HP, Apple Drop Support for Royalties on Web Standards

Medeii writes: "This article on CNET states that Apple and HP have both decided to withdraw their support for the recommendation. Both companies issued statements supporting the development of royalty-free web standards. Both were, interestingly, also authors of the current recommendation."

Comments

Good for them

[Mr. Punch]

I wonder what happened to make them change their minds. Corporations aren't usually known for doing the right thing simply because it's, well, the right thing.

Interesting.

Re:Good for them

[dinotrac]

Corporations aren't usually known for doing the right thing simply because it's, well, the right thing.

Sometimes they do, but I doubt that's the case here, not that it matters.

I have no doubt that a careful re-examination of the issue should have made them realize that each has more to lose than to gain with RAND standards.

First, it's impossible to devise a non-discriminatory standard that imposes a royalty fee. The receiver of the royalties always has the advantage.

Second, such a system, by favoring the biggest players (as they are the ones likely to finagle the largest number of such standards), it would favor the status quo. Not so bad if you're Microsoft or IBM or even Sun. Less wonderful if you're HP or Apple.

Re:Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations aren't usually known for doing the right thing simply because it's, well, the right thing.

Nor are individuals.

Re:Good for them

[TheAwfulTruth]

No, they don't. Ever. HP and Apple obviously think that this change of heart will benefit them. I don't know how it will or won't. But I can assure you that was the only reason for making the descision. Sometimes "People will like us more and maybe buy more X from us" is the reason. Sometimes "It will make us money in royalties" is the reason. Whatever it is, it is always made with what seems to be the best interest of the company at the time. If it happens to be the right thing then they look good, if not, they look evil. But BEING good or evil is NEVER a reason for a company to make a descision. Those traits are thrust upon them by outside watchers.

Re:Good for them

[Phroggy]

I wonder what happened to make them change their minds. Corporations aren't usually known for doing the right thing simply because it's, well, the right thing.

Apple is trying to change what they are known for. Five years ago, they were known for having a proprietary operating system that ran on proprietary hardware. Three years ago they got rid of the proprietary hardware, and now they've got an open-source OS. There's still a proprietary GUI on top of the OS, but there's a pretty open feel to parts of it. Storing preferences in XML. Bundling Apache and OpenSSH. I compiled WindowMaker!

Re:Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Apple has done the right thing a number of times. They donated money and computers to victoms of the 9/11 tragedy, just to cite one example. Anothe ris, they made a computer that will never be able to run windows natively.

Re:Good for them

[ryusen]

i think their benifit are twofold:
1- they look good to their supporters (hp has supporters?? oh well so much for that theory)
2- they wont have to deal with the complexities of tracking patents, ip, copyrights, etc... or having to wrestle with other people as to who owns what?
overall it will make it simpler for themm (who toute themselves as more hardware companies so they can build their hardware and use free standards...

Re:Good for them

[Karl Cocknozzle]

I wonder what happened to make them change their minds. Corporations aren't usually known for doing the right thing simply because it's, well, the right thing.

Interesting.

Indeed.

In this situation "THE RIGHT THING" and what would provide them with the best competitive advantage happily coincided. After all, MS is several years into developing royalty technology. Do HP and Apple really want to compete in a royalty environment with MS having a headstart on development?

I think they thought about it and realized that they would only be feeding the beast by supporting royalty based standards. After all, MS has the most to gain from this. It's a simple mob tactic.

After all, MS is taxing the OEM hardware/software, software vendor, business software and business OS/hardware markets. The next logical step in their racket is to try and get a stranglehold on the internet.

Simple mob tactic. Identify opportunity. Enter market. Destroy competition, tax everybody you do business with, and make sure to box competitors out of the market, one way or the other.

Re:Good for them

[martyn s]

Whether it happens on a conscious level or not is open for debate, but that's how people operate too. Whether it's evolution or whatever, the only reason people might do something good is that it will benefit them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not machiavellian or anything, and I don't use this as the guiding principle of my actions. I do something good because I think it's the right thing to do. But as an afterthought, I know that the only reason I thought that action was good was because it would help me. That's why you try to return a favor to someone who's nice. And both parties will often each get more than they gave. If my rambling was even remotely interesting to you read about Game Theory here.

Re:Good for them

[innocent_white_lamb]

They donated money and computers to victoms of the 9/11 tragedy ----> And got substantial publicity and "good feelings" out of doing so. Not to mention a tax deduction, I'd imagine.

As the other posters have mentioned, they received an advantage ("return on investment") by making that donation.

Well, what a nice surprise.

[DragonPup]

Whatever their real reasons for withdrawing support, I have a feeling that the backlash a lot of people on /. expressed helped change their minds.

-Henry

Re:Well, what a nice surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

It could also be that elements within the companies that "get it" weren't aware of this until the controversy arose, and managed to change the minds of the greedy bastards responsible. Corporations aren't just one big hive kind, you know.

Re:Well, what a nice surprise.

[SumDeusExMachina]

Thinking that a small group of fanatical social outcasts can affect any change whatsoever on these large corporations is flawed logic at its best.

Just like every other major decision by a corporation, this was motivated by their own self-interests, not someone else's.

Re:Well, what a nice surprise.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Someone's got doom-and-gloom clouding their eyes. The fanatical social outcasts of such causes as feminism and animal rights appear to do a damn good job forcing their views on both corporations and society in general.

Re:Well, what a nice surprise.

[ryusen]

yes, but it's usually these social outcast extremists who voive their opions the loudest... and if enough of us start shouting and no one else contradicts us, people upstairs might actually think we are right *smirk*

Re:Well, what a nice surprise.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh yes, the radical notion that women should be treated as equal human beings. Crazy fanatics.

Re:Well, what a nice surprise.

[rking]

It isn't a radical notion now. It was a radical notion then. The reason that it is no longer a radical notion is that those particular "fanatics" did achieve the changes they set out to achieve.

Discounting anyone acting now on the grounds that they are fanatics because they haven't succeeded yet whilst justifying anyone who succeeded in the past as not being a fanatic on the grounds that they actually did succeed in changing opinions is hopelesly circular.

Re:Well, what a nice surprise.

[naasking]

Thinking that a small group of fanatical social outcasts can affect any change whatsoever

Last time I checked, Slashdot had over 500 000 registered users. That's only registered users and I don't think it's out of the question to assume there are twice as many (if not more) unregistered users. These are largely people in the IT industry. So, you're saying that 1 000 000 people (at least) in the IT industry cannot "affect any change whatsoever"? Perhaps you should have put more thought into it. ;-)

Oops, I see someone has already made this point... Oh well.

Re:Well, what a nice surprise.

[SurfsUp]

Whatever their real reasons for withdrawing support, I have a feeling that the backlash a lot of people on /. expressed helped change their minds.

No, that had very little to do with it. Here on Slashdot you're preaching to the choir. You're going to have absolutely zip, none, nada, no effect on anybody's policy unless you get off your ass, get outside Slashdot, and communicate in the forum's where it matters. In this case, the main effects were caused by people who posted to the W3C's patentpolicy-comment list.

Don't get the idea that sitting on Slashdot and bleating actually does anything other than make you feel better. Come back here and tell us what you've done.

Of course...

[cmowire]

Of course, the good question is... Will this be a case where Apple and HP drop support publically and the issue dissapears (And then quietly reappears 6 months later in a different form) or the case where Apple and HP drop support publically and it just goes on as if nothing happened (Like Adobe's dropping support of suing for Acrobat-Crackers) ;)

Re:Of course...

