sense of humor today....

as Microsoft has a well paid legal team at their disposal which would most likely prevent unauthorized usage of patented ideas.

Yeah, when would Microsoft ever violate patents?

It's not just here man. Microsoft is poison. Everyone knows that. You get in bed with them and you might as well kiss your business goodbye, if not your entire part of the industry.

Thank you Sir, for proving my point. Your post stands as a genuine example of irrational /. anti-Microsoft fanaticism.

"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense -- I deserve it." Jean-Louis Gassée, former CEO, BeOS

The Register:

If Sendo's case progresses, it's likely to add new stars to the litigation firmament - one which has already brought us phrases such as "cut off the air supply", "knife the baby" and faked videotape evidence, and the most likely star in this turn should be one Marc Brown, who simultaneously served as a Sendo director while being employed by Microsoft. More on Marc in a moment.

And

Sony makes explicit its fear that: "Microsoft will use its monopoly power to force its OEM licensees to give up intellectual property rights, thus affording Microsoft the opportunity to expand its power."

Irrational. Yeah.

Apply here to screw Java: Microsoft recruits more J# developers During Chase's cross examination the DoJ produced a memo from Gates written prior to the meeting, where he says "we have to make sure that we don't allow them to promote Netscape" Screws went onto IBM at Gates' bidding HP, Gateway: MS Seattlement terms screw us too The following is the text of Stac Electronics' patent infringement complaint against Microsoft Corp.

I see what you're saying. Completely irrational /. anti-Microsoft fanaticism. That's what it is.

>Going by your stats Bill Gates has given to charity around 50% of the money he's EARNED. What proportion of the money YOU have EARNED have you given to charity?

That's where the issue is. Ethically, he stole the money. Legally, he defrauded others of it. Remember the various court cases Microsoft was involved in when Bill Gates was owner and operator of Microsoft? Yeah, the ones they either lost or settled out of court (or bought out other companies to settle). The ones that actually made The Simpson's do a parody of Bill Gates "buying out" Homer by busting up the place.

Giving back 50% of what's not yours is a really good start, though. Once he's finished giving out the rest of his ill-gotten gains, well, then I'll consider his debt getting closer to being paid. He still needs to pay for lying to a judge under oath. He should have received jail time for that, and the lack of punishment means he needs to make it up to society in another way. Perhaps if the millions he stole manage to create a cure for HIV (supposedly that's something his foundation is working on) that'll make up for that one.

Until then, the man ran a criminal enterprise and was (I wouldn't be surprised if he still is, he's shown no attempts at reformation) an incredible scofflaw. He deserves every ounce of suspicion we give him.

For the fallen comrades, shouts to: Digital Research, Stac, Intuit, Syn'x, Spyglass, 3Com, Temps, SCO (ok, not really), Borland, Bristol Technologies, AT&T (oh well), Caldera, Sun, Java, Ed Curry, Goldtouch, Netscape, Palm, Blue Mountain Arts, Eolas, Hyperphrase, Intertrust, Eastman Kodak, Daum Communications, Be, AOL (heh), Network Commerce, Burst.com, SPX, E-Data, Real Networks, Mythic, and all Israeli; American; Japanese; EU; and Brazilian citizens.

Yes, Bill Gates has indeed "touched" a lot of lives. As the other poster commented, "touched" like Rockefeller "touched" American (heck, indeed worldwide) lives.

Most rooms are stationary...

Speak for yourself! Obviously you're not a carney.

MS then included drive compression called "DoubleSpace" in the beta versions of MS-DOS 6.0 which by their own admission infringed Stac's patents. Even after admitting this, though, they stalled as long as they could on providing a beta version of DOS 6.0 to Stac for its inspection (which, when it did happen, confirmed to Stac that DOS 6.0 infringed). Microsoft again tried to strongarm Stac into granting that royalty-free license. During this time they were even issuing promotional materials that said they would grant a royalty-free license for DoubleSpace to OEMs (the algorithm they stole from Stac). Eventually MS wound up paying Stac $120 million and releasing DOS 6.21, the purpose of which was solely to remove DoubleSpace from DOS 6.2 (the current version at that time). MS-DOS 6.22 was released shortly thereafter to replace it with non-infringing disk compression.

Even back at the beginning, Microsoft was either knowingly or recklessly committing wholesale theft of others' code. MS-DOS 1.0 could be made to generate a Digital Research copyright notice.

