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Will Flash Be Taken Off The Shelf?
bugninja writes "According to an article at News.com, Adobe wins 2.8M from Macromedia today for using some patented interface stuff in Flash. But this isn't the end, further legal battles could require that Flash be removed from Macromedia's list of "products for sale". We may not all be Flash lovers, but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
Update: 05/03 13:29 GMT by J : Speaking of Flash, yesterday eEye discovered
a very serious security hole
in the version of Flash distributed with most copies of Windows. Go
download
the fixed release.
How are tabbed palettes patented?
Take two random computer terms xxx and yyy.
Let the patent title be xxx'ed yyy's.
Write 36 pages of bullshit about it.
Submit everything to the patent office.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case. The patent is over "tabbed palettes", a type of user interface design. So it's not an invention, just a ludicrous software patent.
Many years ago, Apple tried to sue Microsoft for copyright infringement over their user-interface. Had they (ab)used the patent system instead, they might have won, and there would be no Windows.
from Macromedia today for using some patented interface stuff in Flash
One would assume there is prior use for tabbed palettes (which is the interface stuff the mentioned in the article). Adobe has been around for a long time, but I don't see how they can basically patent tabs
"I personally don't think this will ever happen simply because Flash is such a huge movement on the Internet."
A court would not care nor consider "what a big movement" this is on the internet before reaching a decision.
The judge will base his/her decision on how great a negative impact he/she feels the product remaining on the market will have on Adobe. Also, if it is stopped, it still dosent stop people who already have it from using it.
Flash is a tool. Many (perhaps all) tools can be abused. Saying that Flash is bad because too many monkeys use it in ways that are totally inappropriate is like saying e-mail is bad because too many monkeys use it for spam (i.e., a way that is totally inappropriate).
No Laughing Allowed!
This is the equivalent of a car company patenting their cup holders and suing any other manufacturer who put them in. Who's the real loser in the end? As Macromedia CEO Rob Burgess points out, "Ultimately, it is our customers, and particularly our mutual customers, that will be harmed." Yup, half of us wind up with burnt, coffee-stained crotches.
So what, now no software developer can include tabbed palettes? Wouldn't it be nice if Adobe said "Hey, Macromedia, you've used one of our ideas, but that's alright, we'll use one of your ideas, and both our products will be the better for it." No more can people stand on the shoulders of giants. Today, you have to stand on your tiptoes. Either that, or knock everyone else down.
Well Adobe, for 2.8m, you've impeded the progress of software development, created enemies, and left your customers with a bad taste in their mouths. And you know what? I bet a lot of people will feel a lot less bad about pirating your software after this. I hope it was worth it.
c-hack.com |
With E-Mail it's about 50-50 at the moment. That is also not nice, but it is acceptable.
This is why people hate slash: The number of abuses exceeds the number of well-thought use by about a factor of 20.
michael at slashdot.org: The real answer is that a couple of the slashdot authors are sick.
Maybe I would if a program could produce SVG and JavaScript to do the same stuff as Flash, and as good as Flash. Also a new plug-in would be needed.
Not likely to happen anytime soon, if ever. Plus if it did, Flash would still be better in most ways.
"...but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
Suddenly, 'Internet Explorer' comes to mind, looking from an average Joe Windowsuser POV.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
...and this is coming from someone who just spent several hours learning all about the painful ins & outs of cross-platform/cross-browser Flash player plug-in detection...
/. are confusing the abuse of a general purpose tool (with some flaws that are being corrected) with the "dastardly deeds" done with it.
/. usually respond to attacks on general purpose tools that some people are attacking based on a relatively minor domain of applications that they dislike? (hint: CSS, copyable-CDs, PVRs, reverse-engineering tools...) ...Sigh...
For certain applications, Flash works wonderfully _and_ far better than anything else out there. I am thinking in particular of short animations (with or without limited interaction) that can demonstrate ideas/diagrams/or tell a story.
BTW, I work in educational R&D so I see great examples of this stuff used all the time to complement web-based curricula. Sure, it can't be indexed by a search engine, but it's there to _illuminate_ the ideas stated in the text; i.e. to enhance it, not to replace it.
Sure, Flash can be abused (as many advertisers have done, and designers who want to use it as their entire tookit); However, the Flash-haters on
BTW, how does
Yes, most Flash ads suck. And so do 90% of Flash-heavy sites. This problem won't be corrected by removing a particular tool - the crappy designers will just migrate to SVG/Real/WM/etc. Besides, banning/spitting on something disliked is the RIAA/MPAA way of doing things.