[Bruce Perens]

HP wasn't ever for RAND. One of our attorneys, who lobbied for RF, got his name on the document, and that made it appear that we were for RAND.

Bruce

Re:Of course...

[zmooc]

I pee in the shower as well. It saves time.

Re:Of course...

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux Weekly News has a short blurb stating that you've been appointed to the W3C. Congratulations on that. I hope you will do some good there.

Re:Of course...

[Bruce Perens]

Eben Moglen (attorney for the FSF) is on board too. We'll try. From my first direct communication with W3C, they've expressed an extremely good attitude - they want to understand what Open Source / Free Software need, and they want to help.

Bruce

Re:Of course...

[Kanasta]

Hi

What is RF?

There is hope after all

[Anonymous Coward]

wow corporate america listening to people with a clue who submitted comments when asked for opinions on what they knew was a greedy and stupid idea. I am floored. Maybe we can keep HP and APPLE off of the list of corporations to exterminate during the anti-corporate-america rebellion of 2003.

Perhaps they listened

[tino_sup]

Considering the push-back when this was proposed, perhaps the two groups paid attention and are trying not to piss off those that can make an impact.

What about Quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Apple wanted Quicktime to become the web standard for video. Apple is now deciding that it won't happen, unless they plan to relicense the Sorenson codec as free to use for all?

Re:What about Quicktime?

[TotallyUseless]

Apple doesnt own Sorenson, it isnt theirs to relicense

Re:What about Quicktime?

[RichiP]

What makes them (Apple) think that they'll win the video format standard battle? I think Microsoft has more clout.

No matter. I'm just thanking my lucky stars. Hopefully, the next video (streaming or otherwise) standards isn't bogged down by blind copyright protection schemes or crippling mechanisms

Re:What about Quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 interesting
-1 uninformed

Re:What about Quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

is .mov sorenson? The reason they want Quictime to become the standard is becase it supports streaming, channels, and the streaming software is free for OSX and Darwin users.

Media player doesn't have these features, and lets face it realplayer has the worst quality of all three.

Re:What about Quicktime?

[Gogo Dodo]

is .mov sorenson?

It doesn't have to be, but generally is if you want the best video quality with compression. See Apple's list of formats that QuickTime supports.

Re:What about Quicktime?

[znu]

Not quite. Apple is a heavy backer of (and contributer to) the MPEG-4 standard.

Re:What about Quicktime?

[innocent_white_lamb]

Apple doesnt own Sorenson, it isnt theirs to relicense ----> Apparently any decision about relicensing it is indeed up to them.

I bugged Sorenson about this issue some time ago and got a response along the line of "We licensed this codec exclusively to Apple (to do with as they choose, apparently). If you want to get this ported to any other architectures, you should bug Apple about it."

Re:What about Quicktime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, have you ever considered the fact that SORENSEN have to turn a fucking buck from their work?

Its all about who the customers are...

[Whyte Wolf]

The backlash we saw here on /. and elsewhere against the RAND recommendation fromt he W3C, and the subsequent response from HP and Apple says something quite significant--I think-- about who the real customers of web technology are.

Apple and HPs move are PR motivated, and it looks like they were motivated by the response from their 'real' web cutomers -- the web developers and web designers who work with HTML and W3C 'standards' every day.

I find it interesting to note that Microsoft has yet to say anything about the backlash or its current position. Like always I suspect they hold their customers, and developers in nothing less than utter contempt.

Re:Its all about who the customers are...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're being a little optimisting, and vastly overestimating the influence of the slashdot/geek/open source community.

HP and Apple realized and acknowledged (and other players will too) that RAND does not benefit them financially. It is clear that the biggest players will get their way with standards, just like they do now in other consortiums that follow the RAND approach. Neither HP nor Apple are big, they don't own very many Internet technologies, they hold very few Internet-related patents, and have no Internet R&D spewing such patents on a daily basis. So in the end, they will get the short end of the stick (read: they will be the licencees) while IBM and Microsoft will end up steering the standards towards their vast patent portfolios.

It's all about money, don't delude yourself.

Re:Its all about who the customers are...

[Graymalkin]

How exactly do you get any bigger than HP without being IBM? Apple and HP aren't opposed to this because of internet standard, they will get screwed in the internet to paper transition of these technologies. Say HP has to pay a royalty on SVG support for printers, could you imagine where HP would be if they had to pay to include PostScript support in printers? Same goes with Apple, say they include native support for SVG in the Quartz engine, they would get fucked from royalty fees. It isn't about who holds the patents, its about who stands to lose if they need to use stuff under those patents. You're right about them and the short end of the stick but it isn't due to their lack of patents or technology research.

Re:Its all about who the customers are...

[Elwood P Dowd]

Is this a joke? Someone moderated it as funny, and that's the only way I can imagine this as a +5 comment. Microsoft holds their developers in nothing less than utter contempt? You're kidding, right?

Re:Its all about who the customers are...

[drinkypoo]

Microsoft holds their developers in nothing less than utter contempt? You're kidding, right?

There are many, many examples to support this, even though it may not be true. Yeah, and the pope doesn't wear a funny hat.

The overall crashiness and poor performance of windows, the doomed-to-fail-anyway protection schemes of Windows XP, Visual Basic in general, the general broken states of the Win32 API and SMB, et cetera. Let's not forget their utter lack of a commitment to good programming and QA standards which would have prevented Code Red, for example.

All in all, Microsoft dishes out the subset of things that people want that overlaps with what they can use to control the market. Their only consideration is the last dollar, and they don't seem to intend to get there by giving consumers what they want, unless the "they" involved here is Microsoft.

Before someone calls this a flame, consider this; The open source movement would not be picking up such speed and acquiring such acclaim outside of the ubergeek social circles if mickeysoft cared about their users. Then again, if they really cared about their users (not that I expect them to, they're a corporation) they'd probably be open source, anyway.

Re:Its all about who the customers are...

[Elwood P Dowd]

Dude, however they might treat their users, they certainly know that if their only consideration is the last dollar, then they need to treat their developers really really well. And VB is a great example. They want to make sure that *anyone* can make an application (bloated, slow, whatever) and they can do it fast. This is all well and good. They treat their *developers* really really well. MSDN is *not* an immediately profitable enterprise. They just know who they depend on.

Re:Its all about who the customers are...

[drinkypoo]

They treat their *developers* really really well. MSDN is *not* an immediately profitable enterprise. They just know who they depend on.

I just thought of some more examples; The basic crashiness and general unreliability of visual sourcesafe. It's absolutely atrocious. It doesn't tend to lose code, but it does blow up devstudio an awful lot.

For that matter, while devstudio does quite a bit, it's not really one of the better-designed IDEs around, and it's definitely dog slow. Also, their little shortcuts (like typing the name of an object and a dot and getting the drop-down of methods) work only inconsistently and not for all "supported" languages (IE, VBscript and Jscript mostly don't work right in that respect.)

MSDN really doesn't cost that much to run. There's an awful lot of MSDN subscribers, so it's all done in volume, you have to pay at least $1500 for MSDN for a year, right? It probably only costs them about $0.25 per CD, plus the binder and sleeves (Maybe $10?) and a crappy slow website which they seem to spend very few development hours on, considering how lousy the search tools are. They spend a little money on the bandwidth for downloading from MSDN, but I've had plenty of occurrences where I could only get a couple kbytes/sec from MSDN's download site, so obviously there's not enough there. They probably spend more on shipping than anything else, and you know they get crazy bulk rates there.