All of which is by way of saying, don't tell me Microsoft is ruthless but not criminal. They very much are criminal -- their entire empire originated in a key act of copyright infringement which was never really redressed (probably because the courts were afraid to assess a fine of the full retail price of CP/M plus statutory damages for every copy of MS-DOS ever sold).

But hey, Google buying up companies and offering the software for free to kill the competition is a honorable thing right?

I think now that Google is a public company it is inevitable that it will follow its motivation. The examples you cite, however do seem to be different. I don't see that any of these products are tied (pdf) to an existing offering, responsible for breaking a competitor's product or obtained through outright theft

This is the first I've heard about MS gaining a patent on the technology they used in Doublespace. My understanding was they cozied up to Stac because they weren't planning to make their own disk compression software, and when it became clear that Stac wasn't going to go along with getting no royalties that Stac gave up. It's not entirely clear how much info Stac gave to MS, though at least one draft talked about the patent MS violated. Overall, I'm amazed that MS didn't get punished with punitive damages since it seems that MS went into the relationship expecting to get something for free, and when they couldn't get it they just copied them to try to beat them hoping to not get caught.

Where I'm getting this info (I'd love to hear proof of this double-patenting): "Complaint for Patent Infringement" "Demand for Jury Trial" from Stac.

Stacker was actually illegally included in DOS 6.0 as DoubleSpace. See here or here for an english translation. They removed it for 6.2 & created DriveSpace for 6.22. DriveSpace was used in almost an identical manner, but was incompatible wiht DoubleSpace, causing upgraders who were using drive compression no end of grief.

No, it wouldn't be a method of implementing, a method of implementing would be "typing on the keyboard while sat at a computer, then running the compiler". It would be something like:

You're right - "implementing" isn't the right word. How about "representing," as in, a method of modeling and applying a psychoacoustic model to raw sound data? Regardless of the specific language chosen, I have to agree with you. And I believe that what you've suggested should be patentable (and has been patented.)

---

The implementation of a known psychoacoustic model is trivial. That's the point. Putting any known fact into software is trivial.

Again, I agree with you. Of course, hardware circuitry and software are, in most cases, functionally interchangeable. The concept is the important point, and it is also the target of the patent. It need not be implemented in software.

The focus on "software" patents is really just focusing on concepts that are more easily or familiarly expressed as software. If I came up with a valuable computing concept and patented it as a circuit, Slashdot wouldn't think twice about it - which says more about the Slashdot crowd than about the nature of software patents.

---

Patents protect the investment in the discovery of scientific and engineering knowledge where the incentive to discover the knowledge is that it can be used in business, and when it can be discovered by study of your products instead of putting in the effort to research as you did originally.

That's very close. My only quibble is that it's not limited to the discovery of such knowledge, but also encourages the application of it. A technology may be accidentally discovered - e.g., in academia - but unless it can be protected, companies aren't likely to apply it.

(In my field - biotechnology - this is a fact of life: interesting disease pathways and drug targets go unexplored by pharmaceutical companies, because the researcher published the findings and the idea can't be globally protected. As a result, thousands of disease-curing concepts are sitting on the shelves gathering dust, because no company will invest in its development.)

---

In software: For shipped products, the structure and design could be discovered by study of a product, so patents would seem to apply. For non-shipped products (eg, Amazon backend), trade secrets would seem to apply. The development of the structure and design is, however, quite a mechanical task, so there is very little investment in that aspect and patents wouldn't apply after all.

With one exception (see below), your summary complies with the theory and practice of intellectual property. There's little point in patenting a process that is strictly reserved for in-house use. And as you state, the "effort" in setting up the back end does not imply patentability - the USPTO regularly rejects applications that are the "ordinary work of engineers." Without an inventive hook, a chosen network and software configuration isn't patentable.

The exception that I noted is this: Back-end software is still patentable, largely because what separates "back-end" from "commercial" is simply a business decision. Consider that Google now sells appliances that apply its "back-end" technology to any other website. Who's to say that Amazon won't choose to license its e-commerce software (for $$$$$$) to other e-commerce sites?

---

In fact, drive compression is relatively easy. ... Microsoft should be allowed to implement an easy idea, not prohibited because somebody made a business case for doing the obvious thing first.

