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Microsoft Applies For .NET Patent
Wojina writes "Microsoft has applied for a comprehensive patent on what appears to be the entire implementation of the .NET CLR (Common Language Runtime) and the framework APIs. Microsoft's CLR is an implementation of the CLI (submitted to ECMA for standardization). Does this bode ill for the Mono project? See the CNET News story." And a chaser: Nept points to this interesting Microsoft-funded .NET obfuscation project.
What is so specail about .NET.
Linux has had platform independent coding since the days of Java, which were in 1993, two years after Linus' frist post about Linux.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
I think Donald Knuth has prior art.
A successful patent has them control the market for how long? And legally now? This could cause some serious problems for people.
If approved as is, the patent would cover application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow actions related to accessing the network, handling Extensible Markup Language (XML), and managing data from multiple sources. APIs are the hooks in software that allow applications to work with another system.
.Net initiative.
.Net, the company's Web services initiative. By submitting the application, which was filed last year and made public last week, Microsoft is following the lead of other major tech companies that have aggressively pursued patents over the years.
.Net patents would have on the standards process. Microsoft already has submitted many of the fundamentals of .Net to a standards body known as ECMA, formerly called the European Computer Manufacturers Association.
.Net patents without knowing Microsoft's specific plans. The W3C is in the process of developing a policy that would let the organization include patented technology in its standards as long as companies agree to provide the technology royalty-free. The person, who asked not to be identified, said Microsoft has agreed to such terms in the past.
.Net," he said. "It's preventing the open-source community from being involved in this area."
.Net. One of them, the Mono Project, provides many of the same APIs as .Net. When the Mono Project is completed next year, developers will be able to build .Net applications that run on Linux and Unix.
Microsoft declined to elaborate on its plans for the patent, but intellectual property attorneys said that if it's granted, the company could dictate how, or whether, developers of software and devices can link to the
"It looks pretty broad," said Jeff E. Schwartz, a partner with McKenna Long & Aldridge. "It could be fairly significant."
The patent is one of several that Microsoft is applying for related to
IBM is the most prolific patent generator, topping the list of corporate patent awards for the last 10 years. Big Blue landed 3,288 patents in 2002, bringing its total over the past 10 years to more than 22,000. Lately, the company has been focusing on patenting technology related to its computing-on-demand initiative.
Patents have become an increasingly common way for software makers to exert control over their intellectual property. One of the concerns about the proliferation of technology patents is the impact it could have on standards development. Some developers fear the trend will let a few patent holders dictate the direction of standards.
It's unclear what effect the Microsoft
One person affiliated with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), another major standards body, said it's difficult to comment on the
IBM said last year that it would not charge royalties on patented technology that is part of an e-commerce Web standard.
More and more, the patent debate is pitting companies like IBM and Microsoft--which are looking to patents to protect and recoup the millions of dollars they spend developing products--against members of the open-source and free software movements, which say the patent process stifles innovation by covering processes that are common on the Web.
People like Free Software Foundation guru Richard Stallman have urged boycotts of companies that aggressively enforce patents.
Meanwhile, Bruce Perens, a consultant and leader of the open-source movement, worries that Microsoft's patents could shut out alternative software development. "Microsoft is being careful to patent every aspect of APIs related to
Open-source developers are already hard at work trying to build open-source implementations of
Sorry, nevermind...
Looks like they are patenting. The concept of client server computing.
Well it looks like we all owe them everything.
Where should we send the check?
This note was originally published at John Munsch weblog on January the 14th.
.NET to fail and fail badly
.NET "rebuttal" that I linked to above, "For non-profit use VS.NET can be had pretty cheaply, especially if you know anyone that is in college somewhere." Pretty cheaply? For a non-profit (that means charities, churches, universities, the hobbiest who is going to give away his work for FREE)... pretty cheaply? Wow. That is well and truly pathetic. To try and justify it, and say, oh well, you can try to scam an educational discount so it won't be so dear, is even more pathetic.
.NET commercials with William H. Gacy telling you how great it is without really ever telling you anything about it? Microsoft doesn't trust .NET to stand on its own technical merits and it knows it may go like cod-liver oil down the gullets of a lot of people who have seen how the company works behind closed doors even if it were the tech shiznit.
.NET just in case there wasn't any grassroots community who actually wanted to do it. Or maybe just in case there was and they couldn't control it.
.NET for other platforms? If those same people were working on giving us new libraries and new tools for an already existing language instead of pouring in the thousands of man hours it's going to take to build a copy of the C# compiler or a .NET version of Ant and JUnit?
Lots of reasons why I want
It's benefits a criminal organization. Not one that's been found guilty of crimes once or maybe twice, but lots and lots of times. Those crimes are many and varied, but here's just a few of them: Stac Electronics v. Microsoft, DOJ v. Microsoft, Sun v. Microsoft.
P.S. If you want to split hairs, Stac v. Microsoft isn't a criminal action, it's doesn't stem from a criminal abuse of their monopoly like the other two cases. Instead it was just a case of a small company being driven out of business by willful patent infringement, theft of trade secrets, etc.
Microsoft isn't just one thing anymore. It's too damn big for that. I'm sure even Bill himself knows better than to think that he truly controls the whole ship because it's become big enough that he can't possibly know all the projects, people, etc. anymore. But even a really large company still has a kind of collective personality that it exudes and a large part of the personality both internal and external to Microsoft for many years now is that of a total control freak.
If they don't own it, if they don't control it, if they didn't create it, if it doesn't have a broad stamp from Microsoft on it, then they don't want it. Sometimes it's sufficient for the thing to merely exist and they'll refuse to acknowledge it, other times they need to actively stamp it out because they can't control it.
When was the last time you can remember Microsoft saying they supported a standard? That is, not something they invented and submitted a RFC for, an actual, take it off the shelf and re-implement it without renaming it or "improving" it so it doesn't work with anybody else standard. C++? Basic? HTML? A video or audio codec? Java? Anything?
I'm sure there's something, somebody will point out their excellent support for TCP/IP or something and I'm sure that's true. But if you were to look at Microsoft as a person in your life, you'd wonder what was wrong with him or her such that so much had to be controlled by that person.
When your business is selling the operating systems that 90+% of everybody uses, software development tools should not be a profit center.
Why should I have to plunk down a couple of thousand dollars for a "universal subscription" in order to have access to compilers and basic development information? Sun doesn't have to do that? On this point I'll quote from the
Marketing. Have you been "lucky" enough to catch one of the
So they are going to pull a page out of Intel's bum-bum-buh-bum "Intel Inside" playbook and try to sell the brand like it's sneakers and cola. Trust us, you'll look cool if you use it, and we'll keep hammering the brand on TV so somebody who doesn't have much tech savvy in your organization will ask you if you are using it, or have plans to port to it, or whatever, even if he hasn't got a clue what "it" is in this case.
They don't trust you. They don't like what they can't control and they can't control you. They can try and they always will keep trying but ultimately you are going to see them keep trying to do things and always keep a step towards the door just so they can bolt if they have to. Want to see what I mean? Go visit GotDotNet sometime if you haven't already been there. It's the grassroots community website that Microsoft put up to support
Ever been to SourceForge? Of course you have, everybody has because that's one of the hubs of all open source projects. You can go there and get the source of thousands of cool open source projects and it really serves the community well. There's even hundreds of projects now that list C# among their programming languages. So why did Microsoft feel compelled to create their own GotDotNet Workspaces that is clearly just a ripoff of SourceForge?
A few reasons are fairly clear: First, at many of their workspaces you don't get in unless they know who you are. Ever been stopped at SourceForge and asked for a name and password to look at a project? What about download binaries or source? No? At GotDotNet you will, lots of projects are marked with a lock. Second, forget about all those messy licenses that Microsoft might not approve of, you don't need to worry your little head about BSD vs. GPL vs. LGPL. You've got the one true workspace license that you have to agree to, or else you won't be putting your project there. Lastly, well it's kind of obvious, but it's really all about control isn't it. After all, if you aren't under their thumb, that has to be a bad thing. So a SourceForge that they control is pretty much a requirement, isn't it?
It's a really sad way for a lot of people to waste a whole lot of time rebuilding that which already exists. Wouldn't the whole computing world be a lot better if there wasn't a team of people, maybe a couple of teams of people building complete copies of
In the end, we'll all just be left with another way to do the exact same thing only in a different language. Lord knows the world benefits now from being unable to share media between France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the US, and Japan because we can't all speak the same language. I benefit every day from the fact that I can't read a Japanese manga I might enjoy or understand a TV show from Europe. Once you are done building this tower, go build a few more right beside it using Perl, Python, and Ruby too. They're all trailing behind in certain areas, we need to make sure the same set of stuff is reinvented and rewritten for all of them too.
how is this bad for a standard computer language?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Em, the key word hear is ``applies''.
Microsoft have applied for a patent, but who knows ---- in 10 years it may still not be either granted or rejected, so let's continue with Linux + MONO right now and get things moving.
Dont let this legaleeze scare us; we have bigger && better things to be doing than worring about what MS does to people.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Make damn sure the Patent Office can't miss it!
Someone mentioned to me that they had read/heard somewhere that Microsoft was going to change the name of .NET to something else. He continued on to mumble something about this being less confusing or something like that.
Anyone else know anything about this?
Posting as directed.
Hell, i think Apache can claim prior art...
"I TOLD YOU SO" goes out to the Mono project guys. You can't trust Microsoft. Unless they had signed a solid, binding legal document that says "this is the .NET spec, and MS irrevocably grants free patent licenses to anyone implementing it", you should not touch it. Java has no patent problems. The open source community should stick to Java instead of dealing with MS.
... When a patented or copyrighted product is one of many products competing in a market, antitrust issues typically do not arise from unilateral conduct. However, when a patented or copyrighted product is so successful that it evolves into its own economic market, succeeds in garnering a large market share, or is essential to compete in a market, the antitrust laws and the intellectual property laws collide. The antitrust laws' primary purpose of preserving competition is frustrated when the holder of a patent or copyright exercises the exclusionary market power that comes with those rights.
The United States Supreme Court has yet to deal with these knotty issues, although the Court apparently is seriously considering doing so....
Cheers, Joel
Chalk another one up for greed and mis-guided beliefs. IBM backs up their talk about not charging for their patents by donating software to open source. Until microsoft puts their money where their mouth is, they just lost a huge chunk of credibility.
10 second scan of the claims notices alot of refrences to "distributed" and "web client". It looks like this just refrences the web services part of .NET, not the CLR itself. It doesn't neccesarily seem to apply to normal ASP.NET, either, and there's vast prior art there anyway. It's just XML based web services applications.
From Mono's FAQ
Question 122: Could patents be used to completely disable Mono (either submarine patents filed now, or changes made by Microsoft specifically to create patent problems)?
No. First, its basic functional capabilities have pre-existed too long to be held up by patents. The basic components of Mono are technologically equivalent to Sun's Java technology, which has been around for years.
Mono will also implement multi-language and multi-architecture support, but there are previous technologies such as UCSD p-code and ANDF that also support multiple languages using a common intermediate language. The libraries are similar to other language's libraries, so again, they're too similar to be patentable in large measure.
However, if Microsoft does patent some technology, then our plan is to either (1) work around it, (2) chop out patented pieces, (3) find prior art that would render the patent useless. Not providing a patented capability would weaken the interoperability, but it would still provide the free software / open source software community with good development tools, which is the primary reason for developing Mono.