I suspect that MSDN *is* an immediately profitable enterprise, though there's not much profit in it. I maintain that developers are shit upon in a general microsoft "we don't care" kind of way, though not in specific.

We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company - er, microsoft.

Big Bad Borg....

[wowbagger]

Sounds like both Apple and HP looked at how many standards Microsoft was going to own, and came to their senses.

Either that, or the constant barrage of hostile emails had an effect.

If I had to bet, I'd bet on the former, not the latter....

Re:Big Bad Borg....

[Bruce Perens]

Surprisingly, MS was not on the pro-patent side in this argument.

Bruce

Re:Big Bad Borg....

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not on the anti-patent side either. When the need arises MS will throw their weight into the arena.

Re:Big Bad Borg....

[CrimsonWraith]

They likely don't support it, because they would have to fight all these new patents in court after they try and steal them. Its bad for business, cuts into thier stealing time.

Re:Big Bad Borg....

[The Evil Twin]

Of course not. It's so much easier to "embrace and extend" open standards! How else is M$ going to make their money.

Re:Big Bad Borg....

[Bruce Perens]

And directly at Linux. Agreed.

Bruce

Re:Big Bad Borg....

[innocent_white_lamb]

Surprisingly, MS was not on the pro-patent side in this argument.-------> Not so surprising. What would happen if some other outfit got a patent on some core technology (the "next big thing") and MS had to license the technology from them?

Hoist on their own petard comes to mind. I'm sure they would not want to take a chance on being put into that position.

I think someone on here posted that MS has a strict policy of not paying royalties for technology use; they either work around outside patents or purchase them outright.

Remember, nobody really knows what the "next big thing" will be....

Definately a Surprise

[TheLOTR]

This definately comes as a surprise given the direction that HP has taken as of late. Many of the people I have known who work there consider Carly's main interest to be profit, and EVERYTHING else comes second. The idea that HP would push a royalty-free system is a wonderful surprise.

Re:Definately a Surprise

[firewort]

Carly must have realized that you can't make profits when paying fees to use everyone else's patents!

I'm pleased that Apple chose this route as a customer, and dissapointed that IBM hasn't, as an employee. Not surprised, just disappointed.

Re:Definately a Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

You should instigate a mass resignation.

Re:Definately a Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

"Many of the people I have known who work there consider Carly's main interest to be profit, and EVERYTHING else comes second."

So you're saying she's a CEO? well no shit. Find me a CEO that isn't interested in profit first, and I'll show you a CEO who is gonna be on the street.

No way.

[MongooseCN]

Some major companies have enough trouble conforming to free web standards as it is and break and make their own standards. Creating standards that require royalties to use will just make companies do things their own way even more.

Re:No way.

[griffjon]

Exactly. I still harbor intense anger at Netscape for introducting Tables.

What insanity and bad design practice that has since unleashed.

(helf joking, half serious. I turned green at the gills the first time I saw a wysiwyg use tables for absolute positioning of text.)

Woo Hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Power to tha People!

Nice to see this, I'll make a point of looking at the Apple / HP alternative next time I buy something (where applicable).

Always good to reward the suits when they do actually make a good decision...

What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[LoveMe2Times]

Can anybody clue me in on what relevant patents HP or Apple has, anyway? Did they stand to benefit, or did they just all of a sudden go, "Hello! These might mean that we would have to pay out the nose too!" and make an abrupt about face? If HP and Apple aren't sitting on patents that might cover current or future web standards, who is? The article mentions that they collaborated with M$ for the original proposal, and I presume that they're sitting on more patents than we'd really like to think about. How does adoption of this proposal relate to the possibility of .Net becoming a web standard (if at all)?

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[J'raxis]

With Apple setting the standards, we would all have an Internet that looks like translucent blue candy.

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a Mac fan, and I'll give you that one...but you left out brushed metal....

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[izzertaq]

For one, Apple has a number of patents relating to the SVG standard. While not strictly necessary for implementation, these patents left the standard in a position where some OSS advocates were advocating forking the standard to route around the threat. It's good to see Apple make it clear which Web they want, and that that future is the more inclusive one.

[SVG is a vector image format used by Nautilus, and probably a number of other applications I'm not aware of.]

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[tb3]

Check out the battlebots web site for an SVG app. Note that it's an Adobe product. Sigh.

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[Alan Partridge]

in a funny way, Apple have ALWAYS had a big influence on web standards simply because so many web designers are working on the Mac. Funnily enough, MS' IE for the Mac was awarded for its good compliance - if only the PC version could boast likewise...

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[iabervon]

For one, Apple has a patent on alpha blending, which is part of anti-aliasing algorithms and so forth. I suspect that Apple would actually rather not try to enforce this patent against users of standard like SVG, since it's a somewhat flismy patent, essentially being z=ax+(1-a)y, which is both simple math (from probability, e.g.) and also is essentially how colored plastic works.

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[gig]

Microsoft's Mac products are made by a separate unit in Silicon Valley ... not in Redmond. IE:mac (as it's called) has a rendering engine of its own called Tazman that's as compliant as Gecko, and the browser uses JavaScript, plug-ins, and Java. The interface is Mac OS X -style, even in the Mac OS 9 version. If you are ever cursing at IE Windows for shitty rendering, just remember that Bill Gates owns a super-standards-compliant rendering engine already.

Many Mac users have come to think of the Microsoft Mac Business Unit ("Mactopia") as a separate company that builds Microsoft-compatible products for the Mac. Of course, no company could ever do that without being owned by Microsoft, but you ignore that illegal distortion of the free market and focus on the products, you are happy to have the option to become "Office-compatible" (for a publisher, say) without having to run Windows.

I think Apple has plenty of patents. They have always done a lot of research. FireWire is pretty famous lately. Mac OS X is full of cutting-edge technology. MPEG-4 is QuickTime, basically. Since Apple bought NeXT they have been firmly on a path to open standards, in every software and hardware component. Even the BIOS-equivalent in their machines is a stardard that Sun also uses. Choosing NeXT over BeOS was symbolic of this. I think Steve Jobs has confidence in Apple's ability to survive on a level playing field. Where Microsoft is doing everything it can to control the very Internet, Apple gave up a lot of control of their whole core OS in order to be interoperable. Apple is free to innovate at a much higher level, with FireWire, DVD authoring, ease of use, graphics, audio, etc. In 6-12 months there will be such a difference between a Mac and everything else for creative applications ... Aqua apps have access to BSD, Cocoa, Carbon, Java2, QuickTime, CoreAudio (32-bit float, unlimited channels), CoreMIDI (1ms latency routing, mLAN support), FireWire, USB, PDF, a PostScript interpreter, AppleScript (user-level recordable interaction between GUI apps), Quartz, object-oriented dynamic drivers, UNIX (true multiuser with POSIX permissions), Unicode, XML, much more. People are building apps right now on Mac OS X that just can't be built anywhere else ... very few of the apps that you actually go out and buy Macs just to run are ported yet (Pro Tools, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro). Those apps are going to work so well on Mac OS X that it will have people's jaws dropping. The DVD Player application in 10.1 is already doing that, with its performance and high-quality and amazing multitasking ... it's just the first of many apps to bring that kind of quality and stability and multitasking to all corners of digital media creation.

