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.

Comments

Martin Niem�ller

[AirLace]

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me -
and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.

Re:patented 'tabbed palettes'?

[dirvish]

I do not think an interface design should be patented. Obviously you should be able to copyright your code if you want but these software patents are out of control.

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.
Overlapping components are very common in software and in web design. Maybe they should sue Google for their use of components which overlap with their tabbed menu of web, images, groups, or directory search. I would say that overlapping components are more common these days than popping up dialogs in a stack. Adobe did not innovate this any more than I did when I wrote labels on the little folder tabs in my desk's file cabinet.