From Stac v. Microsoft : "Although there are a number of software companies which offer data compression programs, Stac is the acknowle

It could have also been the Stac lawsuit over the theft of Stacker compression tools, but I was thinking of something more recent. Maybe I'll remember later.

Indeed. Well spotted to all those chimps that pointed out that BBC stands for "British Broadcasting Corporation". 10/10 for general knowledge and 5/10 for understanding.

The BBC is operated under two constitutional documents: its Royal Charter and the Licence and Agreement. The Charter defines the BBC's objects, powers, obligations and the sources and uses of its income, while the Licence and Agreement sets the terms and conditions under which it must operate.

"Subject to the general law of the land and the provisions of the Charter and the Licence and Agreement, the BBC has full editorial and managerial independence in its day-to-day programme and other activities"

For more information visit this terribly informative site, which will doubtless also explain all about impartiality and public service broadcasting for you. :)

You, sir, are an idiot.

No linux company (that I've ever heard of) copied another companies code and used it as their own.

No linux company (that I've ever heard of) has created a 'free' web browser to undercut another like MS did.

No linux company (that I've ever heard of) has been convicted of software piracy.

No linux company (that I've ever heard of) has been convicted of being a monopoly.

(I didn't read through all of the above link about NS vs IE article, but the skimming I did seems to cover much of it).

I could keep going, but you get the idea. MS *IS* an evil corporation. There are many *many* valid reasons to hate them.

Do us all a favor and crall back under your rock. Thanks for participating.

I'm not sure why the hatred existed back then, really, other than it was something "new" and folks are typically afraid of the unknown.

Microsoft's dodgy business practises were known before NT saw the light of day - have a look for the history of Stacker/Doublespace and Microsoft's tactics then. Read this document, in particular sections 17-20 under Factual Background.

Stac Electronics v. Microsoft

"Microsoft has broken some laws, too, yes."

Why is that OK with you? Why is somebody who breaks laws a better person then somebody who did not break laws? You judge ellison harshly even though he has never been charged with a crime and you want to give Bill gates a pass even though he has been convicted.

"But I haven't heard anything about outright stealing technology;"

In that case you have your head buried in the sand. Sendo, Priceline , and Stac are just a few of the victims of theft of Intellectual property by MS. I am not talking about copying applications here I am talking about out and out stealing of technology and breaking contracts. Here is a quote from one of the articles I linked to.
During one of those meetings, Priceline said Microsoft CEO Bill Gates told Priceline founder Jay Walker that he wasn't going to let patent infringement claims stand in his way.

According to a Priceline press release announcing the suit, "Mr. Gates went on to say that many other companies were suing Microsoft for patent infringement and that priceline.com could, in effect, get in line."

Further down the article.
This is not the first time a company has claimed that Microsoft stole its technology after meeting to discuss a business relationship.

In December 1998, Goldtouch Technologies sued the software giant, saying Microsoft illegally copied its design for an ergonomic mouse after the two companies had discussed the product.

Other companies who've sued Microsoft for patent infringement include Eolas Technologies, which claimed earlier this year that the Redmond, Wash., giant infringed upon a plug-in patent. And in 1994, a jury ordered Microsoft to settle with Stac Electronics Inc. for violating a data-compression patent.

MS has a history of sleazy behavior like this.

"Give me more information, and then I can make a proper judgment."

I have provided you with a few links, google can provide much more.

"But I'm not really arguing that they didn't do those things"

Why not? If they did lie, cheat and steal is it OK with you? Is that moral? If I could prove to you that MS lied cheated and stole would you agree with me that they are immoral? My guess is that you don't think there is anything wrong with lying, cheating and stealing as long it's done in the name of making money.

"I asked those questions in order to contrast against Philip Morris's own violations of mores and laws, in order to show that there's complexity in the issues."

It's not that complex. Both Phillip Morris and MS are immoral companies doing immoral things. You can argue about the degree of immorality but that's a hollow argument. that's like saying one mass murderer is less immoral then another one because he killed less people.

"But are they being immoral? What are they being immoral about? Destroying other people's things? I guess in itself that's immoral."

Yes they are being immoral. Yes destroying other people's property is immoral and illegal.

"But are you trying to say there's absolutely no justification for such things? There's never a time when destroying somebody else's things is NOT immoral?"