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

People who make the standards are engineers [usually working with PCs], Mac users tend to be more of artistic kind. So while Mac users work with the standards, they dont actully have large infulence what the standards will be like.

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[Tony-A]

Linear interpolation should go back at least to the 19th century.

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[sv0f]

Can anybody clue me in on what relevant patents HP or Apple has, anyway?

I believe they have a patent on the trash can icon.

Re:What patents do these guys have, anyway?

[J'raxis]

So am I... but I really think the OSX look is far too candyish I like the OS 8/9 look (which is what I still run on my G3)) much better.

Converts

[3seas]

So they converted to jpg from gif?

Good for them!

Re:Converts

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean png. jpeg is more lossy than gif or png, whereas png is approximately as lossy as gif, and supports alpha coolness to boot, IIRC.

Re:Converts

[J'raxis]

Both PNG and GIF are lossless. GIF has the disadvantage of being locked into eight bits (256 colors), but thats not considered lossy. Lossy means actual pixel data gets lost, not just dithered down. PNG supports up to 48 bits, I think.

Vertigo!

[Snafoo]

So.... Apple's main OS du jour has an OSS core, HP and Apple openly combat Free Software's foes, and IBM (despite helping pen the recent W3 recommendation) dances around waving our flag like a teenybopper at a cheerleading competition.

Is anyone else feeling a certain sense of vertigo, here? :) I mean, this is *Apple* we're talking about. Christ, remember the boycott? And IB-smegging-M. Have I stumbled into +Better Than Life or something? This reality's state has surely become inconsistent. I expect the whole thing to segfault at any moment.

Re:Vertigo!

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I think that we're just seeing the results of the creation of strange matter. :-)

The strangeness is leaking into the rest of the world.

Re:Vertigo!

[gig]

That's the new Apple, man. Standards everywhere. Even if you have to see it to believe it, once you see it you won't believe it (you get me?). They can match acronyms and buzzwords and standards with anybody out there. A lot of people who would never have used a Mac a few years ago are buying iBooks now and enjoying all the Mac GUI and apps coming along with their UNIX, for a very low cost. You can install an X-Windows app and get your hands all dirty, and then run it side-by-side with an app that you "installed" by dragging one "fat" file to wherever you wanted and opening it. Apple are really simplifying things and creating an even more transparent computing experience, where you just think of what you want to do and then do it, whether that's editing video or shell scripting, and the computer is up to the task. It's a great platform. The best desktop ever, no doubt.

Re:Vertigo!

[vertigo]

you rang, sir? :)

Re:Vertigo!

[nbvb]

damn skippy!

Welcome to the New World...

I never in a MILLION YEARS thought I'd own a Mac... but I do, and it is good.

I have expunged every piece of Wintendo hardware (That means AMD/Intel. I haven't _ever_ run Windows. OS/2, Linux, Solaris, sure. No Windows.). My SPARCstations sit pretty idle (one is a simple webserver, the other is a firewall).

My desktops are all Mac now. It's weird man, very very weird. I never ever thought I'd be doing this.

And you wanna know what sold me on the Mac?

iTunes. Simplicity at its best. Oh, and it doesn't skip. EVER.

--DM

These guys get a lot of exposure, so

[trilucid]

I'm not at all surprised they've shifted gears on this one. And might I add, it's *probably* got something to do with the public opinion on this topic ;).

I think (can't say for certain of course) this puts solid evidence behind the concept of making an effort to comment on proposed specs and such. I suppose this falls into the same category as "write to your representatives", although we seem to having better luck on the royalty front today than on legislative issues.

To all who submitted requests that this "standard" not be adopted, you certainly have my thanks (and most likely the thanks of hundreds of thousands of developers who want a royalty-free standards system).

this isn't all too surprising

[LazyDawg]

Maybe Apple is trying to protect valuable marketshare as a web appliance producer. Closed or RAND-based licensing schemes would not help them maintain standards compliance, and many of the currently free but very useful Mac apps for browsing the web would have to change strategies.

Finally, a company figuring out that its restrictive practices with licensing have hurt their marketshare and the industry at large.

Re:this isn't all too surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Me, I don't like homos.

Yay, Apple!

[vought]

Sanity prevails once more in Cupertino.

Not the first time, but maybe the last?

Re:Yay, Apple!

[Phroggy]

Not the first time, but maybe the last?

Yep, the beleagured Apple is dying again! They'll be gone within a year.

Oh wait, they were gonna die within a year five years ago? And ten years ago? Yet they're still here? Hmm.

Re:Blame Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

While Clinton bashing was fun from 1992-2000, he is no longer in office and nobody cares anymore.

More info/links

[hansk]

There has been some good discussion and links related to this issue over at Dave Winer's scripting.com.

Also, over at Zeldman's www.zeldman.com.

QuickTime, for one.

[cirby]

Apple would sure gain a lot more from QuickTime being the official standard. HP probably has some printing-oriented stuff.

Royality internet standards?

[ZaneMcAuley]

How can a royality based so called standard be a standard? Isnt a standard based on mutual agreement or compromise?

Kinda goes against the spirit doesnt it.

Re:Royality internet standards?

[ZaneMcAuley]

A standards committee should have no finincial interests. It should be non biased.

Re:Royality internet standards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. The way it works is that we all run Microsoft software "as a compromise", and then it's a standard :-)

ANIMATION!

[Anonymous Coward]

...now they just need to get the animation bits pilished off and it's "Bye bye GIF"!.

the others

[staeci]

Was there any member of the w3c who didn't support this at all?

Any company which did support it and now doesn't is just reacting to the fact that they got caught out trying to screw the entire internet community for a quick buck.

Free Software Reps now on W3C Patent Policy Board

[Bruce Perens]

I have accepted a position on the W3C Patent Policy Board. One has also been offered to Eben Moglen of FSF, and I think he's accepted.

Bruce Perens

See what happens when we whine?

[Anonymous Coward]

The very negative feedback "we the people" gave them and the press coverage seems to have worked. I believe the proposal won't survive to see the light of day.

Re:Free Software Reps now on W3C Patent Policy Boa

[WillSeattle]

Cool, Bruce!

Remember, you have to stand up for the little guy. The costs for a major corporation for patents and licensing fees for a standard may not be great, but for a non-profit or a small business they are. And for free software developers, they're astronomical.

Death to Ridiculous Patent Laws!

A quick peek at their wallets changed their minds.

[thesolo]

This was definitely not a case of public outcry changing their opinion--Apple & HP have both been flamed to death before (think constant lawsuits & layoffs, respectively), with no policies changing. However, once they realized that they would NOT be the top players in this, and that they would probably wind up having to pay MS/Sun/InsertBigNameCompanyHere for their patents, it suddenly didn't look like such a good idea.

And you know what? I don't care about their reasoning. I'm just happy that they backed out of a horrible idea...even if it wasn't for the right reasons.

Re:Free Software Reps now on W3C Patent Policy Boa

[tswinzig]

Yeah, but how do we know you're the real Bruce Perens?

Re:Free Software Reps now on W3C Patent Policy Boa

[Anonymous Coward]

I too have accepted a position on the W3C board. Now Please mod this up to +5 informative.

Re:Free Software Reps now on W3C Patent Policy Boa

[scumdamn]

Look at my link.

Re:Blame Clinton

[Anonymous Coward]

You cared enough to respond, loser. Owned!

