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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.
"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 everyone's response to Adobe will be as vehement as if Microsoft did it...
Your actions on earth echo in eternity.
Apple sues Microsoft over "the close button in the upper corner of the window."
What's next, the icon? Are the tabs in Mozilla in violation? The concept of "tabs" in "windows" no matter if you call them "palettes" or not, was part of the Windows API as long as I can remember.
I know that on Adult Swim, "Home Movies" started using flash for their animation this season and it is wonderful, actually many of the Adult Swim Comedy block use flash if I'm not mistaken.
This is really a shame, I hope a new version is available soon.
Chicago2600.net more than a lifestyle, its a survival trait.
Oops, they've already done just that.
I wonder how this would affect Flash MX. It doesn't feature the UI elements that Adobe claims to have invented. (And thank the gods for that, I hate tabbed palettes as much as most of you Slashdotters hate the Flash plugin itself.) Would Macromedia only have to pull Flash versions 5 and earlier off the shelves?
What a waste of resources such lawsuits are. Companies squabbling like children, running complaining to mommy and daddy every time one of them has any kind of problem. Grow up or go to bed without any supper, I say!
The first place that comes to mind is Visual Studio. In VC6 IDE, the "Output" window (where trace messages, build output, etc. appear), you select which type of output appears with a tab. I suppose it isn't a palette... But look at the tools palette in VB or Visual Interdev. Or the shortcuts in Outlook. Visual Studio 7 IDE uses these everywhere.
So why didn't Adobe sue Microsoft? Because Microsoft could afford to fight them in court. Macromedia is a somewhat smaller company, so it is a little bit easier to beat them into submission.
All in all, this just sucks. It doesn't matter how much we like or don't like Flash. What really matters is whether the "Tabbed Palette" is patentable...
This is why I work for a large company instead of a fun startup -- I don't make as much of a difference, but at least my company can't be thrown around by the big guys for no good reason, so I have a small amount of job stability.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
What the heck is that supposed to mean ?
/. is 'annoying banners'
Oh yes - I forgot, the only use for Flash according to
Forget the fact that it's the most widely used and distributed plugin. Forget the fact that people use it for presentations, cartoons, multi-media cd-roms, educational purposes etc. etc. etc.
No, perhaps most of you 'code no graphics geeks' don't like Flash, but 90% of the rest of us do.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
That's detachable tabs with build-your-own-palette. Adobe specified early Excel tabbing in their patent as prior art they were deviating from with their own invention.
Not saying I was the first one to do it, but I did and I can prove it. That predates the patent by ten years.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
and quite rightfully too. what was windoze more than misuse of someone elses invention of gui?
and what made apple products different from pc+msdos?gui.
(yeah yeah i know it was demonstrated by some prof in 70(or 60) so it really wasnt their idea after all..)..
but the 'invention' in this case, tabbed palettes as shown in examples, are NOT necessary for software to be usable, they're just HANDY. they should have just considered that using patented stuff(like swinging sideways) involves PAYING the inventor.
and quite frankly, i'm not so keen on flash, especially it getting into a bloated to everthing replacement for java, only that it's not in the same spirit(more like coming to extra interface for activex or sh*t)..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
OK. Idea. Let's see what you folks think about this one.
This case has established a precedent that elements of UI design can be copyrighted, lame as this decision is.
Wouldn't this set up the foundation for a lawsuit against Microsoft for ripping the whole WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointers) paradigm from Apple? Who in turn could get sued by PARC, I think it was?
If my reasoning here is correct, then we'd have a win-win situation; MS is sued and that damn OS is pulled from the shelves, or MS wins the court case and Macromedia gets the Adobe sentence nullified.
Any lawyers skulking about to comment?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I agree that 19 years of monopoly is unreasonable, hence my assertion that patents should be allowed, but the duration should be much shorter.
Unfortunately patent law operates on an all-or-nothing principle: a major technological advancement that cost $1 billion and 15 years to achieve receives the same protection as a minor competitive edge which cost $10000 and 3 months.
As for it being obvious ... creative research is like being on the wrong side of a trap door. Its really hard to go through, but anyone on the other side can easily work out the trick. Innovation is often about doing something which is blindingly obvious, but no-one thought of it before.
Often just knowing the result and the fact that it can be accomplished makes it easier to reproduce. Chemistry is a good example: a theoretical compound can be proposed and its potential properties suggested, but determing how to manufacture the compound can be a tough problem. A couple of experts look at it and tell you it simply can't be done. Then someone announces they have create it, and cheaply. The experts reevaluate, knowing they must have missed something: it is possible, with current technology, and inexpensive - given those hints they are a lot closer to a solution.
So, what SHOULD be patentable? Algorithms? RSA is quite obvious to anyone skilled in mathematics ... once they've seen the algorithm. Should the internal combustion engine have been patentable? It was a major technological advancement, it has been the bastion of private transport for the better part of a centuary, but it is arguably just a derivative of a steam piston. Obvious to anyone skilled in mechanics.
I would like to see OSS obtain some patents and fight fire with fire. But it won't happen. No-one in the OSS world is prepared to put development effort into a product which involves patented technology, because of the stigma the community has attached to patents.
i-name =twylite [http://public.xdi.org/=twylite], see idcommons.net
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.
That is just a side effect of your knowledge of programming. That is, you might invent a magic salad chopper that most people, when looking at it, won't understand. You haven't patented the chopping of vegetables (just as Adobe hasn't patented the customization of UIs), but you did patent this one machine that chops vegetables. But, someone who has worked in the field (engineering, focusing on turbines or whatever it is your chopper is based on) might see it and think, "ah, of course." Now, should he be permitted to go recreate your invention? Patent law says no.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
I would like to see OSS obtain some patents and fight fire with fire.
Note that at least in electronics, corporations use patents to force other corporations to cross-license their patents far more often than they can collect significant royalties or maintain a monopoly using the patent.
So how could the OSS community use the same principle? Maybe we write a GPL-like patent license -- in exchange for a license to use the OSS patents, you have to put the same or a less restrictive license onto your patents in the same area. The trick is defining "same area"...
The current release of Flash, MX, does not contain tabbed palettes. The Adobe lawsuit forced an innovation in the interface that is in fact superior to the old tabbed palette system. So the assertion that Flash will be pulled from the market based on this case is simply wrong-headed. Almost as wrong-headed as Adobe's response to their own total failure to acknowledge the importance of the web or innovate- the "Microsoft" approcah of buy it or kill it....
they don't have any feed-back that's not related to SELLING their products.
But it did have their address so I'll write something and send it via snailmail.
This patent/copywrong crap is the type of bad corporate citizenship that Microsoft has taught businesses.
I didn't pay for their Adobe Type Manager on my Mac but I WILL write to Apple and suggest that they look for some open source alternative.
This is getting fuckin' ridiculous.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
He makes a good arguement that he implemented similar interfaces years ago.