-- "of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
- The Blue Screen Of Death
- The 200-page EULA in a 5-line scroll-pane
- Solitaire as a Productivity Application
- FUD as a revenue-centre
Didn't they invent Al Gore also?is anyone even the slightest bit surprised by this move? I know I am certainly not.
One of the biggest obstacles for
All your base are belong to us!
Isn't there a period of time which the PO accepts letters outlining why a particular patent should / should not be granted? I thought that there was or were planning on having a certain time period in which to raise objections before the patent was granted. If so, does anyone know how to go about sending in valid prior art, etc?
Wouldn't the Mono project constitute as prior art? Can patents prevent derivatives after they've already been in existance?
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. -Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
Obfuscation is of interest to many software vendors, who wish to prevent people from stealing their ideas.
Like Clippy?
Well, congratulations to Microsoft.. :rolleyes:
I'm not sure what the implications of this will be.. but it'll probably be interesting.
But many corporates are forced into the same position, and pretty much have to patent things just to prevent someone else from doing it to them. Patent warfare is reminiscent of the cold war and mutually assured destruction. Thats bad for the world and particularly for those of us who only have access to bows and arrows.
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The above is just as rediculous as the real thing.
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
when you dance with the devil...
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
So after trying to patent anything with the word "Windows" in it and getting shot down, and trying to patent everything from the GUI on through to how to click a mouse (read:sarcasm), they're going to try to patent a philosophy and theory that has been in place in Unix structures from time eternal.... 10:1 odds they get shot down.
.Net patent could stifle standards effort
.Net applications (which MS so obviously wants everyone to run). The popularity of linux would be sure to grow because people will be able to use the same software as they do in windows
Since when has MS ever cared about standards. One nice thing about being a monopoly is that you don't! I honestly hope they aren't doing this just to stop the mono project. Perhaps because one day mono will be able to run
From a business stand point this is a smart thing to do.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
that the USPO will be happy to give since they get money whether it is valid or not. Ximian will have a hard time outspending MS in the court room to prove that it is bogus though (the US government couldn't do it). Conveniently, it will likely prevent any legal running of MS .NET services on a Mono platform in the meanwhile.
Please raise your hand if you thought Microsoft was going to allow .NET to be a reasonable and viable platform on non-Windows operating systems!
All of those raising your hands, please contact me. I have an exciting opportunity for you. I'm trying to get some money out of Nigeria.
-Teckla
Saves it from string overflow exploits. It's nice not needing to think about such things while coding.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
How are, for example, a web server (handles requests submitted by remote devices) and web browser (interface to present functions used to access resources) not covered by this claim? The next independent claim is:
Like, e.g. SETI@Home over TCP/IP? Or PVM?
Or claim 19:
...like, say, Mozilla.
Of course, there are dependent claims that try to make this more specific (ooh, using XML documents over a network, that's original). And, of course, the whole thing could be rejected by the patent office.
Still, it's like they didn't even make an effort to try and avoid the most obvious prior-art objections. Almost like they have complete contempt for the patent office, and confidence that no one will dare to challenge their multi-billion-dollar legal war chest if they ever do assert patent rights over someone. But no, that's crazy.
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
Microsoft can patent J2EE?
.NET base class hierarchy in the patent. That should worry the Mono guys. If the patent is even extremely narrowly enforced, the Mono guys seem to be in breach.
Seriously: Microsoft explicitly names the
1. A software architecture for a distributed computing system comprising: an application configured to handle requests submitted by remote devices over a network; and an application program interface to present functions used by the application to access network and computing resources of the distributed computing system.
:)
There is so much prior art for this claim it's not even funny.
But wait, it gets even funnier in claim #4....
4. A software architecture as recited in claim 1, wherein the application program interface comprises: a first group of services related to creating Web applications; a second group of services related to constructing client applications; a third group of services related to data and handling XML documents; and a fourth group of services related to base class libraries.
What?!! A network web service that can handle XML data using (said with pinky put to side of mouth) "CLASS LIBRARIES."
Hmmmmmm... Now where have I seen this before? Maybe Microsoft will try to patent a network service for sending and receiving text messages for the express purpose of communicating.
This is just another example of why software patents need to DIE! DIE! DIE! The sad thing is that about 50 guys had to waste their time writing this patent. Does anyone else see the irony of the first name listed on the patent, "Adam Smith"?
Adam Smith wrote in his famous book, The Wealth of Nations, "Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man or order of men."
Do you see the irony now? Today he would be be called an "ANARCHIST!" and he would definately be at home (somewhat) on slashdot.
Geez. Usually these frivolous patents have some iota of truth to them but what about .NET isn't just the "obvious next step" to the last 30 years of contributions to computer science? Java's bytecode is a slower version of their own "portable code" and CLR.
.NET is supposed to be and hence issues a patent to avoid looking stupid.
I think they're just hoping the patent office is about as confused as the rest of us of exactly what
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
According to Java History on Sun's website, 1.0a didn't come out till 1995.
You know where you are? You're in the $PATH, baby. You're gonna get executed!
Will it even stand up with Mono around? Even if it is Microsoft's idea to begin with, they didn't apply for the patent until after Mono showed up.
I'm not sure it will fly. US Code title 35 Sec. 102 says something like
"A person shall be entitled to a patent unless the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States"
Mono has been around since July 2001, but since it's half-done, does that count?
Maybe now an OSS equivalent (but doesn't have to be the same as) of .NET will be developed instead of riding on MS' twisted coattails. As much as I dislike patents, perhaps this would be a good thing by getting an original and open standards version of something like .net without having to be or have the harmful effects of .net.
Moderators - please read Amsterdam's posting history before modding him up. He used to be known as ekrout. Ring a bell?
Or not. We'll see if the EU has any backbone still, or if they're too excited to merge their patent systems with the U.S.'s.
Has anyone tried to use the XML related stuff in .NET? I've been using it and it is most definitely not conformant to schema spec. In fact there are several serious non-conformant issues with .NET's schema implementation where a complexType contains a selection of complexTypes, but one of the types includes the same complextype as the selection. In other words, one of the selections is a combination of the other types. So is microsoft's goal to patent bad software? Oh wait, they already. to hell with .NET.
And here I thought .NET was a code obfuscation project!
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Thats why Ximian is misguided. They actually help MS in their .Net marketing initiatives. Because of them, MS can point to an open source alternative and claim that .Net is kind of open. On the other hand, Ximian only release their code under GPL and GPL-like licenses, not under more permissive BSD license. My belief is that Ximian's business plan involves keeping this right to themselves, probably for sale later on - perhaps in a couple of years - when (if) .Net ever achieves dominance. If that happens, IT mega-companies (IBM and the like) would pay large sums for unrestricted access to a .Net lookalike, and only Ximian will have it. Ximian could dispel this by releasing their code under a BSD license. After all, the normal argument that applies to BSD does not matter here - MS already have their own .Net platform and have nothing to gain from Ximian's code.
Don't support .Net. And don't support Mono. They are Microsoft's whores.
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"this project is funded by a gift from Microsoft Corporation to develop a transformation toolkit for the intermediate language of their new .NET intermediate language...Obfuscation is of interest to many software vendors, who wish to prevent people from stealing their ideas....we hope to develop new methods that are provably hard to undo. ...."
They can't really mean the deliberate construction of a language where they could "turn the key" and all intermediate code would stop working.....that would be a great act of hubris....and not at all in the usual keeping of Microsoft....
M$ is evil empire this shows it. They want total dominance they donot want healthy compitition. They know that they have no chance against Java and Linux if they give comsumer a fair chance to choose.
.Not and windoze look better .
M$ the evil empire will always down play Java & Linux to make
I have an idea... Don't use this stupid .NET thing. I simply don't understand why it's such a big deal. Seriously... What is there in this .NET that is so important that the whole world needs to jump on it like flies on shit? Microsoft does these things on purpose to screw everyone over, and every time they do, everyone falls for it again. Well I'm not going to fall for it. This .NET thing can take a long walk on a short pier. I'm gonna continue performing my work on FreeBSD, without all this fancy shmancy junk, and guess what? It'll cost less too.
I had trouble following the patent text; it's pretty dry. It's not clear to me whether the patent covers just the .NET API, or if it would cover any similar system.
.NET API, the Mono guys won't care much.
.NET servers and vice versa. But it isn't strictly necessary. Mono is potentially a useful system, all by itself, without it ever talking to a Microsoft server.
.NET? How many even really understand what it is? Now, Microsoft not only needs to explain why you should abandon your current system to use .NET, they need to explain why .NET is worth locking yourself in.
If it covers any similar system, and the patent is granted as-is, that would be bad for the Mono project. But if it just covers the
It would be nice if Mono projects could talk to
This action by Microsoft really reminds me of IBM's Microchannel. Before Microchannel, anyone could make hardware cards compatible with IBM computers (ISA bus). The Microchannel PCs (the PS/2 series) were different: you had to license patents from IBM to make cards for Microchannel. IBM probably thought they would be able to lock customers in, but what actually happened was that people voted with their wallets for non-Microchannel solutions. Microchannel drove customers away from IBM and towards IBM's competition.
Does anyone really need
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
"There is no reason to beat up Linux though, Microsoft does not want to get 100% of the market, they want more like 85% so they don't keep getting slammed for anti-trust issues."
They can still wipe out Linux as long as Microsoft has Apple. Apple's business model is smoke and mirrors (what do you expect when machine color instead of speed is a major marketing point), and the company has been kept afloat with infusions from Microsoft in order to act as a "beard" to deflect antitrust claims.
If there was no Linux, and Apple blundered so bad that even Microsoft could not help it, chances are Microsoft would reinvigorate Amiga to be their sock-puppet.
Patent Everything NOW, so that in a couple of decades it will ALL BE FREE. I just wish all this crap had gone down during the Reagan administration -- then we'd be reaping the rewards today.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Maybe all they want to do is scare some suits and make some sales.
The bonus with obfuscated code is that when some 3rd party library fails, you won't have a chance in hell of fixing it!
Java has the same problem, but thanksfully most vendors choose not to obfuscate their bytecode. I've had to 'hack' 3rd party apps a number of times to fix bugs in their code that would have otherwise killed a few projects.
Obfuscation is bad for business.
-nate
have a Legalese -> English translation.
Can anyone tell the non-lawyers here what the main claims of the patent are ? or are all the claims just rediculously broad
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
I don't see how this can fly. Mono has prior art on pretty much all of this.
Anyway what is .NET? .NET is _not_ platform independent. You're definitely expected to run it on a Windows server. And to access it with IE. In fact it generates code (this particular code I don't think you can even get at) that makes it favor IE - it writes Javascript functionality for you on the fly but if you're what it calls a "downtarget" browser -- anything but IE - some things are not as nice. For instance validations that in IE happen on the client require a server trip; things like that.
It is supposedly "language agnostic", which means that it can subclass a VB.NET parent in a C# child. This agnosticism only extends to the languages MS has supported for it, namely VB,C#,C++(which is in some way I don't know the details of non-standard C++ in order to be .NET compatible) and J# (if anyone uses J# please tell me I'd be surprised)
What .NET really is in my opinion is a supercharged development tool, and a respectable new language. C# is actually pretty cool, they hired the guy that was the brain trust for Borland Delphi and copied lots of Java ideas - but hey Java is very much a copy of C......But the main thing is it is a very nice environment to code in. You can make a call to SQL Server (of course non-MS databases need not apply for this) and step through the code going through VB and C# function/object calls and then step through the SQL proc all without skipping a beat. And there's lots of type-ahead type things. If you define a function or a class method when you make a call to it the args are displayed. The debugger is very nice, you can roam through the code with a mouse and variables show their values as you pass over them.