Re:HEAR NOW MY GNU/HOLY WORDS !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

you can get around the postercomment compression filter by posting a lot of crap at the end of your post (like "oihasfhopfasouawvyopiwpaorrypawyrooiawupvropynwar vopwrvowvrapyuawvroy")

Allah_Sporku Akbar!

[Anonymous Coward]

With tears of joy in my eyes I witness the blessing of the non-cowardly first-poster by Allah_Spork! I am also at the same time shamed that I value my karma over my God as I post this Anonymously. I could only hope that one day I may be brave enough to shed this earthly skin, run my karma into negative numbers, and perhaps taste the sweetness of 70 boy-virgins that you so generously reward.

The infidels who moderate this board will never prevail over the great Allah-Spork. Not while we can karma-whore our way into their environment as we approach the day of Slashdot Jihad.

You Humble Servant, AC

On Corporations, and The Right Thing (tm).

[mindstrm]

Corporations aren't known for doing the right thing.. becuase it's illegal for them to do so. No, really, it is.

You see, public corporations have a duty to protect the interests of their shareholders. They cannot do something because it's 'right'. IF wha they are doing is legal, and profitable, they cannot go and STOP doing it just because it's not 'right'.
THat's the problem.

Re:On Corporations, and The Right Thing (tm).

[eric henriksen]

That's a common myth around here, but it is largely untrue. What about the early corporate participants in the the South African boycott?

Re:On Corporations, and The Right Thing (tm).

[Anonymous Coward]

Had it affected profits in any measurable way, the officers would be sued to death.

Evidently, the PR benifits of the boycott outweighted the lots profits.

Re:On Corporations, and The Right Thing (tm).

[Tony-A]

Public corporations have a duty to protect the interests of their shareholders. This is not their only duty. They also have duties in regard to employees, customers, suppliers, their industry, and their community.

Re:On Corporations, and The Right Thing (tm).

[ghostlibrary]

I concur. When setting up my corporation, my accountant told me my Articles of Inc had to explicitly state that edu work and developing new concepts were our first goals _ahead of maximizing profits_. Otherwise, the default is "maximizing profits takes precedence" and shareholders could act on that (nixing a new approach, say, because it threatens an existing line.)

It's not even a question of listing priorities-- you have to specifically state if something overrules profit-making, else profit-making is always the top (unspoken) goal of a corporation.

Re:On Corporations, and The Right Thing (tm).

[mindstrm]

Yes. But unless the company charter specifies other goals, profit is king.

All the other 'duties' you mention have to do with the law... not morals. Yes, you have to pay your employees, but of course, you can also lay them off to incrase profits.
Yes, you have to pay your suppliers, but you can always pick a supplier from India who is cheaper to increase profits.
Yes, you can hire out of the community, but unless local law requires it, you can farm the work out to Mexico for a tenth of the price.

You see the point?

Ok, IBM it is your turn.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the IBM folks have lots of patents, and that they make a lot of money from them (I've heard that they make something like a billion dollars a year). Now, IBM has been making a lot of noise for Linux and has been spending a lot of marketing cash on their linux campain. Given that the community "love" for IBM is important, IBM needs to make clear if he is on our side or not, they can't play both ways.

The question is clear crystal to IBM:
Which side are you on ?

IBM can continue making all the money they want with their patents, but here we are talking about a totaly different thing, open standards. Standards are not created for companies to make money, they are created so that we can all work together in the benefit of our users.

Re:Free Software Reps now on W3C Patent Policy Boa

[djocyko]

hmmm...user 3872...nah...must be a faker =P

The Apple MS connection...

[joel8x]

Since Microsoft seems to copy most of the Mac's design features and innovations(notice where the recycle bin is on XP for a recent one) soon after Apple introduces it, does this pave the way further for Micro$oft embracing open standards or even open source?

Re:The Apple MS connection...

[Anonymous Coward]

The recycle bin in xp is in the same place it always was you wanker...

Re:The Apple MS connection...

[gig]

By default it is in the lower right of the screen in Windows XP, for the first time ever. This is significant because Microsoft agreed not to put a trash can in the lower right of their interface during one of their court cases over copying stuff over the years, and this agreement just ran out recently.

Re:The Apple MS connection...

[joel8x]

Aparently you have never seen XP because its not in the same place as other versions of Windows. Please don't resort to calling me a wanker unless you have substantial proof that I wank.

Re:Free Software Reps now on W3C Patent Policy Boa

[ryusen]

one idea i read: if you want to support free (as in beer) software writters is to make the royalties on a % base.. that way people who charge little or no $ for their software are not hurt by this issue
but overall i think everyone would benifit from free open stadards to build on

Re:Free Software Reps now on W3C Patent Policy Boa

[Monkius]

Eben Moglen--great choice.

He has been extraordinary on this issue, I think. (BP pretty good, too :)

Here's how I see it

[abe ferlman]

Enlightened self interest will stop the bleeding until we can fully rehabilitate the public sphere. First explain to corporations why closed standards hurt their profits, then make people understand why proprietary information hurts their freedom.

Bryguy

Because it's the best

[cryptochrome]

Quicktime is the first, the oldest, the most developed, and by far the best video architecture around (although the default codecs aren't the best, and the software implementations of the standard sometimes have bugs). Its ability to handle many different types of data is unparalelled - it's almost an operating system unto its own. That's why they picked it as the basis of the MPEG 4 standard. Now if only they'd come out with a linux version.

Re:Because it's the best

[Phroggy]

Now if only they'd come out with a linux version.

There are Linux apps that can play QuickTime movies. Have been for a long time. The problem is, the Sorenson codec is proprietary, and without that, what good is QuickTime to most people?

Re:Because it's the best

[gig]

QuickTime is the most complete multimedia there is, which is why MPEG-4 is based on it. Real has a server and a player, and Microsoft has a server, a player, and an OS monopoly, but QuickTime is in cameras, audio apps, music apps, Web authoring apps, animation tools, DVD authoring tools, DV editors, and open source streaming servers on every major platform. It supports almost every image, video, and audio format in existence, along with animated images and Flash movies. It has a built-in software synth with DLS. For $29 you can author with QuickTime Player Pro just by cutting and pasting and exporting. QuickTime is one of the major reasons why creative people use Macs. While Microsoft was trying to get their developers to support a GUI, Apple had their developers integrating their apps with QuickTime, so you can move media back and forth between apps as files or with the clipboard and get great results.

Almost every video you can find on the Web was in QuickTime format at some point in it's life. There aren't any other vendors with this kind of technology. It may be possible to do digital video without Apple, but it's not something you'd do by choice.

If you want to run QuickTime on Linux, here's how.

Crossover Brings QuickTime to Linux

Guys ... file the QuickTime-on-Linux stuff away with the one-button mouse crap and the entire phrase "proprietary hardware". You're only hurting yourselves by regurgitating all the Microsoft FUD we are forced to swallow every day. Shit it out, instead. Go to an Apple Store and touch some of this stuff. Apple is firing on all cylinders right now, and it's something to see. You can make movies and DVD's with drag and drop on a stable UNIX with ridiculous graphics and media support. It's outstanding. You could share one of these computers with your grandmother and both be happy.

Re:Because it's the best

[Anonymous Coward]

there aren't any other vendors with this kind of technology. It may be possible to do digital video without Apple, but it's not something you'd do by choice.