I never said and I'd appreciate it if you did not put words into my mouth. There may very well be circumstances when it's OK to destroy other people's property. You keep trying to muddy up the issue by throwing up these stupid straw man arguments but I am not going to bite.

"Why is it so hard for you to believe that morality and ethics are a complicated issue? Countless people have struggled with these issues for thousands of years because it's so complicated, yet you seem to think it's black and white.'

It's not hard for me to believe th

Not entirely true. MS wanted Stac to give them their software for free, for inclusion into DOS 6.0, but Stac decided they didn't want to play with MS. After various ineffective threats (from MS), MS decided to write their own using Stac's patented compression techniques. They did this in the full knowledge they were infringing on Stac's patent but thought they were big enough to get away with it.

Stac successfully sued them for infringment, so MS recoded the compression to get round the issue and squashed Stac anyway.

Check out http://www.vaxxine.com/lawyers/articles/stac.html for legal details.

leonbrooks, Is this all you can dig up?

1) This is a suit against people registering misleading domain names that people might accidentally type, like "mnsbc.com", and directing them to porn sites. Exactly how is this suit bad?

2) This is to invalidate a presumably overly broad patents to protect partners Dell and Gateway because Lucent sued them over patent infringement. Note that Lucent didn't go after Microsoft directly, for some reason. Hmm...

3) April Fools

4) This is a contract dispute; it happens all the time in business. BTW: This dispute was settled out of court, with both sides claiming to be pleased with the outcome.

5) First, this photo company isn't even Microsoft, although it's owned by BillG. Second, people were infringing on Corbis's copyrights, but Amazon is claiming that they take down the infringing material when there are complaints. Corbis should probably have gone after the individuals violating the copyrights instead of the carrier (Amazon).

6) The Lindows fiasco. Everybody has an opinion on this one, but I think it's valid to sue a company attempting to maliciously feed off of one of the world's most valuable brand names. Now I'm off to go listen to my Somy Walman and then go out for a drive in my Porshe. Do you think I should get an Appie ePod to replace my Walman?

7) In 1998 Microsoft sued to get their hands on notes for a book about Netscape because they believed it to have evidence explaining that Netscape lost market share due to their own mistakes. This was when the antitrust suit was ramping up with potentially disastrous consequences to MS. Sure, it would have been better to simply subpoena the info, but I don't know the whole story and neither do you.

8) In 1997 Microsoft sued a cracker that posted a patch that removed the 90-day timeout for a trial version of Office 97. You know, piracy was illegal back then, and is still illegal. Microsoft was fully justified in suing him, and hopefully the guy got into big trouble.

9) Microsoft loses case to Stacker. I've never followed this one closely, but it sounds like Microsoft infringed on a a couple (arguably overly-broad) patents regarding compression. Wait, isn't this the kind of thing Slashdot hates? Oh, only when Microsoft isn't the one getting sued, I guess.

You've got nothing. If that was the best you could do to show that Microsoft sues their competitors on the same level as Sun, Oracle, Netscape, SCO, etc., then you've done poorly. If anything, you've given evidence to exactly the opposite.

SCO contends that Linux could not have gotten the "enterprise" features without IBM copying Unix code and pasting it into the Linux kernel. That is the only real claim I have heard (read).

A couple of questions I have. If I am using linux in desktop mode on a single cpu, how can I possibly be using the actual features that they claim were necessary to scale beyond 4 processors?

I also have a client that is running a 4 year old Linux distro on a closed network that just runs night and day. How could this possibly infringe since it predates the IBM kernel contributions that SCO claims started this bruhaha? Yet they seem to want a license fee for any vintage of running Linux.

SCO wants to distribute a binary only Unixware runtime that can execute Linux binaries, presumably as the only "legal and non-infringing" platform for doing so. How can they completely incorporate this capability without taking any GPL'd code and ignoring the license?

My opinion after dwelling on this for a while is this:

1 - SCO is trying to overthrow the entire Linux movement that threatens their struggling business. They are scaring the heck out of businesses that currently run or were thinking about deploying Linux. They are not allowing any access to information about their claimed code swap. This means they have no desire to co-exist, but to supercede completely. Their steps so far support this opinion, future moves may change this opinion. Kernel coders have expressed great interest in learning which features supposedly infringe on SCO IP so they can be replaced. It seems that SCO has been completely unwilling to inform them without having them sign an NDA that would then prevent them from fixing any actual code infringment.