I guess what they're going for is convincing tech managers that their programmers will be sufficiently more productive with their stuff to make up for the license costs. I try to find open-source equivalents for any features I like in the MS stuff, there are some respectable things like DDT (I think - the C/C++ debugger) - many emacs packages, JDEE in particular - Wing for Python (not open source though) - but the MS stuff really has some nice features for coders. You can get used to it.......and then news like this comes out and you remember what MS is all about.
Microsoft's CEOs have made it "patently" clear that they intend to restrict competing .Net implementations by cultivating Microsoft's patents, such as United States Patent Application #20020059425 "Distributed computing services platform" which covers the design and inter-operation of .NET based implementations.
Although there is prior art examples of individual technologies such as the JVM etc, Microsoft patents such as the one mentioned, define and claim the interoperation of the components, in such a way that any re-implementations will be sure to be covered by the patents. This remains true even for the Microsoft specs submited to standard
In comparison, Sun has granted the Apache and all open source developers FULL access to the specs, test kits and granted the full rights to develop competing products under the JSPA . Sun has also fully pened up the Java development standards process under the new Java Community Process (JCP) . Even to the point of granting full open source re-implentations of J2EE such as JBoss ...
There those that claim that .NET is open to re-implementation, but until Microsoft make a simliar public legal declaration to Sun's JSPA, any .NET reimplementation represents a pending legal mindfield.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I just took a look at the application briefly. My goodness... This is how Microsoft rules the world. But seriously... who would read this and ... grant patent or whatever? For example, the following is just one sentence:
..." (from 43)
"... and selecting a top level identifier and prefixing the name of each group with the top level identifier so that the types in each group are referenced by a hierarchical name that includes the selected top level identifier prefixed to the name of the group containing the type
I confess. I do not understand what they are talking about, and I don't get how anyone can read and interpret what it means and grant a patent. Am I the only one who feel like that?
I approve of your new method of having every subject be "Linux?". Replacing "and" with "&&" is also good. You were obnoxious before, and you still are, but now you are amusing. Congratulations!
The real depressing thing about this is that I have been planning to develop on .NET. I don't know about anyone else, but I have been happy with the way Microsoft has been pursuing its .NET strategy (at least the development environment, the framework, and so on), namely working towards standards.
.NET, I have been pretty happy working with it and the .NET framework. I was planning on rewarding Microsoft for doing the right thing with their .NET strategy through paying for their software in future projects (I have been training on it for a while now). I understand their aim to have domain over some of their ideas, but IIRC they were working to make this beast an international standard, not to close competition. I think this is a step backward. Of course, it is hard for me to understand the entire patent request, so maybe they are not requesting too much. Nonetheless, why would they even do this? It just seems like a bad PR move given the fact that people are already pissed off enough to migrate toward Linux, and are getting more aggravated. Alas, may the USPTO use some wisdom.
I like developing on Windows as long as the tools are good, and despite the early bugginess of VS
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absolutely free. You don't have to go and get GNURM, GNURM will
come and get you!
What GNURM does:
Using advanced techniques that could only be programmed by people
who have grants, trust funds, or other means by which they don't
have to work for a living, GNURM roams the networks, using little
known bugs, stupid errors by sysadms, and other methods that you
couldn't possibly understand to ensconce itself in your system.
Once there, GNURM provides your system with the many benefits that
the FSF has decided you need!
* GNURM updates all your old, tired utilities to the
brand-new, shiny, GNU versions!
* GNURM's advanced AI frees your software from the bondage
of copyright laws by seeking out and destroying any
copyright statements in the code or source (thus saving
valuable disc space). GNURM's special GNUTRON BOMB
feature destroys intellectual property rights, while
leaving the code standing!
* Best of all, when GNURM has finished, it moves itself
onto your friends computer, spreading goodwill and
copylefts everywhere it goes.
Don't waste time, get GNU'd today!
Processor cycles are precious things, and it takes a lot of them to
crack your root password. This could result in some slowdowns for
your friends as GNURM tries to access your system. Don't be impolite.
Change your root password to GNU today! You'll be glad you did
tomorrow!
If mono, a recreation of .NET already exists, how can they patent it now when this clear previous example exists?
I have never set foot inside a law school, but:
35 USC 271(d), the federal statute defining patent infringement, states that if a patent holder refuses to license a patent in a field where the patent holder holds "market power", antitrust action against a patent holder may be permissible. Microsoft Corporation has been ruled to have "market power" in the market for x86 platform operating systems.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Come on now, you guys didn't really think Microsoft was going to sit back and let someone else build a free implementation of their golden goose before it was even in wide acceptance, did you? What is it about some Open Source projects that makes their fearless leaders so starry-eyed? It is perhaps surprising that Microsoft waited this long.
.NET, their new platform-of-choice, they can lock out all competing implementations, either a little bit or completely, making sure that the only full .NET implementation is the one they've delivered, under Windows.
.NET. If you ask me, the lawyers at Microsoft won an argument on this one. If MS really wanted to get a stranglehold on the market, they'd have waited until .NET actually had its foot in the door before filing a patent. By doing so now, before it's really even gotten out of the gate, they've doomed it to be "just another Windows-based programming platform".
.NET bandwagon now? Commit all your resources to a platform that still performs more poorly than those available for higher-end, non-Wintel machines? Doubtful. The development benefits are marginal compared to Java, and native application developers will still prefer C or C++. Now that Microsoft will have a legal noose around .NET's neck, all circulation is effectively cut off.
.Gnu should have seen coming a mile away. Microsoft has nothing to gain by researching, developing, and standardizing a platform that could conceivably allow network AND desktop applications to run on non-Microsoft platforms. Did Miguel et al just think Microsoft had learned the error of their ways?
Microsoft still makes more off Windows sales than anything else -- don't forget that. No matter how ubiquitous Office is, Windows is the cornerstone of the Monopoly. By filing for a patent on
This also bodes pretty badly for
Don't believe me? What shop that isn't pure Microsoft would even consider jumping onto the
It's a stupid move for Microsoft, if they intend to expand and defend their monopoly. It's also a move that projects like Mono and
I assume if Mono dates from the period before the Patent application then MS is too late.
Results of Search in 1976 to present db for: ABST/java AND AN/sun: 32 patents. Hits 1 through 32 out of 32
And even more, including this one that pretty much covers any three-tier DB application development in Java: 5,899,990
No sig, sorry.
Actually, it makes sense....what if that "key" were a digital certificate...say the one in Palladium? What if this is part of a means of inducing people to upgrade their hardware?
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
A concept very similar to CRL (if not the same) existed on the former Control Data Corporation NOS/VE since at least 1988. In this case (NOS/VE)there is no intermediate language (like java byte code), but true processor-specific object code linked at run time to a language-independent library.
Bait and switch..... anyone want to provide examples relative here?
Entrapment - anyone want to provide examples relative here?
MS was found guilty of breaking Federal law, they are criminals. They were not punished.
What are the Patent rules regarding prior release of product?
Maybe now an OSS equivalent [...] .NET will be developed
Indeed.
One interesting angle is that an OSS VM can very naturally enforce open source. While Java bytecode can be turned back into source code, minus the comments and some stylistic info, an OSS-centric VM could have a bytecode that was exactly equivalent to the source code. This way, it would be effectively impossible to ship anything other than the source.
It's been obvious for 40 years (LISP) or maybe 55 (Turing's ACE Report) that programs-are-data, and tools today like IBM Eclipse go as far as they reasonably can to treat Java this way.
OSS has the opportunity to steal a march on Java and Dotnet and converge the worlds of users and developers. This is a natural evolutionary step, but OSS is only model that has a strong reason to promote it.
It sounds like a typical scheme for a namespace hierarchy. There is no way that MS should be able to pattent anything like this. Pattents should only be granted for novel ideas.
It's been said before so I'll say it again. Microsoft does not have a history of using patents to get what they want. Other companies do. Microsoft is coming down on Lindows, for example, for copyright violations, which they have a leg on which to stand, but they traditionally haven't used patents to get what they want. And why would they start now?
Schnapple
Also From Mono's FAQ: Question 666
I don't see a question 666 in the official Mono FAQ page.
Thus ensuring that Microsoft does not "cut off our air supply"
The word "air" does not appear in the Mono FAQ page.
I'm assuming that the parent comment was original humor, but it had me there for a second. Good job.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's just java, hell almost all the interfaces are functionally the same although the names have been changed. What's the difference between import and using, package vs. namespace? You do have to add the retarded override keyword ot override a method, but is that enough for a patent? For you M$ idoits out there, I know the observer model and other minor APIs are different, but IMHO it's to similar to a prior work to warrent a patent.(for the M$ers, an observer is a pattern similar to the events model, only a lot better ) I know my spelling sucks, I just give enough of a fuck to fix it.
A patent is a license to sue with the burden of proof on the defendant.
Justice costs money, I'll bet the open source developers can't afford as much as Microsoft can.
Software patents are the absurd invention of one person who pushed for them as a legislator then ruled on their validity later as a judge. A clearer case of conflict of interest has never existed in a court room, but he got away with it to our great detriment.
The most important thing we as programmers can do is fund a lobbying effort in Washington to restore the law back to the traditional pre software patent status.
Something along the lines of prior art maybe?
Why not just disregard patent law? the folks at MPlayer did. They just took shop in a non-patent law country (as in one that doesnt see our patents as world patents).
Claim 1 reads:
Tcl-DP provided an application configured to handle requests submitted by remote devices over a network (the RPC server), and an application program interface to present functions used by the application to access network and computing resources of the distributed computing system (the dp_RPC command protocol). The client application mentioned in the dependent claims is provided by any application configured as an RPC client.
Facts and balance have no meaning here. We're only interested in hysterical postings about how evil Microsoft is.
For instance, the fact that Sun owns several Java-related patents (including one that covers any 3-tier db applications) is meaningless. We like Java because it's not Microsoft and could care less that it's not open, GPL'd, or standardized even though we usually bitch about things that aren't.
No sig, sorry.
You know I can copy all their code, and make all the changes I want at any time.
So some other VC funded entity could pick up their work, make a few changes, and call it something else. But they'd also have to GPL it (what a shame).
So then there'd be two. Repeat, ad infinitum. Ximian just gets to be the "original guys" to provide a cross-platform implementation. And IBM won't buy, they'd repackage it too (with a kickback for IBM guided improvements)
Methinks you misunderstand the purpose and functionality of the GPL license.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Am I mistaken? Hasn't .NET stuff been advertised/promoted by Microsoft for more than a year prior to its submission of its patent application? If so, the patent cannot be granted! The rules clearly state that an inventor only has a year, after disclosing an idea to the public, to apply for a patent on it. It seems to me that I've been hearing about .NET stuff for three years or so....
I'm shocked! SHOCKED, I tell you.
Software Wars
Get a grip. Microsoft has already announced that, as part of the ECMA standards process, they are granting EVERYONE the right to implement the .Net Framework, WITHOUT paying any royalties whatsoever.
The patents are purely defensive.
And in related news, the sky is not falling.