There used to be. Remember the Amiga/NewTek combo, the Video Toaster. The "mac version" was an entire amiga in a rebadged box!.

Re:Because it's the best

[Anonymous Coward]

If I (and 100 million other people) buy Apple products now, there is NO evidence whatsoever to indicate that they will not turn around and become another Microsoft. In fact, their refusal to port Quicktime to Linux is a clear indication that they operate under the exact same principles of "fuck interoperability, we want profits" mentality. No way I'm supporting a company like that.

Re:Because it's the best

[nbvb]

Good. So go back to your playpen and your "STALLMAN RULEZ!" rallies and leave those of us who use REAL computers alone.

There's this little thing called capitalism -- basically, in order to stay in business, you have to make a profit. I know, I know, it's a REALLY hard concept for some people to get, but you really should try 3rd grade social studies classes. They might help.

Mod Parent Up!

[jthill]

SSIA

Re:Stephen King, author, dead at 55

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Stephen King die of AIDS? He is a homo.

Am I still banned

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just wondering if my entire network was still banned maybe just some part was banned.

How are you qualified?

[Bud Dwyer]

I hate to be a spoilsport, but exactly what qualifies you to serve on the Patent Policy Board? Do you have a law degree? Extensive industry experience? Or is this merely an attempt to appease the Open Source community by lowering standards for board members?

Re:How are you qualified?

[QuoteMstr]

Extensive industry experience, I'd imagine.

Re:How are you qualified?

[Bruce Perens]

Well, you could read my bio.

Bruce

Re:How are you qualified?

[canadian_right]

Well, I for one am impressed.

Makes my resume look pretty thin.

Re:How are you qualified?

[FyRE666]

I'm surprised you posted something like that without doing it as an anonymous coward...

I think that both Apple and HP will drop...

[Anonymous Coward]

...their pants.

YAY!!!

[samantha]

Who can I write at Apple and HP to express appreciation? This is good news!

Re:YAY!!!

[90XDoubleSide]

Apple's Website and General Feedback page is at: http://www.apple.com/contact/feedback.html and you can email HP's CEO here: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/email/fiorina/in dex.htm

Response from HP

[dpol]

There's an interesting interview at NEWS.COM with Jim Bell, director of standards and industry initiatives at Hewlett-Packard, titled "Why the W3C needs to be royalty free".

Apple's Official Comment

[90XDoubleSide]

Here's the link since I didn't see it posted already: http://www.apple.com/about/w3c/.

A one page statement describing the issues, their opinion, and their desired resolution. It's the top story on their news page, so hopefully it will let more people know about the issue.

Can you say 'DUUUHHHH"?

[pedro]

I knew ya could :)

This one was a no-starter from the get-go.

Open standards raise all ships, folks, and it's heartening to see these two titans place their imprimatur behind that rather obvious notion.

Kudos all around, gang. Especially to those who raised thoughtful, well reasoned objections. We may have won this one. YAY!

Next stop? The US.GOV and their recent salivations about dining on our constitution.. a document that has served as inspiritation for the oppressed and disenfranchised masses the world over.

Let's not drop the ball on THAT battle, people.

Keep your flameage to a modest level, but call every radio talk show you can find (THAT works far better than *mail) and inform the vast unwashed that THEY and their FAMILIES' security is in jeopardy if the gummint gets its' way, and in any degree dilutes the Oh Most Holy of our first Ten.

We need a Media blitz. A bunch of pissed off geeks can accomplish that, and more, given the hunger to do so.

(gunnery sergeant Hartman)

GET HUNGRY, PEOPLE!
ARE YOU HUNGRY?

Sir, yes sir!

DO YOU WANNIT?

Sir, yes sir!

THEN GET YOUR SOFT, FLABBY GEEK ASSES OUT THERE, AND REDEEM OUR DAMNED CONSTITUTION!

SIR! *YES*! SIR!

Dismissed..

(/gunnery sergeant Hartman)

how about IBM?

[WildBeast]

Shouldn't IBM drop support for Royalties on Web Standards to? Why are they still pushing for this?

Mod this puppy UP, please!

[pedro]

Thank you!

The problem is...

[artemis67]

The PNG standard has been out for, what, 4 years now? And I don't think there's a single browser on the market that fully implements PNG. PNG would have been great if it had been supported two or three years ago, but I don't see it happening for a looooong time now. A billion+ web pages aren't going to switch overnight...

Re:anthrax sent to microsoft licensing dept.

[WildBeast]

We used to receive viruses when opening email attachments, some people asked for the boycott of Outlook. Now I guess we have to boycott the post office, maybe even sue them.

Swayed by Rational Argument

[Anonymous Coward]

I read a fair number (~200 maybe) of the e-mails sent to W3C, and most of them contained rational, well explained arguments about how this would hurt the internet as a whole. Maybe the corporate strategists read them and realized that we were right, and that the RAND approach was ignoring relevant history.

After all, RAND *would* have bit them in the end, so maybe all they needed was our explanation.

Kudoes and a question...

[deitrahs]

> From the peer-pressure-works dept.

Given the amount of fuss that's been raised by geeks everywhere, shouldn't this be from From the peer-to-peer-pressure-works dept.?

That said, I'm glad that the corps are coming to their senses. Enough people have grumbled stuff along the lines of "it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize the Web was built on open standards" and not enough of "let's get a rocket scientist to explain to the suits why this is bad".

It's only taken ten years, but I'm slightly enthused to see that the PHBs of the world are starting to notice that the grunts in the trenches are clued up on things flying below their radar, and hear those grunts out (even if the words are still too big and not quite buzzword-compliant enough for their tastes).

Cheers,
--bmc

Does GIF require royalty?

[puz]

Speaking of GIF, does anybody know if it is legal to use GIF in our web pages? Today I came across an article that said GIF is a proprietary format of some company and anybody who wants to use GIF-encoded graphics in their web page must pay this company $5000 or face lawsuit? I appreciate any information concerning the current state of this issue.

Re:Does GIF require royalty?

[innocent_white_lamb]

Unisys. As I recall, they only collect royalties from the programs that CREATE GIF's. So if you write a draw program that saves in GIF format, you're likely on the hook for royalty payments, but if you just use someone else's program to create the GIF and post your graphic on a web page then you are safe.

I think.

The good news is that the patent runs out next year.

Incidentally, it's a patent on the compression algorithm used in GIF's, not on the actual GIF itself. So you could theoretically create a non-compressed GIF that would not be covered by any patents.

Re:Does GIF require royalty?

[spauldo]

Check out the information in the giflib README file. I don't have a link handy, but basically it states that you must have a UNISIS license to use it.

There's a compatible library, called libungif, which doesn't compress gifs. Usually this is what you're using on a default install of gimp. Personally, I use giflib because the chance of someone actually seeing my work is very small (most of the time I only do image creation for my own systems) and I use PNG for anything that doesn't require transparency and will be seen by IE users. I was a warez nut way back before I started using linux, so maybe it's just that old habits die hard.

If you do a search, you can find plenty of articles about this. Seems what happened was compuserve used them as the default image format, and UNISYS never said a thing until they were firmly entrenched in the web. Then out of the blue they started demanding royalties - caused quite a fuss. Personally I see it as a good thing, since gif is an inferior format anyway compared to PNG in most applications.

Also note that it's lzw compression they have the patent on, which is used in tons of programs (including I believe pkzip and the standard UNIX 'compress' program - ever wonder why the free UNIXen use gzip? That's why.).