If we're such geeks we should be proposing/creating superior tools that are better focused on what Flash is best at, or improving Flash ourselves. Nope, I guess it's just easier to bitch about it.
One of the first posters had it right. Since it's not Micro$oft, people don't seem that upset about this. Wake up and smell the coffee. This is a user interface patent. What the fuck. How about George Lucas patents "use of computer graphics to depict a character in a motion picture" wait he already has. Those fuckers. Excuse my French. EVERY PATENT THAT HAS TO DO WITH SOFTWARE IS FUCKED UP. Fuck Adobe.
I don't want to hear whining about how they have to protect their patents. The whole system sucks.
I know this is a fucking mindless post but I can't fucking stand it when those fuckers fuck us all over. Software patents are what Sean Penn was really referring to in The Game when he says, "They fuck with you and fuck with you, and just when you think they've stopped fucking with you that's when the real fucking begins."
In my normal life I can't spout off like this so I have to do it in Slashdot it makes me feel better sorry for the mindlessness.
...because it doesn't use tabbed palettes. Those were introduced in Flash 5, and replaced in MX by a windowish-docking system. I would wager that Macromedia's decision to change the interface in MX was based far more on the lawsuit than on user feedback.
Adobe is seeking an injunction preventing Macromedia from selling "the infringing software" - which is, like I just said, Flash 5. Notice that Macromedia released Flash MX within the last month, and are now going to be actively phasing out their Flash 5 product and pushing MX instead. Is this good timing just a coincidence? You tell me. So what I'm wondering is what Adobe could possibly do to further harm the Flash product line (besides the $2.8mil in damages, of course).
The original Legend of Zelda in Flash MX: a prototype
Experts agree: everything is fine.
If these idiots win against Macromedia (plugin required to view this message because format is not open), that will make it easier for them to take on Microsoft next. Their patent does seem rather trivial, though, and you could probably bring it down in flames by pointing out that it's just mimicing real-life paper layouts (ie is not in principle new).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
In less than a week I was able to write a kick butt XML based Internet Call Notifcation client in Flash. It notifies our ISP customers when they get phone calls while online. The thing can even play back any voice messages left by callers in real time! I was blown away by how easy it was to write the client and it was less than 50k when finished!
Don't let lousy Flash ad banners or poorly designed webpage interfaces give you bad taste for the Flash format in general. It's really quite amaizing what can be done with it when used right... especially when developing sockets based web applications. Next on my list is a full fledged Flash chat client.
I hope Macromedia doesn't get hit too hard from this. I just bought MX and I really dig the new features.
but were they innovative at the time
Inovative yes, but worthy of a monopoly of 19 years? No.
See the way patents use to work is that a company would disclose a non-obvious method, in return for a temporary monopoly. A tabbed interface is quite obvious, and it's disclosure of it's inner workings does nothing for the public good.
Just by seeing one (tabbed interface), I can duplicate it's effect. I don't need a patent desclosure to figgure it out - so therefore it's a trivial invention, obvious to one skilled in the arts.
I just hope that an OpenSourse/GPL author get a patent on somting vital to the computing field and brings companies like Adobe too it's knees.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Visit this Corel trial page and click on the "Try Online" link next to CorelDraw 10 or Corel Photo-Paint 10.
Wait until the demo applet loads.
Click New Graphic from the intro window.
Open a few dockers from the Window -> Dockers menu.
Drag one of the tabs for these dockers into the main work area of the app, so that it acts like a palette.
Now drag the other tabs still attached to the right side of the window over this palette.
You've just constructed a tabbed palette using non-Adobe software.
Now why would Adobe sue Macromedia and not Corel? Is it because Corel's take on the tabbed palette isn't as blatantly derivative as Macromedia's? Or is it because Corel isn't as much of a threat to Adobe's business as Macromedia? Yes, this is a trick question.
Why is everybody talking like flash is dead because of this ? The existing product might be taken off the shelf, but that doesn't mean anything.
They lose a lawsuit, take the tabbed palletes out(which btw is not the 'normal' tab feature you see in almost every application, but the abbility to rearrange things to save space or something... read the other posts) and sell the new product just as well... Might cost them a bunch, but flash will still exist.
I assert that GUI innovations SHOULD be patentable (although I'd like to see a much shorter duration on all software-related patents).