I will patent and algorithm that will translate diagrams and pseudocode into piles of piles of patent speak.
Then I will run the code on itself, and file it!
It doesn't sound too complicated; all the people I've met who are in IP seem to be simple minded folk. I live next door to 2 of them and neither of them have got the Interweb (sic) figured out yet.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
1. There's way too much prior art and the application's scope is way too broad for the application to be approved. Even the mighty Microsoft will not be able to persuade the USPO to accept this Al Gore-like claim of invention of most/all things Internet-like.
.NET control to open source implementations would be to create uncertainty around such implementations by filing patent applications, etc.
.NET, and Microsoft's silence on the application will only compound the uncertainty. IT buyers are already reluctant to build on .NET, and will be even more reluctant when the J2EE sales teams starting pointing to this patent application and making claims that .NET is not an open platform, that Microsoft will never permit .NET to run on Linux, etc.
2. Although the patent application will not get approved, some existing and potential Mono developers will probably still reconsider the idea of contributing to the Mono effort. In other words, it seems that the mere filing of this patent application will weaken the Mono effort. Although Microsoft probably did not file this patent just for the sake of damaging the Mono effort, maybe Microsoft did conclude that the most effective means of preventing loss of
3. The sales teams of the J2EE vendors ought to have a lot of fun with this. Basically, Microsoft just handed the J2EE sales teams a great big FUD opportunity. This patent application creates uncertainty around
4. You don't have to get anybody's permission to create apis or frameworks with C++.
Link? Source?
slashdot!=valid HTML
Almost all patents simply document a new way to put together existing technologies. That's what an invention is. The existence of prior art for a component is meaningless. There is almost always prior art for the components of an invention. The invention here is the whole assembly, not the pieces.
Furthermore, it seems to be oriented towards the instantiation, not the class. I see no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to protect themselves from blatant copycats. But even projects like mono should be able to exist as long as the logic under the hood is not made by blatant copying. I would hope that's not the case. It wouldn't be honorable.
Besides, Microsoft is not threatened by anyone pursuing them from behind. If you're more than six months behind them, you're not on their radar. Mono will attract people who would never have given the new framework a chance and whet their appetite for more. Microsoft will always have more. In a few years the fact that less than 5% of Dot Net has anything to do with "Net" and that Microsoft has actually created a very nice Windows framework replacement (read operating system here) will become obvious to everyone when they launch a version that runs fully native instead of on top of another OS. That product will provide a tremendous acceleration of the (what will then be) huge installed base of Dot Net software.
A patent only has meaning in the country in which it was issued.
Your argument doesn't really make any sense. The logical conclusion is to just use scripting languages, which already exist.
Compiled languages aren't compiled in order to obfuscate the source, they're compiled in order to increase the efficiency of runtime execution.
What is with this slashdot zero-sum attitude; that if someone is working on one idea there aren't a bunch of other people under the radar working on other ideas?
.NET work alike if you bless it with built in CORBA, PVM or something like that.
.GNU project, which aims to target the same market as .NET and Enterprise Java.
There are too many of these virtual machine implementations lying around. You've got perl, rep, lisp, ECMAscript, forth, CHIP, DREAM, GVM, Idel, IVM, spim, among others.
Also, GCC makes it trivial to write a code generator for a non-existant machine (which you write a simple emulator for), and that will pass for a
Ch is an example of that concept.
There's also the
So uh.. what's wrong with Mono now? Should we stop Samba too and invent the new CIFS?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
With apologies to The Amazin' Polka Writin' CyberMonkey...It has been said that given enough time, seventy six Microsoft code monkeys locked in Microsoft HQ with seventy six NT workstations would eventually write all the code for a .NET patent.
I'm slightly shocked and saddened to see an institution of higher learning working on a "Code Obfuscation" project for MS. But what I really wonder, is what companies are interested in buying "obfuscated" binaries?
I guess the target audience is the same people who buy closed source software now. MS has basically hired Oxford so their hands can remain clean of accusations of making .NET code non-portable, after all that was one of their main features of .NET..
For US Code under the laws governing the responsibilities of the PTO.
n) The patent examiner shall use a web browser or equivalent to read http://yro.slashdot.org prior to investigating prior art for a patent to dig up leads, rather than asking the secretary.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
iPlanet portal server? poorly documented piece of shit.
Unlike media players, pimply faced 15-year old lawbreaking pornhounds aren't interested in "web services".
Why is this news for any programmer? .Net has always been Microsoft's to patent or change at will.
.Net will work on Win95/Win98. The answer will be no. Ask Microsoft if you can still code to the win32 API. The answer will be to code for .Net. Win9x and Win2000 users will have to upgrade to XP and the latest version of IE to benefit from .Net
For windows programmers, either you code at the Win32 level or you get changing wrapper libraries. I feel sorry for the VB/MFC experts in the world, but you made your bed, lie in it. If you count on c# for a living, count on the spec changing.
Ask Microsoft if
Take advice from one who has been burned on several projects since 1990. It's Microsoft's specification to change at will. There are no promises in API's(linux kernel or Windows).
When is the last time you heard of ANSI VB, ANSI MFC, ANSI c#, or ANSI Linux?
Sorry, enjoy.
It's just the normal noises in here.
There once was a time where all patents started "A device for the..."
Once again, we've managed to mess up what very intelligent people gave us. The hardest thing to believe is that we're continually surprised by this.
Anyone want to give this all up and become Amish?
It's not as though Microsoft (or IBM) has managed to patent barn raising... but I didn't get all the way through thier claims - it could be in there. After the first five that all have massive prior art I couldn't believe that they could submit it with a straight face.
ooo, ooo, ooo, please tell me! obsfuscation?!?!?!? thats a big word. and it sounds very very bad. Oh, the misery!
NO, really, this is one of the most pathetic attempts I have ever seen to rile up the slashdot drones to something they know absolutely nothing about.
Now lets get to the point. By nature, the CLR compilers do very little to obscure the source logic when compiling into Intermediate Language (binaries). Any
Microsoft trying to find an obsfucation technique or algorithm is comparable to them patching a gaping security hole. Yeah, maybe the hole shouldn't have been there to begin with, but it sure needs to be fixed.
And no, fixing this issue this is separate from there plans to take over the world as we know it
You fool. He said,
"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
Yea take it out of context and we have the rampant 'Al Gore Created the Internet' bullshit. All he is saying is that he took the initiative ( The right or power to introduce a new measure or course of action, as in legislation; as, the initiative in respect to revenue bills is in the House of Representatives. ) to support the creation of that network which you call internet.
Now; what does that mean. He isn't saying he made it. He isn't saying he thought it up. He's saying 'I thought this was a damn fine idea, and look! I was right, vote for me because we both use email!)
Please stop raping the dead horse that is this joke. Yes, amuzing at first, now all I can say is 'Get over it and look at the facts.'
The solution is simple, don't bother with it. No architect worthy of the title would specify a system built on this pile of rubbish. Enterprise shops that have been around for more than a week should be well aware of the issues with the vendor lockin anti-pattern. Dot Nyet is simply Microsofts attempt to back door into the "Enterprise" computing market. Ethical programmers should question the motivation of anyone specifying a system based on Dot Nyet. Let Microsoft waste their money on this hooey. You could implement the same services in COBOL for that matter. Dot Nyet is a complete waste of time, why bother?
Sorry, Sun!
... of a visual studio.net ad at the top of the page lamenting the attempted patenting of .net?
What an idiot.
Perhaps you can point me to the formal definition of a scripting language (Python) vs. a general purpose programming language (LISP)?
My argument never mentioned obfuscation, the point is about semantic equivalence of distributed code vs. manipulated code.
Lastly, for Java-class languages, efficiency is no longer the concern of source-to-bytecode translation, but primarily of bytecode-to-machine-code translation. The existence of decompilers is proof of this - the decompiled code does not differ substantially from the original source, therefore no significant optimization has taken place.
Here here!!
Please provide links to the number of times Microsoft has filed a patent infringement suit against someone. I think you will find that most if not all suits regarding patents have been against Microsoft. It would appear that Microsoft is simply trying to protect themselves.
I was hoping that one day I could write my applications on windows and deploy them on something more stable than windows/iis like Linux/Apache. That appears to be a pipe dream
I knew that MS was evil, but this just illustrates that I had better start learning something like Java quick smart, because I no longer want to be affiliated with Microsoft.
Looks like MS didnt learn anything when they alienated developers with the last open source FUD thing that backfired.
"In comparison, Sun has granted the Apache and all open source developers FULL access to the specs, test kits and granted the full rights to develop competing products under the JSPA"
.NET is open to re-implementation, but until Microsoft make a simliar public legal declaration to Sun's JSPA, any .NET reimplementation represents a pending legal mindfield.
Great, but who will use them? Java has been out for 8 years now, and no one takes competing JREs seriously. If you want to write something without thinking about the tiny differences between your JRE and the one everyone else uses, you stick with the Sun's.
There those that claim that
It took Sun 7 years to get to that point. They were very litigious in the beginning, suing Microsoft to keep them from messing with their platform. A platform they fought fiercly to keep proprietary and closed. Even today, you better not try writing a Java compiler that compiles to anything but Java bytecode, or that extends the language.
I still wish Sun had let Microsoft run with Visual J++. Can Sun extend C# the way they didn't let Microsoft extend Java? I think so, but feel free to prove me wrong.
First, this is a patent application, not an actual patent grant. I doubt that the application would last very long in its current form - it's too broad, even by the USPTO's narrow criteria for broadness.
Second, because Microsoft is standardizing this technology through the ECMA, as an eventual lead-in to ISO, they will be in a difficult position if they start demanding royalties or playing RAND games.
They backed off on the Kerberos thing, and they could be made to back off here too - blatantly targetting the only two competitors in the CLR space (Mono and Portable.NET) won't win them any PR points.
Third, most of what is discussed here has precedents in prior art. If Mono and Portable.NET infringe, then so does the JVM, and that's definite prior art.
We perhaps need to organise a bit to lobby on this one, but it isn't the end of the world - yet.
More information on Portable.NET here.
Looks like Microsoft has everything covered in their patent. I guess somehow innovation will prevail?
Reading the patent, it sounds like someone is daydreaming aloud and having it speech-to-text input directly into the US patent system.
Now, consider for a moment if everyone input into the patent system whatever their little hearts could conjure up, what would everyone else be allowed to do?
What a flawed system we have.
Naw, dude. I talked with Bill the other day and he SAID it was cool.
He wouldn't lie to me, would he?
No, but he will fuck you in the ass if you give him the chance.
News Flash: "A new anti-trust law passed today requires microsoft ship its software with a new scratch and sniff sticker on all of its products. Lawmakers apparently want consumers to be able to smell the Evil that is Microsoft before making their purchases" But Chairman Bill Gates likes the smell so much that he is painting he new estate in florida with a paint modeled on the scratch and sniff stickers.
News Flash later that day: Microsoft is reportedly trying to aquire a patent on the smell of evil, The odor of fear and the stench of stupidity, all reported important for its next product release.
So for now, we have nothing to worry about. It would kind of suck to support something just to have the rug pulled out from under you though.
.NET?
Not that the patent office has any brains, but it seems to me if microsoft wanted a valid patent, they really shouldn't have simply copied everything done by Sun... I mean, what exactly is so orgional in
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This is really a cascading patent, that basically encompasses everything that Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, Barnes & Noble, et.al., already have implemented. I suppose I should be afraid of multi-threaded functions, A (First), B (Second) and C (Third) groups of services, and even advance concepts like debugging and class libraries.