LZW's not the best compression out there (as with all compression algorithms, different data will produce different results on which one is the best) but generally gzip and bzip2 do the job much better - although bzip2 seems to require much more CPU in the process. It will eventually be phased out completely I'm sure, even after the patent expires.

Apple, patents, and SVG

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps I'm confused, but didn't patented technology end up in the SVG standard?

Isn't Apple one of the patent holders?

I guess they finally realized...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that their proposal would benifit Microsoft more than it would them. The sheer magnitude of their corporate stupidity is enough to astound and amaze.

After "Bert is Evil": tux quoque, fili mi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heard it on the radio this morning: After The Sun, NBC, and the NYT, now Microsoft have received a "letter with a suspicious white powder" too. Apparently, some people think that Sircam, Code Red and Nimda are no longer enough to fight against the monopolist, and have decided to take this to the biological arena. As usual, the authorities' advice is "don't open any suspicious mail", except this time they mean snail mail...

More here on CNN (Scroll down to "Reno case has Malaysia link"), BBC (Scroll down to Cheney's photo), and Msnbc.

Experts are poring over posters shown at pro-Bin-Laden protests, but so far no hidden tux has been spotted in any of them...

Hopefully you will be pro open source

[Anonymous Coward]

and not just pro GPL.

You ARE a GPL bigot that way, yet you claim you are an Open Soruce advocate.

Why do you keep claiming you are an open source

[Anonymous Coward]

advocate?

Richard Stallman says the GPL is not open source.
You have said the only good BSDl'ed code is one that has been GPLed.

You are a GPL advocate, *NOT* an open source advocate. So, do the *REAL* Open Source advocates a favor, stop claiming you are an Open Source advocate. State you are a Free Sorftware advocate, k?

Re:Why do you keep claiming you are an open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh.. you're some eejit. RMS, mathematically minded that he is, acknowledges that GPL licensed Free/Libre software is a proper subset of Open Source licensed software. He also states, quite plainly, that his goals differ from those of the Open source movement. That does not make GPL'd software non-open source.

Fool.

Re:Why do you keep claiming you are an open source

[Anonymous Coward]

And you are an uninformed AC.

The Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are today separate movements,

From the mouth of FSF/RMS. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-fr eedom.htmlNow

you are now informed

Re:Stephen King, author, dead at 55

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not true!
his fans are awaiting his next novel.

First Dildo Post!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mad propz to all Afghan Dildo Herders(TM).

:o)

A Synopsis Of Events

[Jason Antony]

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

Thanks also to Glenn Randers-Pehrson

[Jason Antony]

My mistake in not mentioning Glenn. He is the author of pngcrush, and maintains libpng, the PNG reference library.

Alongwith Daniel, Glenn participated very actively, questioning the validity of RAND, Apple's bitmask patent, and offered valuable insights and revelations. He deserves every bit of credit.

Blame my fuzzy brain on sleepless nights over the past twelve days :-)

Cheers,
Jason Antony

Oh, for fuck's sake.

[Anonymous Coward]

>relicense the Sorenson

It's not Apple's IP you spastic. It belongs to SORENSEN. THAT'S WHY it's called the SORENSEN codec, genius.

So.

Do you actually think that Sorensen is actually ever going to open their codec? Yeah, like fuckin' sure they will. Never mind the fact that it makes MONEY for THEM.

Slashdot is not small

[mvdwege]

Sorry to bust your bubble, but with over half a million registered readers, Slashdot is not a small group of fanatics. It is in fact a very vocal and large community, especially when related to the field it is active in (technology).

Perhaps mainstream media has more readers, but I doubt they have a larger active community on the web.

Mart

Re:Slashdot is not small

[SumDeusExMachina]

Yes, and of course, NO ONE HERE holds multiple accounts, and NO ONE runs account creation scripts just to give their old accounts metamod, and, most importantly, NO ONE EVER lets their account die.

Patents on the Web and IBM

[AlastairBurt]

I think two points are missing in the discussion of the issue of patents and web standards:

1. Software patents are not going to go away. The reason the W3C gives for putting forward the RAND policy is not without substance. The software world is in the midst of a land grab for lucrative patents. As such, it is inevitable that more and more formats that are used on the web are going to be encumbered by patents. The only question is whether the W3C is going to have a say on these formats. So I do not blame the W3C for putting forward the RAND. I blame legislators that have let software come under the scope of patents, and the voters who put the legislators in place.
2. Who is promoting patents? The RAND policy would obviously be a kick in the teeth to free software developers. So who is kicking free software? Is it Apple and HP? No. At least, not any longer. Is it that evil Microsoft? No. But it seems from the comments of Bruce Parens that one of the firms doing the kicking is the firm that possesses one of the biggest patent portfolios on the planet, IBM.

To me, the biggest threat to free software is not aggressive marketing tactics by the likes of Microsoft. The biggest threat comes from patents. Given that the voters obviously do not give a damn about software patents and the legislators will follow the lead of whatever lobbyist is sticking cash in their pocket, the only chance of a change in this issue is if a prominent software company were to say they thought that patents did not promote progress in the software industry. Which is why I think that IBM should be given the squeeze.

The free software community should make their concern on the matter clear to the decision makers within IBM. We do not need your trendy advertising campaigns. We do not need your journaling file system, we already have those. We do not even need your expensive Linux labs. What we want is the freedom to code.

IBM and any other company that would like to curry favour with free software developers should have one thing made clear: your cannot, in good conscience, support both free software and software patents.

Re:Patents on the Web and IBM

[spauldo]

Software patents are not going to go away.

This is the best reason to not support patents if you ask me. No matter what we say about companies embracing and extending, standards do have clout and influence. If the W3C keeps a steady "we don't need no steenkin' patents" attitude, that will tell corporations that if they want their work as a W3C standard, they'd damn well better not patent it.

My main problem with RAND is: who's idea of it is reasonable? The way I look at it, if I have to pay for it, it's not reasonable. I'm in the military - I don't get paid much, and I'm not going to write any OSS software that uses patents I'd have to pay for. I wouldn't mind so much if it was patented with a "anyone can use this, just put somewhere in your software that it uses our idea" similar to what BSD used to do, or if it was something similar to the ideas that people had about getting patents and assigning them to the FSF, but I'd use silver dollars as fishing weights before I'd pay one red cent for the right to use patented standards.

A lot of the web standards originated with individuals, not companies. If we allow patents in the standardization process, this will make it harder for individuals to contribute. This will hurt the progress of the web.

I agree with you - I'd like to find out more about why IBM is pushing this. Really, Sun and Microsoft are the ones with the most clout in the internet community - no one really hears much about web standards coming from IBM. I don't understand why they would want this, considering that they would probably end up paying more royalties than they would receive (which is why I suppose Apple and HP are against it).

I think Apple just did it

[Drizzit]

Naturally a company will do something like this if they believe it is to their benefit, but with Apple they truly seem to be trying real hard to help open standards along and because the company, is such a reflection of Steve Jobs, it unlike other large companies can have a conscience as generally what Steve says goes. Corporate culture they say starts at the top, and you can see several examples of Apple's commitment to open standard support. They use XML extensively. When they needed to add additional web support to AppleScript they choose to use XML-RPC and SOAP. Once they had a platform that can run it, they have fully and as completely as they can integrated Java as a core language and environment for OS X. They make sure that OS X ships with perl and Open SSH and TCL and PHP. I know you say that its a Unix OS and they just got that for free, but your wrong its a Mac OS and they had to put man hours in to updating the packages and then QA, no Mac OS has had these by default before and Windows (their primary competitor) doesn't but they did anyway.