2 - SCO is attempting to openly break and defy the terms of the (L)GPL. If they can do so, then they weaken it tremendously and encourage others to dissent too. They are also attempting to change established precedent concerning IP infringment and end user rights. Way back in the early 1990's Microsoft stole compression technology from Stac and had to pay them a large settlement. The outcome for consumers that had already purchased the infringing product? They got to keep possession and continue to use the product they had payed for. Some people got free upgrades, but the ones that chose to keep using the original MS stealware didn't have to get an additional license from Stac to remain legal. Microsoft also countersued claiming that Stac had illegaly reverse engineered part of MS-DOS to enable them to seemlessly integrate their product below the filesystem level. MS won the counter-suit and a smaller $13million award. Customers that had purchased Stac products still had the legal right to use them too. This is because the customer or end user wasn't involved in the actual theft and only indirectly get benefit from the illegal acts on both sides. This precedent holds true in all of the cases that come easily to mind, but there may be exceptions. What the freak is SCO trying to pull?

Yup, I'm right. MS's DoubleSpace infringed on sisk compression patents held by Stac, Inc.

To wit:

Here is Stac's original complaint
One guy's opinion
Wikipedia entry (scroll down a ways to 1993)
I should just let you Google these yourself.

So, clearly filesystems like MS is describing have not only been around since before 2000, but MS lost lawsuits over them 10 years ago! THAT'S JUST ONE EXAMPLE!

Incidentally, it does, however, cover uses such as the Mac OS' Location Manager, which switches network-related settings according to the user's location.

Location Manager is one of the coolest features the old Mac OS had. I always wondered why Microsoft didn't shamelessly copy it, considering what a pain in the ass it was to change network settings in Windows (especially in the days when you had to reboot for them to take effect)-- it never occurred to me that Microsoft actually might respect someone else's (especially Apple's) patent instead of ignoring it and figuring their army of lawyers will protect them from any repercussions.

~Philly

I saw a recent UN small arms study, the US has over 250 million firearms, roughly 84 per 100 people. Canada has nowhere close to that rate.

Canada had roughly 532 murders in 2001, and 528 in 2000. Only 132 murders were committed by firearms, the rest were with other means.

The anti-gunners since 1989 (marc lepine) had made it extremetly diffence to own firearms in Canada now, its very sad the Liberals social engeering project doesnt include anybody but the Military and police owning guns in Canada.

Now all Canadians need to have a firearms license.

Shotguns & most bolt action rifles are considered non-restricted

AR-15's, handsguns etc are considered restricted

Steyr Aug, AK-47 etc are considered to be prohibited with grandfathering

You don't need premission to move/transport non-restricted firearms.

You need premission to transport restricted and probihited firearms, you can only use a handgun, AR-15 for target shooting THATS IT. You have to get a ATT (autohoriztion to transport) to take restricted guns to the range, gunsmith etc.

All firearms must be stored, and transported in according to safe storage laws set out in the law. Locked and unloaded at all times and out of sight

Most semi-auto rifles are RESTRICTED. There is only roughly 4 non-restricted semi-auto rifles left, Sig Black special, Ruger Mini-14, SKS and the AR-180B. Thats it, all the other semi-auto's like the AR-15 are restricted.

The AK-47 is prohibted, when the owner dies it has to be turned over to the police to be destoryed, nobody else will ever be allowed to only AK-47 ever again in Canada, there is many guns prohbited. Benelli shotguns, SPAS-12, SPAS-15, the "combat shotguns" were all non-restricted, then the gov't changed them to restricted, which meant they all had to be registered (all handsguns have been registered in Canada since 1934) so once the government got the list of all the combat shotgun owners, it changed the status again to Prohbited without grandfathering, which meant they all had to be turned in to be destoryed.

Compensation is not paid, because no due process for compensation of confiscated property exists in Canada. The existance of private property is not recognized by the federal govt.

Now on to the current registry to hear about in the news, all restricted guns and probhited are registered. What the govt wanted to do was in 1995 was make all non-restricted guns restricted. Basiclly your hunting bolt action rifles and shotguns. So far they have put $1billon down the drain to find out who owns what .22 or 12 gauge duck gun.

Most murders in Canada are committed by handgun, which have all been registered since 1934. So how the hell would a non-restricted firearm registery be useful ?