HA!
I did suspect Microsoft of being brain dead in the innovation department, but THIS REALLY PROVES IT! I suppose the idea of "Caching resources" was especially clever...back in 1985!
Also, did anyone see that the only related applications (i presume patents) were all filed Jul 10, 2001? Netscape and Oracle get no mention at all! Both have significant investments in similar tech.
Ditch Microsoft. Buy Apple. Any Questions?
Well shit, I'll tell my lawyer that bratmobile said it was cool. I think that makes you liable when it's not.
That's a pretty wild claim, homey.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The above is just as yummy as the "real thing".
only if you are under the age of 12.
Bets anyone?
You wouldn't be confusing the C Sharp language and the CLR with the whole of Dotnet would you?
If not, I'd appreciate a reference where MS states the intention of making ASP.NET, Windows Forms, ADO.NET etc. ECMA standards.
I wonder if MS isn't doing this because of all the people coming out of the wood-work trying to get royalties out of MS for things like ActiveX? Anyway I wonder how useful MONO will be without the below namespaces. I didn't think you could patent an API - the implementation perhaps, but after reading the patent it really sounds like their trying to patent the API. If I were them, I'd just copyright the API that way it'll never be release to the public domain :)
n agerSystem.Security.Cryptography.Xml
From the patent (supposedly 94 namespaces):
System.Windows.Forms System.CodeDom.Compiler System.ComponentModel.Design System.Configuration.Assemblies System.ComponentModel System.ComponentModel.Design.Serialization System.Configuration System System.Net System.Collections System.Globalization System.Net.Sockets System.Collections.Specialized System.Xml.Schema System.Xml.Serialization System.Xml.XPath System.Xml System.Xml.Xsl System.Data.Common System.Data.OleDb System.Data.SqlClient System.Data.SqlTypes System.Diagnostics System.DirectoryServices System.Drawing.Design System.Drawing.Drawing2D System.Reflection System.Drawing System.Drawing.Imaging System.Drawing.Printing System.Drawing.Text System.EnterpriseServices System.IO System.Resources System.IO.IsolatedStorage System.Messaging System.Reflection.Emit System.Runtime.CompilerServices System.Runtime.InteropServices.Expando System.Runtime.InteropServices System.Runtime.Remoting.Activation System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.Http System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels.Tcp System.Runtime.Remoting.Contexts System.Runtime.Remoting System.Runtime.Remoting.Lifetime System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging System.Runtime.Remoting.Metadata System.Runtime.Remoting.Metadata.W3cXsd System.Runtime.Remoting.MetadataServices System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies System.Runtime.Remoting.Services System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters System.Runtime.Serialization System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Soap System.Security.Cryptography System.Security.Cryptography.X509.Certificates System.Configuration.Install System.Security.Permissions System.Security System.Security.Policy System.Text System.Security.Principal System.ServiceProcess System.Text.RegularExpressions System.Threading System.Timers System.Windows.Forms.Design System.Web System.Diagnostics.SymbolStore System.Management System.Management.Instrumentation System.Web.Caching System.Web.Configuration System.Web.Hosting System.Web.Mail System.Web.Security System.Web.Services System.Web.Services.Configuration System.Web.Services.Description System.Web.Services.Discovery System.Web.Services.Protocols System.Web.SessionState System.Web.UI System.Web.UI.Design System.Web.UI.Design.WebControls System.Web.UI.HtmlControls System.Web.UI.WebControls System.CodeDom System.Data System.EnterpriseServices.Compensating.ResourceMa
However, this patent shows bad faith by Microsoft. If Microsoft wanted C# to be perceived as an open language and core set of libraries, this is the last thing they would want.
Where does this leave us? We have two companies, Sun and Microsoft, that are engaged in some bizarre battle to try and control the software industry. Both have attempted to get patents that allow them to use the patent system to control who implements the language and how (yes, Sun has patents on key aspects of Java). Both are trying to keep control of the software, APIs, and future language evolution. And what is particularly ironic is that all this battle is about decades old technology.
What does this mean? Both open source and commercial users should say "no thanks" to both Java and C#. We need to get back to a model where programming languages and libraries are standardized through open standards processes and where the core language and APIs and are not covered by patents. C, C++, Smalltalk, Ada, and many other languages have shown that this is possible. In fact, had Sun not derailed and preempted the adoption of those other languages with promises of a bright Java future (on which they have failed to deliver), we might well be using some language now that is technically superior to both Java and C# and is covered by a truly open standard.
Mono reinventing Java and in the cource helping microsoft to push ahead. Just freeze mono, and let it work only on windows
Does this mean the BSA Gestapo will now look for patent violations on your web server?
This application should be denied on the basis that Unix, the X Window System, networked distributed apps and the Internet were invented 20-30 years ago.
Stop developing in the USA. The patent system ther is really fucked. There is no point in trying to fight it, you don't have the money. Take your projects to Europe and ignore the US patents.
It could be, of course, illegal to use such software in the USA under some Ashcroft-Rumsfeld-Orwell law but still... At least we would have the software to use as we please.
In addition to the independent claims, you have a set of "dependent" claims, which are like "The device of claim 1, where [some more specific requirement]." These dependent claims serve three purposes:
I am not a lawyer, but I have worked with a number of lawyers to draft (non-software) patent claims and to deal with US and international patent examiners.
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
The most recent marketing research indicates that a move towards more or less forgiving terminology would be comparatively more endearing than those harsh syllables "dot net." The latest solutions scenario (remember, nobody sells products anymore - "solutions" only please) will be branded as a "new way of doing things," more specifically, a "better way of doing things."
I hope this clears things up for you!
just like the humble blood clot... turboporsche@telus.net
If enough of us protest calmly and sanely with prior art and generalness point by point... this seems to be a blatant power grab by ms....
m for the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) Chapter 1900.
From the FAQ at the PTO:
#50 How does one file protest on patents that are pending?
Protests by a member of the public against pending applications will be referred to the examiner having charge of the subject matter involved. A protest specifically identifying the application to which the protest is directed will be entered in the application file if: (1) The protest is submitted prior to the publication of the application or the mailing of a notice of allowance under rule 1.311, whichever occurs first; and (2) The protest is either served upon the applicant in accordance with rule 1.248, or filed with the Office in duplicate in the event service is not possible. For more detailed information on protesting a patent, you may visit our Web site at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/mpep.ht
See also my other post in reply to another person who was similarly confused about patent law.
If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned & not shared. S. Augustine
Horrors! A legal MINDFIELD!
One ironic fact is that while Gore is given a hard time about the "information superhighway" his father had a lot to do with superhighways in the real world.
I used to be an MS developer... I hear your lament.
Today, learn Apache Web Server with PHP. MySQL is the leading OS database. I have implemented Apache, PHP and MySQL on a Windows platform with no problems. Next step is to go to Linux server, and integration into the whole.
Message is: use Apache, PHP, MySQL and you can use any platform available.
Dennis
I'm not sure everyone knows how big this is. It seems to me that Microsoft is betting the farm here. But realistically, it is a good bet; for Microsoft of course.
Either they are granted the patent, or they are not. The decision has to be made. With what kind of granularity I don't know. But even if they are able to patent only parts .NET, the plan still works well in their favor. The more modules of the software they patent, the more interoperability we loose.
However, given the government Microsoft finds itself under; (both politically, and in the patent office) Microsoft will likely get the entire standard under their control.
How much of this is a good thing?
Realistically, if they mark-out their corner of sandbox again, will they be able to survive? Open Source solutions are gaining momentum, especially in the server space. Generally, it seems people are impressed with the results. Even though it costs a bit more to manage. A slim few are doing desktop installations, but we're just begining to get information on how Open Source solutions are performing. I might note that I'm talking about real businesses, corporations and the like. As we get more feedback from business installations, we'll be able to improve what we're doing. But will we be able to make up the gap between system management costs, versus licensing costs?Unfortunately, I'm afraid Microsoft has too much inertia with their installation base. It's really hard to switch when everyone else is using the same thing. So how much of .NET does Microsoft need to seal in their market share again? Probably none at all. What companies have to ask themselve is,
People are beginning to realize that monopolistic markets are costly from a consumer standpoint; And with software, business is the largest consumer. Perhpas companies will start switching over. Either way, we're in for an interesting few years. So, at the very least, we'll have a few interesting years here. In general as well, it seems.Hopefully this makes sense to someone... but probably not. =P
Remember: umount it before you fsck it.
But I rather see Microsoft putting their money into making a .NET version that blows away everything else (already does, but because it is the only one right now, mono is not finished yet after all). That gives a positive race and good things happen for the population.
Patents are starting to act like a tool to keep markets with shoddy products, which is wrong. Patents should save you from being exploited, from having others steal your genuine ideas. Not stop people from clicking once to buy something or try to stay on top of a market.
All in all, Microsoft, stop this behaviour and compete by trying to be better instead.
Clearly nothing listed in their patent goes outside the scope of Java.
And the US Patent office is probably crazy enough to grant it (their track record is not good)!
I wonder what Sun will do about that!
Reason 7,030,505 why software patents suck.
OK, so on one hand MS "announces" something, on the other hand they go to the USPTO. Now, I wonder, which action is more relevant?
I remember MS announced Windows NT 5.0 to be ready at the beginning of 1997. They announced many other things, since then...
Sigged!
IBM will do nothing. The beast may be hard to stir (though not necessarily on IP issues), but real tough to stop.
I see much talk about how costly to defend etc, and how the Mono et al people will not be able to do much about Microsoft if it slaps them with a patent.
I have not seen anyone mention what IBM will think of this. You think there is nothing in there patent library about any of this? SNA/SAA comes to mind - but this was maybe just copyrighted no patented - IANAPL.
With what % of there PROFIT coming from web services you think IBM won't challenge anything that may screw them up in the future. Unless MS puts it out royalty free (a defensive patent) as some have suggested I think IBM will be Mono's friend.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
> Microsoft has already announced that, as part of the ECMA standards process, they are granting EVERYONE the right to implement the .Net Framework, WITHOUT paying any royalties whatsoever.
.Net is the framework? Can I build web services with the framework alone?
So how much of the whole
Or will it turn out that I need the run time libraries which are not part of the ECMA standardisation, which are completely under the control of Redmond and are the likely place that implementation of these patents will occur.
Admittedly, IANAL, but this patent seems to cover stuff that Java webstart already does. Prior art?
> Somebody has far too much faith that the Patent Office will not issue a patent for that which has prior art. Sorry, but it doesn't look that way from here. The PTO may well grant a patent, even though it really shouldn't. Then what?
If, as you say, the Patent Office can simply ignore the law, then there is nothing to prevent Microsoft from using a similar tactic to stop Linux.
So by your logic, we should just stop working on Linux, Apache, KOffice, or anything else that might compete with Microsoft, because Microsoft will simply gain an unfair patent, and make our work a waste of time.
# is not. It's a hash.
And to think I've been incorrectly referring to it as an octothorpe all my life (except for that brief period when it was simply a "tic-tac-toe board"). I would never think to call C# "C sharp" unless I was talking about musical notes....
Microsoft, like Oracle, has a deliberate policy of only using patents in a defensive manner. I.e., if you try to abuse the patent system and try to hit MS with a ridiculous patent claim, they're sure to have something to hit you back with until you end up in a zero-sum game.