Plus look at some of these quotes

Quote from Fink's FAQs (fink.sourceforge.net)
"Apple is aware of Fink and has started to support us as part of their Open Source relations efforts. So far they are providing us with pre-release seeds of new Mac OS X versions in the hope that Fink packages can be adapted in time for the release. Quote: "Hopefully it underscores the commitment that many suspect we're not willing to provide. We'll get better at the open source game over time." Thanks Apple! "

Quote from the ask Darwin (www.apple.com/darwin)
"Q: Can I add something to Darwin (using the Open Source versions), then run the rest of Mac OS X on top of it?
A: Since Mac OS X is built using that same repository, and so many components are fully Open Source, the answer is generally yes. However, a few Mac OS X components (particularly Core Foundation) include both open and non-open code, so replacing Mac OS X pieces with the "Darwin" version would result in a loss of functionality (and potentially an unusable system). Our goal is to have a clean separation of open and non-open components, so that it becomes easy to interchange a customized Darwin system into a Mac OS. For example, many non-open drivers are available as loadable binary modules, allowing them to be used with a Darwin (or Darwin-ized) system. We are also looking at ways to make it identify to find out which versions of Darwin code correspond to shipping versions of Mac OS X."

Plus Apple within 2 weeks had the Darwin 1.4.1 CD image out (1.4.1 corresponds to X.1).

So to end my long ramble, I think Apple just did this, because I think the guys running the show at Apple Steve, Avie, Rubenstien etc all believe in open standards and Apple's actions in the last while support this.

colored plastic

[flimflam]

...and also is essentially how colored plastic works.

Actually, they have a patent on that as well!

(ducks...)

Threat to FORK

[Twiles]

There is an important aspect of this thread that appears to be overlooked. Several very influential gentlemen in the LINUX community have declared that they will FORK any RAND approved patent. This is an open war that nobody wants including the W3C. Fragmentng the Web is likely to be very costly and benefits nobody. Companies like HP and Apple are benefiting from the work done by the open source community. The cost to them could be high if their propriatory code (tied in with GPL code) resulted in their being denied the use of GPL code.

Re:Browser support for pngs

[MrFudd]

And I don't think there's a single browser on the market that fully implements PNG

The png homepage has a pretty good summary of png support in browsers.

Most of these I haven't tried, but Mozilla (incl. Galeon) and Konqueror seem to render my pngs correctly.

If full support includes mng, perhaps you're correct. If you mean full support for alpha transparency and gamma, then you need to find a better browser.

___

It's not quite that bad

[TheInternet]

But I can assure you that was the only reason for making the descision

Or perhaps not everyone in the company knew what was up initially. Just another possibilty.

But BEING good or evil is NEVER a reason for a company to make a descision.

This is pretty extreme.

A lot of companies are not this bad. In my opinion, this includes Apple. Apple makes mistakes (and generally repents), but it also sometimes does something just because it's right, as subjective as that can be. I believe a major contributing factor here is that many journalists prefer controversey, so that's what people hear more of.

Companies are run by humans. The fact the people have different philoshopies and priorities is reflected in their respective organizations.

- Scott

HP

[modemboy]

HP seems to like doing about faces on issues as soon as they are unpopular (Dimitri anyone). And it seems to work fairly well for them, is this a tactic many companies employ?

Standards and patents

[spauldo]

Patents in standards are not unusual at all, really. Look at gifs for instance - they're pretty much standard (de facto, if not de jure) and the compression algorithm is patented (hell, UNIX compress is a standard too, which uses the same compression).

Hardware standards are almost always awash in patents. You don't hear as much about it because only the manufacturers deal with them, but they're there. The IA32 architecture is a standard - wanna guess how many patents are on it? Software's pretty much one of the first areas where most standards were not patented.

I think the reason a lot of people don't think standards can be patented is because most of the stuff we use in the RFC's are not. Email, for instance, isn't, nor is DNS, FTP or HTTP or anything of that nature. RFC's are rather unique in that they offer full, free disclose of the standards contained therein - most standards organizations don't (ever try do download an IEEE or ISO standard?). Hell, I think that just about anyone can submit an RFC (the first one was written on toilet paper in a UCB bathroom if I remember right). Fortunately, the web-related standards are pretty much controlled by the W3C, which hasn't in the past allowed patents, and puts all their reccomendations out where everyone has equal access to them.

what good are standards..

[josepha48]

.. if they are not truely open. Having "paid for" patented technology means that you could potentially be prevented from seeing data on sites cause your browser does not or cannot support something (not that that does not already happen ->quicktime / gif).

I think the reality is that M$ who works heavily with these standards to implement them could end up patenting stupid crap and charging apple and hp (and everyone else) lots.

rm -rf /bin/laden

Quite simple really....

[einhverfr]

If you have the capability for collecting royalties for standards, then you have the great capability for Microsoft to patent Active-X and use it to further their monopoly-- bear in mind that economy of scale is steep in the software industry and Magrosoft has an overwhelming control for the internet browser market.

Anyone remember Craig Mundi's statements at OSCON concerning patents and Microsoft's willingness to use them agains open source projects? Now imagine if those patents were part of the W3C standards!

???

[einhverfr]

Not to be too off topic here but-- how do you define good anyway? Is not good action that which helps us ALL prosper? Are we not all better off if we help out our community? I am not entirely sure about you but I do "good action" because I see the benefit to helping build a strong community.

So too with corporations. Many do good actions because they know that they make their money by filling a need which exists and hence providing real benefit to their customers and giving back some money to their community. Of course some, particularly those with market power, twist this idea into one resembling a drug dealer who knows that he can create the dependency of others on his products...

The W3C exists to build the web development community as a community. In other words, they exist to do good, by my definition above. Sometimes they make mistakes, as does any organization, but I feel that their overall mission is one that needs to be supported. This is just a good example of the process working.

Re:???

[martyn s]

That was kind of my point. The only time corporations do things that are "good" is when it will likely benefit them. I understand that my usage of "good" is completely subjective, but that's really exactly my point. There is no absolute good. The only things which make corporations less likely to do good are 1)shame is very often not a factor in their decisions, since they are often not exposed to shame 2)in the past few decades, corporations have had considerably more wiggle-room and legal protection than an ordinary citizen. Corporations are machines, inexorable, guided only by economics. And that is their greatest virtue. They should continue looking after their bottom line at all costs. But government should balance out their actions, and restrict other actions.

They get burned, they back off...

[Snootch]

...while cynical, this interpretation indicates that we do have a voice - we were listened to! This is a good thing, as long as we make sure not to let it slip in again via the back door while we're celebrating...

Apple's Offical Statement...

[MasterVidBoi]

...is here

Right now, it's the top item on their Hot News page.

Re:Browser support for pngs

[artemis67]

If full support includes mng, perhaps you're correct. If you mean full support for alpha transparency and gamma, then you need to find a better browser.

No animation? Spotty transparency support? That's my point exactly; How does this equal a valid replacement for GIF?

When IE for Windows and Netscape Communicator have 100% PNG and MNG support, then maybe web developers will switch over. But no serious designer is going to take unneeded risks with the design of their pages.