According to the Canadian Alliance firearms critic for firearm policy. 74% of all handguns found at murder scene have been unregistered. Owning a unregistered restricted firearm even with a firearms license has been a crime since 1934.

Since 1944 in Canada you needed a premit to even carry a registered pistol on your person.

Then in 1977, the government made it illegal to use firearms for any kind of self defence.

You aren't allowed to use lethal force to protect your property, or against robbers, muggers etc. Even if you fear for your life and kill somebody in your house you will still be carried with manslaughter and firearm offences and you have to pray the prosecutor decides to not goto court or the jury lets you off. If you use a legal firearm for defence you will be going to jail along with the criminal

Its one of the many reasons we have such a high rate of property crimes, the prison system is just a just and release system, they go in and they never get any serious jail time for theft, robbery, car theft etc.

Center firearm semi auto rifles ae only allowed to have 5 rounds magazines. The pre-ban magazines dont exist here they all have to be modified to accept only 5 rounds. There is no limit on bolt action center fire rifles. For semi-auto pistols the limit is 10 rounds. For rimfire there is no magazine limit. (unlike the US, there is a limit of 10 rounds in rimfire magazines in the USA, useless it was a pre-ban magazine)

Allan Rock the justice minister to started the C-68 (canadian firearms law that start all this and the registry) Said he only wanted to the military and police to have firearms. He also said if they registry cost more then $150 million he would scrap it (its way ovr $1billion dollars now). The only reason now to register hunting rifles is so one day you have a list of all them and who where you can seize them from.

Oh also all handguns must have a barrel length longer then 105mm.

So after all my blattering whats the point ? Criminals will always get there guns, and they wont register them.

Already handgun 74% found at crime scenes are unregistered, I doubt the owner had a firearms license to even own them. I doubt they follow safe storage laws, carry on there person and ignore the magazine limit capacity.

For more information on how defenceless Canadians are check out
http://www.vaxxine.com/scon/disarmed.htm

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/articlesofinterest. htm

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/publications.htm

http://www.garrybreitkreuz.com/gbpress2002.htm

and my favorite place.

http://www.canadiangunnutz.com

Stac it to 'em!
(I considered "Stac it to The MAN!", but that gives MicroSoft too much credit.)

This court document says that one patent was originally granted to Stac:

33. On May 14, 1991, the '009 patent, entitled "Data Compression Apparatus And Method," was granted to Stac. Since its issuance, Stac has been, and continues to be, the owner of all right, title and interest in and to the '009 patent. A copy of the '009 patent is attached as Exhibit A, and incorporated herein by reference.

An earlier patent was granted to a different company, and later acquired by Stac. So it's not as black-and-white as you seem to paint it.

Yes, some companies that have fallen to Microsoft did, at least in part, because they made stupid mistakes. However, if it weren't for Microsoft being there to stomp on them and squish them out of existence, they might've picked themselves up and carried on, learning from their experience, and maybe becoming better for it.

This is a very fair statement. Some things, like when Microsoft stole the code from Stac Electronics to make DiskSpace compression were outright wrong. Stac won the lawsuit, but by then it was too late. (Microsoft had to pull DiskSpace out of DOS 6.2, but almost immediately provided a replacement in DOS 6.2.2 with a slightly modified code and a new name: DriveSpace.) However, there are plenty of other companies that just plain dropped the friggin ball. WordPerfect is a great example. They just sat by and let Microsoft develop a good WYSIWIG word processor while they kept shoveling the same tired old text based product (version 5.1) down our throats. Yeah, yeah; I know all about how unfair it was for Microsoft to use undocumented Windows API code to get a leg up on other companies like Lotus and WP. That's not the reason why companies like WordPerfect didn't get a decent GUI-based product out the door. The main reason was that they figured they owned the market and were untouchable. Why develop a new Windows-based version when you can milk your existing product for a few more years, right?

What's more, Word 2.0 was actually a better word processor than WordPerfect 5.1. A beginning typist didn't have to worry about "Reveal Codes" just to type a letter. Yeah, later versions of WordPerfect for Windows were superior to Word (6.0) in many ways. But again, it was too late by then to make an impact. The MS Office juggernaut was already full steam ahead.

Why hasn't any other company or open source project completely reverse-engineered the Microsoft Word DOC format?

Then, when CPUs were powerful enough, and Stac developed a software-only solution, someone thought it was a neat idea.

The rest is history.

How about TIA.