Microsoft does not like the US patents-on-software system. They're filing patents to defend themselves from it.
This doesn't fly. Wine has been around for over a decade, and short of trying to claim header files were copyrighted (yeah, right) they have not done anything to it. Why? Because there's nothing innovative there, and you can't patent or even copyright interfaces.
So, I don't understand all this Mono bashing. We need mono for two reasons:
1) Compatability. There will be .NET apps soon enough. We'll need to be able to run them.
2) Good tools for us.
Tough on them. They can't stop people replicating the platform, that is not legally possible.
No, but they do have a better understanding of the law than you do.
Does anyone else see the irony of the first name listed on the patent, "Adam Smith"?
A Smith, isn't that the guy in the black suit, sunglasses, earphone?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Rubbish! If you're in the part of the industry that doesn't just run applications on desktop boxes you're going to take Java's portability very seriously. Why? Does Sun provide a JRE for the Mac? IBM's pSeries RS/6000s? How about your zSeries mainframe? Or your Nokia mobile phone? Or your SGI box? Out here in the real world people take these other JVMs seriously.
The fact that I can performance test my code on multiple hardware platforms, multiple JVMs and multiple application servers, then make the decision about deployment, is exactly what makes Java important to me and the companies I work for.
"Even today, you better not try writing a Java compiler that compiles to anything but Java bytecode, or that extends the language."
What, you mean like
- GCJ, that uses the gcc back-ends to compile Java to native code, or
- Pizza, that adds generics, function pointers and algebraic types, or
- GJ, which is the where the Java 1.5 generics support was prototyped.
No, better not try writing anything like that."They were very litigious in the beginning, suing Microsoft to keep them from messing with their platform. A platform they [Sun} fought fiercly to keep proprietary and closed."
I think we can both agree that Sun and Microsoft have tried (or will try) to use the law to protect their technical vision for Java and .Net respectively. The difference is in what that technical vision is. Sun sued Microsoft in order to make sure that different implementations of Java would be compatible across platforms, because that is their technical vision (remember "Write once, run anywhere?"). Microsoft are attempting to patent .Net, and the suspicion is that they will use it to prevent compatible implementations of .Net on different platforms. Now do you see the difference?
... goes way back.
In the 80s I worked for a company (Inmos) that made parallel/distributed compute nodes (Transputers).
Believe me, every conceivable means of distributing work around a network of "compute resources" has been thought of, written up and implemented before the web existed.
Prior art fills the shelves of every good university library.
About Java it is not a matter of "platform independent coding", but a matter of "platform independent binary" !
.net, even if the core is technically a Java platform clone, the trouble come from the fact that it is Windows centric & tied. No, do not expect mono (or other kiddies) to be real world stuff. MS spokesman has clearly said : "we could we cross platform agains MS various OS !"
... but i can not and i will not run a real world application.
... but the very truth is that what MS promiss for tomorrow is already there with Java since nearly a decade !
... and what great news here was we've got plenty of solutions in our pocket to shape the best solution: change OS, change VM, change J2EE appserver, change hardware, ... but without changing a very single line of the application !
...
;-)
The goal here is that once a developper has build a binary it is valid for each and every complient platform.
About
So, no, dotNet is not and will not be an competitor against Java platform on the "WORA" ground !
(WORA = Sun's Write Once Run Anywhere)
MS has clearly seen that Java new coding habits bring more productivity than previous technologies without compromissing the reusability of the solutions.
That's the reason, after leaving the Java project for policy reason, they 've decided to build a clone.
The fact they pushed the very core to any kind of standardization process only shows that they do no intend to standardize other part of the platforms (non-CLI APIs for instances !). This have a major impact over the potential portability of designed solution.
To explain this, if you want to design real world dotNnet solutions you are in a way or an other constraint to use the COM+ container (to get transact features for instance), by doing so, your solution become practicaly (but even virtually) Windows tied. Just because COM+ is not part of any standard stuff and is only implemented on Win32. Here is fact !
That's the reason i said earlier, mono is not real worldstuff ! It is fun : ok i can run a Csharp class or two
Here MS has done right pushing affiliates and spinnoffs to FUD the community
Want more fact ?
I got customer of mine whom first run their J2EE applications on Win2k but as soon as they realize if could not stabilized under load, they think of "what if we evaluate an other solution" ?
So we start to test and bench alternatives
At the end we came up with a high power rock stable : Linux with IBM VM, with Opensource J2EE appserver on the same hardware.
That was just amazing, cost were drastically down, stabillity was here and customer thanks lords to have choosen Java 2 years before !
Gess what, i love to have choice
If this application was running on dotNet what would be his choice ?
- Rebuild bottom-top a new application
- Go and pray for a miracle
- Buy a new cluster or blades
- Wait for Windows2003 SP2
That's why i do argue that Linux and Java are the killer team. Java legitimate the linux choice without having to tied the solution to yet another OS.
As a conclusion, i would like to publically thanks all the Java opensource community that brought us very brilliant and reliable software solutions (JBoss, Tomcat, ant, xalaan, Batik, jedit, !
Special thanks goes to the Jakarta Apache groups
-SLK
Feel the choice for liberty !
Well maybe now Miguel will realize he is just a brick in Microsofts game? I like the mono projekt on its technical merits but its just wasted efforts considering what MS is going to do when they feel Mono is more a threat than a PR gain.
HTTP/1.1 400
Underneath the Apple ][ keyboard was a little rocker switch, which would change the graphical representation of # to £. This seemed a bit strange since surely that would mean your spreadsheet could not display #1 and £50 on the same page!
Isn't it so that the "publicity" never applied to the whole Framework, just bits of it? Ie not all of the API or whatever. But it was a brilliant publicity stunt, as everybody was saying, gee, C# is free, Java isn't...
This is just a guess, but I would assume they have no intention of using this to kill off Mono. Rather, they seek to protect the .NET class hierarchy itself. Mono is focused on the underpinnings, not the "good stuff" on top that most people use to write real world applications. (I personally like underpinnings myself, but that's not where most programmers spend their days, these days.)
What I think might be happening is Microsoft is letting Ximian do all the hard work of getting stuff to work on Linux/Unix/Mac/whatever, but they're protecting the next layer up, where everything exists that makes a "Windows app" what it is -- think Office.
That way, when Mono is done (or at least usefully functional), they will have a lock on "the good stuff". They can advertise "You can run Office on Linux," and the catch will be, in order to do so, you first have to buy this "Windows for Linux" layer, which runs on top of Mono.
(Incidentally, this reminds me of a /. sig I saw recently: "Free, as in working for IBM without getting paid.")
Just a thought.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Just because you invented something doesn't mean that a patent holder can't sue you (and win) - it's the person who first patents it who gets the rights, not the first inventor). IANAL.
Actually, I rather think that MS invented Beowulf clusters long ago - namely with IIS 4.
World + dog seems to have some sort of opinion about what .NET actually is, but the one thing practically everybody has agreed upon up to now is that MS.NET does not contain anything new.
Well then - this is about a patent application, not a patent grant. A patent gets a lot harder and more expensive to fight once it's been granted (seems to take a lawsuit), so the most productive thing to do right now is to dig up sufficient evidence of 'prior art' to make sure this patent is never granted in the first place.
-- That grumpy BSD guy - http://bsdly.blogspot.com/
It's amazing that he was able to take that initiative more than ten years after the Internet was created. Obviously Al Gore has more superpowers than we suspect.
You can only apply for a patent on things that have been kept secret before you applied. Anything that is public domain (or even published as a result of industrial espionage) can not be patented. Therefore the only thing that Microsoft can patent is the low level functionality of parts of their own runtime that were not released in the shared source version. This is stuff that would probably be implemented differently on non-windows platforms anyway, so the patent won't have much effect. For another example of how well patents work, have a look at the AAC audio compression algorithm patented by Dolby / the MPEG-LA. Currently the best AAC encoder is written by PsyTEL and doesn't use any of the patented algorithms. Algorithmic patents simply don't work. In general, a good algorithm is so obvious that someone else has already thought of it, but didn't patent it because it was so obvious, or it's so complicated that while it may appear to be the best, a little more thought can lead to an even better one.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"In Soviet Russia, the Internet invents Al Gore!"
He's right in pointing out that Microsoft hasn't tried to "extend" or "enhance" TCP/IP. But remember, Bob Cringely already predicted that those days are numbered. He predicted that Microsoft will try to use network security problems (worms and such) as an excuse to create "TCP/MS", an incompatible microsoft-only TCP/IP.
Has it happened yet? No. Would it be catastrophic if it did? Hard to say...people might just use it as incentive to finally do away with IPv4 and switch to IPv6.
BTW the musical note C# is pronunced as Cis in german.
"Why bother trying to make a compatible clone of an MS product ... MS has deeper pockets than me. "
I wanted to say what you already said, so a dupe posting is not that interesting then. It's the matter of: I patent now what I have here, before another patents it so I can pay my ass off, plus I protect my own investments in the matter. MS has numerous patents and hasn't enforced any of them on any company till today.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
You've never pounded out some code?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
You may want to take a harder look at Sun before you jump, if you're trying to avoid being mistreated as a developer, or supporting a heavy-handed organization with a lock on it's technology.
Try python.
Geez, doesn't simple binary code work generated from multiple compilers run on a common runtime environment?
If so, I have bad news for them: My vintage-1978 Wang word processing system is a fine example of client-server computing - .NET pales in comparison to the raw computing power that is the Z80 CPU. And while we're at it, how about the Beowulf cluster of Z80 workstations, all connected to the server complete with 8" floppy drive and Z80 processor!
This kind of patent nonsense is a prime reason why I got out of the computer and tech. writing business and moved into a completely different field. Wasn't too fond of swimming in MS's ocean, surrounded by MS' sharks, either...
WHAT are you talking about??
... NOTHING!
The fact that anybody files a patent application which is automatically published after 18 months means exactly
You write as if a patent has issued. It has not. You comments imply that a published patent application has some sort of legal impact on potential competitors. It does not. Anybody can file a patent application and can claim anything whatsoever, but until an actual patent issues, it means nothing.
Perhaps M$ filed the application knowing it would not be allowable, but also knowing that, upon publication, potential competitors would be intimidated out of the field.
Please do not confuse the legal ramifications of an issued patent (which is, by statute, presumed to be valid) with a published patent application (which has no legal presumptions).
hi!
And you honestly believe that if the day ever came where some third party implementation of Net was seriously cutting into Microsoft's profits they wouldn't use this? As a corporation they actually have an obligation to their investors to enforce those patents.
As we've seen after the dot com collapse, patent milking is the last resort of a financially troubled company - that's not Microsoft today, but tomorrow who knows. Assuming *any* corporation will just "play nice" is foolishly naive.
Its for prior patents not future ones stupid
Don't Tread on OpenSource
A vague public declaration is not a legal commitment. If Sun were serious about making Java open and non-proprietary, they would dedicate their patents on Java to the public domain and go through with a standardization process. In addition, parts of the core Java platform, like Swing, are not sufficiently well specified to permit useful independent reimplementation. Basically, what Sun has been saying is that they don't claim ownership to APIs they didn't develop by themselves. Gee, what a big concession to make.