When I was a CS undergraduate, I took the designing user interfaces course. As part of the coursework, I designed a voice activated interface (this was at a time when such things didn't exist). Various other students imagined how other interfaces of the future might work. Some of the ideas we came up with were great.
Now, we could have all patented the ideas we came up with, and since then I'm sure some of our patents would have been infringed, and we could have licenced and sued. But would it make sense to do that? What if all undergraduate students did it? New developments in the software world would grind to a halt.
The argument that interface innovations that appear obvious now weren't at the time they were invented is I believe a poor one. A creative person can sit down with a pencil and paper and come up with lots of ideas for possible user interface designs - it's relatively easy for those people who have an inclination for it. You've only got to look at the web sites of some of the more creative web designers to realise that there are many different creative ideas out there for user interfaces. The world would be a poorer place if all these designers patented their ideas and prevented other people from using them.
The interface that is common today for products like Adobe Photoshop is a cumulation of many different ideas from many different individuals and companies. As a company focused on the creative industy, Adobe should be ashamed of itself for this kind of action.
As you can see ... this patent is about multiple tool dialogs (palettes) which dock together to form tabbed panels within a single dialog. Suddenly the idea is not so obvious anymore. Dockable components which overlap to save space ...? That's not a universal GUI concept; showing and hiding tool windows or popping up dialogs in a stack is a traditional means to handle this problem. Arguably Adobe DID innovate in this instance.
You're joking, right? No, you're claiming that Adobe invented the...wait for it...file drawer! Look carefully at those little tabs on top of the palette. Now look around your office. Gee, what might have inspired the idea of putting little labeled tabs on top of records that are obscured by other records so that they can be quickly indexed? But the idea of having a file drawer simulated in software: now that's innovation! Dockable components that overlap to share space indeed...
The FAQ mentions a unique method that allows tabs within palettes to be customized, separated and reorganized by users. Who could have thought up such a crazy innovation? [Shuffles through file drawer, reorganizing and relabeling files.]
Sheesh.
There is no such thing as a cool cup-holder. In any sane country its illegal to drink while driving because its too distracting. One of my favourite features of my E46 BMW is that it has NO cup-holders. Face it, for a cup-holder to be an effective preventer of spilled drinks, it has to be combined with a car engine that doesn't have enough torque to pull the skin off custard, and a driver who doesn't have the will to go round corners above a walking pace. Now I understand why the larger Audis I see often have such small engines - its to save the interior from coffee stains.
"We may not all be Flash lovers, but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
If this had been Microsoft and a GPL violation, you would be screaming to have it removed from shelves. But because it makes pretty pictures and it's not as trendy to pick on them as it is to pick on Microsoft, you think it's OK for them to break the law? Just because you may not agree with the patent law doesn't mean they don't deserve protection under it. You can argue with the patent system, but it's fucked up to argue their right to enforce it.
I hate posting this late in the game on a topic -- I worry no one will read it -- I don't think anyone has made this correlation yet.
I agree that Adobe suing Macromedia for cramping their style is and should be a crock. Adobe is playing the same bullying tactics as another large company.
Take, for example, the Photoshop monopoly. Used to be that if you wanted to bevel or automatically add shadows to items, you had to buy a third-party plug-in. Now those features are built in and have been since 5.5
If you wanted to catalog your images, you had to purchase a third-party app like Extensis Portfolio. Photoshop 7 includes those.
Natural media? Used to need Painter. Now Photoshop 7 has that, too.
And somebody must have come up with the idea of slicing images before Adobe did. Hell, before Macromedia did.
Fortunately for us graphic designers, we will use the right tool for the job. We learn that in school when we have to choose between graphite and charcoal in Design 101. Therefore, companies like Alien Skin, Corel, and Extensis aren't hurt dramatically by Adobe pulling the Microsoft "freedom to innovate" integration game.
But my point is that Adobe steals features from everyone else. It's hypocritical of Adobe to sue someone for stealing their feature. And it proves the ignorance of software patents.
Adobe, a company whose products I use every day to pay my bills, a company whose products I enjoy using, abuses their place in the market. Ahh, the idyllic socialist dreams of nerds...
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Cheese it! It's the FEDS!
"We may not all be Flash lovers, but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?"
Let's see...
"We may not all be GNOME lovers, but is it right to take away XYZ software from so many people who do like it just because it contains GPL violations?"
"We may not all be Netscape lovers, but is it right to take away Internet Explorer from so many people who do like it just because Microsoft is an abusive monopoly?"
The popularity of a software has no bearing or relevance in this case or any legal case involving its use.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.