In comparison, Sun has granted the Apache and all open source developers FULL access to the specs, test kits and granted the full rights to develop competing products under the JSPA
What this really means is that Sun apparently can and does restrict the ability of people to create commercial third party implementations. And that shows that (1) Sun must own strong intellectual property on Java (in fact, we know they at least own patents), and (2) they are using it deliberately to restrict who can build implementations. That means that Java is not an open language standard.
Altogether, the situation both on the Java and on the C# side is bleak. Java is certainly not an open alternative to C#--they are both proprietary languages on which Sun and Microsoft, respectively, hold lots of patents.
The real question is why the whole industry is so enthralled by 30 year old technology. I mean, when Sun promised to make Java a language standard and make it completely free and open, there was some interest in it as a real-world compromise--the most modern language that an industry firmly stuck in the 1960's could live with--but few if any of Sun's promises have come through.
As far as I know, the EFF and the LPF (in its heyday) in spite of their efforts, have not been involved in a successful patent-infringement defense (whether the original patent was valid or not).
I'm not going to count on them or on anybody in this yet, as almost all of these are settled out of court (keeping the patent valid to the bane of free/open software development everywhere).
b.t.w., LPF Patent Page -- the patent described in the image at the top (XOR in screen bitmap cursors) is now out of date (filed in '78) and expired. Does that mean someone in XF86 will finally make xor-based cursors?
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Some posts have alluded to the fact that this might get rejected. Does anyone know a source for viewing rejected patents? Specifically, a way to look at patents that might have been rejected from Microsoft?
You are right. Thanks for the correction.
Many times I've pointed out that something like this was going to happen and the Mono guys were quick to point out that I was crazy; as were many of the Slashdot population.
On one side, you have exactly what has been expected and follows a long historical ethic from Microsoft. On the other side, you have a bunch or people in denial. Hmmm...wonder who's crazy now.
Anyone that's surprised by this strikes me as exactly the same as a battered-wife. How many times do you have to beaten over the head before you figure out the relationship is never going to be good for you? When are you going to learn?
Long story short, people who can't wait to line up to do business with Microsoft are fools.
Yeah, cause Microsoft probably doesn't have any lawyers or PR people.
Honestly, if I had to venture a guess, I would say that Microsoft doesn't care. People who develop on Microsoft products don't care. They don't develop on .Net because MS is a great and fair company, they do it because they have the biggest market share, and because developing on .Net is easy. What would happen if MS did sue? There would be a backlash against MS? Hah. The average tech person would say "Those Open Source people, stealing ideas again. Why can't they ever develop any ideas on their own?" They don't sue on moral reasons, they sue to financially wipe out whoever they wish to take to court. With a patent, they would have a basis for a lawsuit.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
They must of read the article over the weekend about Sun advising against internal use of Java and realized that since Sun is shifting to a GNOME desktop which is developing a .net framework. They just want to try to dick Sun over like Sun did to them- only more so. Now MS can go to court and get a judge to order Sun to use MS's framework and MS will just be laughing in the corner because they can't/won't implement their garbage for Sun.
Stacker sued for patent infringement, won the district court case, and settled before M$'s appeal.
The lawsuit was settled on Stacker's terms for somewhere around 80 million.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Previous post RE: patents.
I'd use the same words, only much stronger emphisis on LARGE, GREEDY, MONOPOLISTIC corporation.
--CypherDragon
MS has never filed a patent suit against anyone because it has never been in their best interest to do so.
There are not that many infringing companies that fall in the following catagories:
a) do not possess retalliatory patents.
b) have large enough revenues/profits to produce a royalty that interests MS.
c) is not a large customer of MS.
Companies do file patent infringement lawsuits against MS based upon the same reasoning.
They look at MS and determine that it fits into (a-c) above from their (other company's) perspective.
If the patent is granted, Microsoft will lose the trust of many, piss off many more, and alienate themselves from anyone considering .NET who wasn't already a Microsoft whore. Many people will choose to stay with Java or PHP or whatever and build new projects with .NET totally out of consideration.
So, is this a bad thing?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
This is silly. You don't think so? Then please enlighten us all by explaining exactly how GPL can turn into proprietary software. You might want to go to www.gnu.org first and read the GPL.
Sure, why sue when you can simply treaten? It's amazing how many M$ appologists have filled this thread with that line of bullshit. Microsoft has many patents and uses them to stop people from working with their crap. This excellent post lists a few. I'll add NTFS to that list. M$ will not allow a free writer to be made and it uses patents to keep that from happening.
Some of these patents will have to be fought. Sometimes, such as this silly NET case, they claim to own common and well applied ideas that would cripple everyone if they get their way. I can imagine someone telling the XFree86 crowd that they can't distribute anymore because Xforwarding infringes on the new M$ patent. Most of the patents, thankfully, only prevent people from working with inferior M$ file formats. Sigh, what was the point of NET again, "everything is connected"?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Oh you of too much faith. With the way the US Patent Office (doesn't) work you really expect that M$ WONT get their patent through? The US Patent Office will let anything through unless it specifically says "perpetual motion machine" in the documents somewhere. The US Patent Office is broken, as is the entire patent and copyright system. Don't be so sure M$ wont get their patent(s)
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Probably so,
But no one can be sure that Festo's unforseeability considerations won't weaken the patent because of the then necessary narrowing arguments with the patent examiner.
Have any of you read the Conclusion? ...it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described...
Doesn't a patent only cover the specific claims in the disclosure?
I mean the only goal of mono is legitimate the FUDs from MS that "it will kill Java", "Java is evil on earth", "Sun will die" ... !
...) is much more an important task for the comunity.
;-) Who talked about pravda-like behaviours ?
:o) And die to rise williamIII's shares !"
... but now even slashdoters are promoting MS techs ? instead of free solutions !!! I must be in a nighmare .... please let me awake ... plzzzz !
...
What are the benefits for the opensource cominity of pusing mono : nada ! (ie, nothing!)
Working on either C++ opensource project or even Java opensource (Apache, JBoss, Blackdown
Have you ever seen any opensource license made from MS on opensource.org ? No, there is not !
Who care of a platform that have never been designed to be opened ! Because that just what dotNet realy is. They 've smoked up people by pseudo-standardizing pieces of specs but forget the 99% of the rest ! And looking at the patent request list, only show that all people told that MS was aiming with dotNet is reality !
What everybody that has faith in the liberty should do is give time to real opensourced stuffs. And not MS teleguided project !
Mono will never be dotNet compliant (when i mean complient i mean realy 100% compliant), just because it is only a MS aliby pushed by MS affiliates !
As a fun, did you ever look after the Cshap spec ? It does not aver use even once the Java language, even when listing existing solutions
"Dear komrad, your must join the MS flag
I heard people complaining about the monopolistic behavinours all day
Let's take the red pillllllllll arrrrrrh
a little off topic, but as long as we're talking about the octothorpe
The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary does not list "octothorpe" as an existing word. However, google knows more than the OED ever could, and a search for the string "octothorpe" yields the origin of the word "octothorpe" as its third hit.
The upshot (for those of you who don't read articles outside of /.) is that "octothorpe" is a word that was invented (whimsically constituted) by Bell Labs research head Don MacPherson in the early 1960s.
The symbol #, chosen as one of two data input keys for computer access over phones, had not been named. MacPherson was giving presentations on the use of phones for computer access and decided to come up with a name. "Octo" comes from the fact that a # symbol has eight points, while "thorpe" derives from the name of Olympic medalist Jim Thorpe. MacPherson was on a committee attempting to have Thorpe's medals returned from Sweden.
___________
Oh, and regarding Microsoft's pantenting of .NET technologies. There's nothing necessarily good or bad about it, but given Microsoft's history we should be prepared for the worst. (Now who's saying "All your base?)
But if Microsoft are smart, they will realize that the best way to get and maintain market share (which is different than a monopoly) in an open source wolrd is to facilitate the distribution of the use and licensing of their patented technologies, with free beer if necessary.
blog
If prior art can be patented today, it can be patented again tomorrow. All they have to do is call it something else. Bogus and trivial patents breed more of the same by making patent searches more difficult and requiring more work at the patent office. Software patents, which are essentially algorithms and business methods should never have been patentable in the first place.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm still trying to figure out what, if anything, .Net has to do with my work or my life. I haven't even found a reasonable explanation of what it *is*, other than "something you should buy into right now."
Just goes to show that Microsoft Corp. is full of bast*rds. Yes, that includes you, Bill Gates. Ok. Anger vented. I feel much better. Unfortunately, the computer industry (hardware & software) is a mess. I really used to enjoy technology, but now it gives me ulcers. So, computers are no longer my primary hobby. I am still a programmer by profession, and I will occassionally build my own PC or write some program that scratches a personal itch, but I just cannot get as excited by it anymore because the corporations are trying to screw me every which way. I'm just waiting for them to back legislation that will make building your own computer and all non-proprietary software illegal. Fly fishing is the way to go. No stress; no worries. It's just you and the trout.
Ok. Assume we found some "Smoldering guns".
To whom shall we show the evidence?
And more important, would that "who" who grant
the patents be hearing us?
I have not read thru every post and apologize to all slashdotters if a thread has already broken out... but (IMHO) .NET appears to have a lot of similarities to the J2EE stack, especially considering functionality of its CLR. I would have thought Sun would be all over MS by now... MS must be really freakin' out over Ximian/Mono project!
but also knowing that, upon publication, potential competitors would be intimidated out of the field.
/. would post the application and then everyone could blow it out of proportion and then potential competitors would be intimidated out of the field.
but also knowing that, upon publication,
"With the way the US Patent Office (doesn't) work you really expect that M$ WONT get their patent through?"
I agree in part. The Patent Office is broken, but mainly because Congress STEALS money from the PTO! (If anyone takes issue with this, it can very easily be confirmed)
Nevertheless, original Claim 1 from filed patent applications are almost never (~1%) allowed and issued as filed.
Take a look at the first claim of random published patent applications available on the PTO web site. They are often ridiculously broad. The first one I looked at is reproduced below.
1. A method of delivering electronic content, comprising: providing instructions that cause a first computer to collect information including an e-mail address, and transmit the collected information to a second computer; and processing the transmitted information at the second computer by selecting electronic content for transmission to the e-mail address and e-mailing the selected electronic content.
hi!
Bruce Perens said this in August 2001:
"If I were in Microsoft's position, I would be looking through all the patents I had been buying that are potentially being infringed by open-source software. They are going to hold onto these patents until they see what happens with the antitrust case against them. Once that is resolved, they will then use them against the open-source industry."
"Ximian needs to draw up an advance agreement with Microsoft that states Microsoft does not intend to assert its patents on this technology. If we don't get that agreement, I'll be happy to see Ximian implement this stuff, but I'm not sure I'll touch it," Perens said. "I'm also not sure I want to let it touch the rest of GNOME [GNU Network Object Model Environment] very much because if GNOME becomes dependent on it, it would have a potential weakness there."
Has anyone ever thought maybe just maybe.. That if there were not patients, there would be a lot more innovated and technology would be extremely high tech and powerful?
+++ David Watts 5495 0.0 0.5 1888 884
Doesn't the US patent office have a duty to excercise due diligence in the granting of patents?
When they don't show such diligence, surely they can be sued to recover the costs of expensive legal action required to invalidate the patents which they have irresponsibly granted?
Is there a lawyer in the house?
Even tho .Not wants to be copy cat of Java Platform
.Net is still screwed like windoze. M$ is touting that .Not can run in any OS I doubt that strongly.
.Not is the other name for monopoly and branding stay away from it.
it is way inferior to Java's security model and memory model.
Threading in
M$
It would be platform independent if M$ allows people like the Mono project to develop the necessary foundation to do so. My fear is that M$ will squash it.
.NETs patient is not valid because something else similar existed prior to it like Java or Linux? And has a patient for any of these already been submitted?
On another note....What in the world is all this talk about Linux and Java have to do with this thread? Is the intent to prove that the
Can we bring it back to what the article is about...
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
43 claims written by lawyers in such a general manner that a team of MS Lizards could argue in court that the patent covers almost any activity or device on the planet, if not all of them.
Do you have the cash to fight the MS Lizards?
Can you count on the US Judical System for justice?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
No offense intended, but this is a naive stance.
What's really naive is thinking that any but the smallest percentage of patent applications get through the PTO without claims being narrowed.
Look, the bottom line, and the one that most people seem to ignore, is that Microsoft has been doing this crap for a long time. They're not going to suddenly "oops" and open the door to alternate platforms. The cornerstone of their market share is the fact that Windows is ubiquitous. Above ALL ELSE, they must defend that position viciously.
.NET to become a portable, cross-platform, non-MS-specific platform for network and desktop applications is absolutely absurd. If it's wide open now, it's to draw in flies with honey-sweet nectar. Once the flies are stuck, the jaws will snap shut, and Microsoft will have captured them all.
.NET environments on competing operating systems, simultaneously validating the platform as true and viable and addicting everyone from programmers to CXOs to the nectar within.
.NET environment, but the costs may be more than the benefits if all they succeed in doing is giving Microsoft a leg up.
The idea that they would in any way allow
In this way, not only would Microsoft have captured a significant share of the network application market, but they will have done so on the backs of open-source developers who unwittingly implemented
Microsoft would not and will not allow a platform of their design and control to be used against them so easily. They didn't become the richest software company in the world by making business mistakes. To think differently is ludicrous.
I applaud the effort of developers working earnestly to provide a free
Yeah, like attacking another country first. Just to be sure.
Obviously, the whole .NET project has been a sham. Fascinating cross-platform technology designed for a single purpose: get Miguel Icaza distracted and working on something (Mono) that ultimately will fail to possibly cause harm to Microsoft.
Who knows, perhaps they already have some "just sign here with your blood, and you won't see your child die a violent death being torn to shreds by our anticipative gleeful lawyers" offer prepared that will take him from their radars completely.
After a quick read, trying to figure how this will significantly differ from the SAP and SAP/WebMethods stuff I have been doing for a year. When it eventuates, that is.
Stopping myself...Abort (core dumped)
Call me a troll or whatever, but after reading through many posts, I think a lot you need to go back and RTFA! Microsoft is planning on patenting THEIR implementation of .NET. MONO is a separate implementation of .NET. They are not trying to patent MONO or any other implementation except their own. Microsoft has written that CLRs for Windows - this what they are patenting. MONO is writing CLRs for Linux/Unix. So there is really nothing to see here. Microsoft has already submitted .NET to the ECMA as an open standard - all they are trying to protect is their implementation on Windows. All that will come out of this is that they will get to control their implementation and MONO will be unaffected by the patent. There is really nothing to see here.
Mod me however you want
My advice is and remains: forget about Java: Sun apparently can't handle the technical stewardship, and they have demonstrated their intent to keep it proprietary. If you want a Java-like language, with Java-like simplicity (and as simplistic, too), consider using ECMA C# (not .NET), but remain wary of Microsoft's legal and business strategy for .NET and be aware that C#/CLR has lots of technical limitations, too.
Your best bet is to pick something different, IMO. There are plenty of excellent languages out there. For rapid applications development, consider Python, Lua, Ruby, Smalltalk, or Perl. If you need speed, C++ is a mature and open language now. Eiffel is no more flawed than Java and has open source implementations. And if you want a language for the 21st century, consider OCAML.
Another way of thinking about this is that Java lets you think about the important parts of your software rather than reinventing the wheel to do I/O and memory management.
I prefer delineate myself.
==
that it's their problem. They're just jealous of me. It's my right to ascertain things. You should talk to them about their being upset about my...ascertaination.
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
the more starsystems will slip through your fingers.
Litigious bastards
http://www.hektik.org/various/various/goatse/pages /goatse_04.htm
Maybe I'm paranoid, but consider these in constellation:
.Net patents. It may be able to lock down functionality which Linux-hosted Apache, SSL, Perl, J2EE, JBoss, PHP, Mono, etc., are delivering without patents or price.
.Net to corporations.
Microsoft applies for
Microsoft evades legal requirement to provide a current Java version in 1Q 2003. Another quarter free of Java, another to push
SCO patents loom to threaten Linux at the heart of it's unix-like functionality. Making SCO a commercial viral licence? At with no more direct SCO stock holdings, Mr. Gates has the appearance of having some distance from this whole course of action.
Military efforts to minimize utilization of WiFi frequencies and transmission power. Don't want to make free access too easy.
ISPs forced to honor DCMA and IP related challenges on hosting software and tools, turning over individual records, perhaps being forced to allow political spam, perhaps 'commercial free speech' as well with the arrival of commerce-friendly federal spam laws.
The inner and outer IP nooses have been thrown, the attacks affect software outside and inside the lines defined by GPL, as was threatened in earlier Halloween documents.
More loss of personal liberty and rights threatened as Patriot II bill surfaces. Will GPL software be classified as a tool of terrorists and illegitimate software users?
The Free Software and Open Source communities both need to lobby now, hard, fast, and furious to preserve a legal environment in which these communities can legally continue to exist and flourish within US borders, and all those countries eager to adopt US-like laws. Or we'll find free and open software classified like illegal munitions, illegal drugs, and associated with illegal child porn, illegal democrats (well, they're still working on making that illegal), and evil illegal hackers (done).
What exactly does a software patent cover? Patterns of design? The Code in verbatim? The abstract model? All of it?
I think:
.NET = Intel
.NETs?
.NETs are not 100% compatible. I think this would be the natural defense that they are planning, if necessary.
.NET, once established, who (company) would risk a 95% compatible .NET (OS) platform.
1. Real Target of
(in long term)
Reasoning:
(a) currently all elements of PCs except Intel + MS elements = commodities
(b) If CPU becomes a commodity also, MS charge more for their unique component and/or more PC prices fall (which means more PC sales, and therefore more MS sales)
(c) How to achieve CPU independence? A virtual machine.
2. Real Target of Patent = Defense for coming battles (fits with MS patent strategy in the past and perhaps Gates learned lessons from OS/2 divorce when patents were used against MS by IBM to leverage better negotiating position for Windows components of OS/2 royalties).
3. Real Target of Standards = Get corporate developers to write in proprietary languages/platform.
At the time you write the code - it's a standard - therefore safer
However, later you find will it's a standard of just one implementation - see next point.
4. Open source
I do not think MS would need to crush them legally (atleast I think that they wouldn't be thinking on these lines currently). Instead they can always add new APIs, move the goal posts, build in compatibilities, etc. to ensure OS
The reasoning: When did you last buy a 95% PC compatible? Nobody does... Same thing with
Not so. Once you've released code under a given license, you can't undo it. Release your code under BSD and it is BSD-ed forever (though not your future changes obviously).
Like clustering, calling api from different languages (VMS has always done this one), plus a number of other VMSisms. Well DEC won't mind M$ patenting their tech.
MS has spent a lot of time pushing a concept that no one is really using yet. If it does become a standard model, they deserve their patent. Ijust hope the patent office and the courts are capable of understanding what the patent is really about. That is, distrbuted applications based upon published web services using the .NET Framework. Unfortunately, the patent office and the courts do not have a good track record here. The danger is that the court system will interpret the patent too broadly once it gets issued. It would probably be better if software patents were not permitted at all. Copywrite should be good enough.
Here here!!
Where? Oh, perhaps you meant "hear hear!" as in "hear what he's saying".
Of course, I'm off-topic, and you're redundant, but at least I'm not shouting with a karma bonus.
Heard this one before?
.NET replaces crappy ActiveX/Win32/whatever
Win32 replaces crappy Win16
VB replaces crappy GW Basic
OLE replaces crappy DDE
COM replaces crappy OLE
CLX objs replace crappy VBX's
DCOM replaces crappy COM
ActiveX replaces crappy DCOM
M$ marketing crap replaces common sense!
The application being discussed here is a "stealth application" in that it does not indicate Microsoft as the assignee although Microsoft is, unquestionably, the assignee. In this case, the failure of Microsoft to be identified as an assignee may be considered a failure to meet their duty as a monopolist to give competitors "access to their facilities." For more info, see comment #7 in the discussion of "stealth patents" at PubSub.org.
.NET style afford the only reasonable mechanisms for working with their products. Thus, any patent that blocks others from developing similar, but different and competitive architectures, effectively blocks competitors from being able to build systems that work with Windows and thus blocks them from working with most computers. The result will be a loss of competition in an already monopolized market. In this case, what might otherwise be a "non-fundamental" patent becomes fundamental.
It should also be noted that analytically, the combination of an existing monopoly with the monopoly granted by a patent raises the same questions as the merger of two companies. In a case where the monopoly granted by the patent is for something not fundamental to a market, then one can permit the "merger." However, when the monopoly granted by the patent is fundamental and blocks an entire realm of competitive activity, the "merger" should not be permitted. In this case, Microsoft is clear in its intent to ensure that architectures of the
Even though a patent which issues from this application would appear on its face to only grant the right to exclude from some limited technical domain, when combined with the effects of Microsoft's existing market power, the effect of such a patent would go beyond the limited technical scope and extend so that it is coextensive with the entire economic product market.
WetCat wrote:
>Assume we found some "Smoldering guns". To whom shall we show the evidence?
You show it to the USPTO by doing a "Third Party Submission of Prior Art" using USPTO procedures prior to 60 days after the application was published (i.e. 60 days after 6-Feb-2003). After that time, you have to serve papers on the inventor, lawyers, assignees, etc. to inform them of the prior art and thus force them to perform their "Duty of Candor" and submit the prior art for you to the USPTO.
bob wyman
Having a CLR, CLS, and class library usable from any language is a really good idea. I'm sick of retaining all of non-overlapping bits of X11, Motif, Qt, MFC, Java, COM, ATL, etc. information in my head or on my shelf - any technology that stands a chance of reducing this pointless complexity in the industry deserves a shot. I strongly recommend trying out the technology before dismissing it. Reviews abound. Oh yeah, you can keep that thousand bucks in your pocket and download the SDK for free here.
Demonizing all of the MS product line because of some ethically questionable business practices by MS marketing is excessive. You do realize that many of their employees are some of the best talent available in their fields (Borland, SGI, etc.), and many didn't even have to be drugged. The company is answering for some of it's transgressions, and I have confidence that the DOJ will keep MS in check.
The plain fact is that MS is developing some very good products. The Dev Studio .NET IDE is one of the best I've worked with (and I've been coding for 15+ years). What's more, the .NET framework is a well-engineered, ECMA standardized, and significant advancement to the world of software interoperability. Undoubtedly, this conclusion is what inspired the Mono and DotGNU projects, and vendors like Borland to make Delphi .NET-aware.
I'd love to see some threads discussing the merits/drawbacks of .NET vs. Open source tools in terms of time and expense to develop projects, and a critique of the final products.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. -- James Klass