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Microsoft Plans IE Changes Due to Plugin Patent
aWalrus writes "Microsoft has outlined some of the strategies they may pursue for modifying the way Internet Explorer handles plugins (annoying the user may circumvent the patent) if they lose their legal battle against Eolas Technologies (which claims they invented the seamless procedure for running plugins). There has already been a previous ruling against MS which they continue to appeal. This is likely to have repercussions in the Open Source Community too. If MS is found to be infringing the patent, that ruling could be extended to other browsers like Opera and Mozilla. Usability expert Jeffrey Zeldman provides an in-depth commentary on this issue and its implications."
correct me if i'm wrong, but opera isn't open source. The phrasing of that posting sure implied that it was.
we hate MS, go Eolas!!!
we hate patents, go MS!!!
umm... *pop*
At first when I heard this, I wasn't too disappointed. That's what they get for stealing technology. But no Flash in IE? That affects...well...*does some mental math...carry the 1...*a lot of websites that I enjoy. If you can't seamlessly play Flash media in IE (or Mozilla or Opera, eventually), well that sucks. Who the hell are these Eolas guys and are they intentionally trying to send the Web's progress back about six years? For once, I think Microsoft has been wronged, mostly due to the implication that this will affect ALL web browsers.
Perhaps even MS will learn the evils of SW patents, and call for an end to Software patents. Perhaps Slashdot will go 24hrs with SCO story also.
Why not pay the $521 mil and keep the browser going? If MS can pay it and the competitors cannot then they will become the platform of choice due to functionality.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
The interesting thing about patents (and copyrights) is that you can enforce them selectively. Unlike trademarks, you can sue whoever you want whenever you want. Look at how Unisys didn't even mention their GIF patent until two years before it expired.
So, anyone with $700 to blow might could think up some random tech just to prevent Microsoft from using it, if they wanted too. If Eolas doesn't need to go after mozilla or any other browser if they don't want to.
(I'm also mentioning this because I keep seeing people post who believe you have to 'actively' enforce copyright and patent rights or lose them, and this annoys me.)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
There hasn't been one of these since, like, '99?!
WHOA!
Why is MS acting like it's going to lose this lawsuit. It has never done that before. All the times it's been sued (too many to count at this point) it has always put up a public face of invincibilty and constant press releases about how the suit is groundless and how it is positive it's going to win.
Maybe this suit is so strong they know they are going to lose or maybe they want to lose so they have an excuse to make IE even more closed then it already is.
Maybe they will just abandon standards altogether with the next version of IE and blame it on the lawsuit.
We may be about to witness a complete bifurcation of the internet soon.
War is necrophilia.
While schadenfreude against Microsoft is slightly less fun than that against SCO right now, let's remember that this is the kind of stuff that stops innovation. No matter who is suing who for whatever perceived infringement du jour, this abuse is going to fsck all of us over.
This sig no verb.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't plugin installations in Mozilla (and opera? no xp) not seamless? I thought this lawsuit applied only to seamless plugin installers that can isntall the plugin without asking for input. In my experience, mozilla always pops up a dialog box asking if you want to install it. That only makes sense, security-wise anyway.
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
This is a perfect example of why software patents are bad. While I enjoy watching MS wiggle at the end of a hook just like everyone else here, this will definatly effect the Open Source community. A lot of the web's best features revolve around plugins in the web browser. A company like MS might be able to pay the little company enough money to let them keep doing business as usual, but how could the Mozilla team, or the Opera team? They could be forced to "downgrade" their programs, thus being less useful/relavent than IE. And if MS can't/won't pay them off, then everyone will suffer from the loss of plugins in web browsers. This is something that doesn't just affect the geek community. It will cause huge ripples through the corporate world and in the home user markets. All because people can get patents on software. I'm moving to Europe (if things go well over there that is).
Space for rent, inquire within
What about this article in Cringely's pulpit?
0 7. html
,
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit200211
"It would sure be nice for someone to actually consider all of this
from our point of view, rather than MS's," wrote Doyle in a recent
message to me. "It amazes me that everyone just assumes that MS will be
able to merely write a check and make the whole thing go away. What if
someone went through the following, purely theoretical, of course
logical analysis?"
"Is there any practical settlement amount that is worth more to Eolas than a
victory at trial? Considering the facts in the case and the magnitude of the
stakes here, a highly likely outcome is that it will actually go to trial,
and, once it does, that a jury will award us both damages and an injunction.
Injunction is the key word here. That is what patent rights provide: the
power to exclude. What if we were to just say no? Or, what if some other big
player were to acquire or merge with us? What if only one best-of-breed
browser could run embedded plug-ins, applets, ActiveX controls, or anything
like them, and it wasn't IE? How competitive would the other browsers be
without those capabilities? How would that change the current dynamics in
the Industry?"
Sounds like Doyle is not a Microsoft fan...
æeee!
If this goes through, I could lose my job.
The company I work for has flash and windows media all over the place, and sells a content management system, one of the key features of which is the management of these types of media.
I don't think the company would survive such a change in this environment.
Damn the USA.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
And since it isn't a proprietary standard, they don't need to latch it on through a plugin.
Everybody should take a look at SVG, it's really nice, and Mozilla already got some (basic) support.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Firstly, I don't want "fundamental" browser technologies patented.
Secondly, this is apparently applets too, not just plug ins. Seems to say that embedding that JAR file puts you on the wrong side of da law.
Does their patent only cover "on the web"? Do plugins in winamp or the like meet the criteria too?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Another reason why software patents are a stupid idea. Running plugins transparently is obvious to anybody working on something like a browser. You've got a file, you've got its filetype, and you've got a registered list of plugins and the filetypes they support. What the fuck else would you do?!!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
As far as Flash is concerned I had take it off my computer. I just wasted too much time watching advertisements. If I had more control over what flash did on my machine, like I have with images, quicktime movies, and PDF, I would be more than happy reinstall and use the content. I think Flash is a good product. I just think it disrespects the computer user.
I believe that solutions exists that will not only render the patent meaningless but will also make the web a safer more pleasant place for the general users. I believe it can be smilier to giving the users to stop popups, which sometime lead to inappropriate content or sequences of windows that took over the computer.
Which is why MS is having such a problem with it. IE is a framework that, in part, allows content to pushed onto users whether they like it or not. It would be very hard to keep that functionality without technologies included in the patent. In other browsers, in which the user is respected with functionality that allows a more customized web experience, removal of the seamless technology will only be a nuisances.
Which is why we need to take all MS statements with a large grain of salt. They have quite a bit to lose if the push philosophy is destroyed. They are not the only ones. Will the advertising houses use flash it users have a choice of it's viewing, or will the just use Quicktime. Will MS web products lose importance if IE does have the ability to force content? I think not.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
someone who discovers a way to get to "5" by adding 1+4, or subtracting 4 from 7 should not be found to be infringing on my patent
7-4=5?
That's new, and non-obvious, but is it useful?
listed here.
Who would have thought the organization behind BSD would screw software developers the world over in this fashion?
Bill Joy is rolling in his grave now.
The images accompanying the patent text are TIFF files. My browser informs me that I need a plugin in order to view them.
In order to read the patent, I must violate it.
I hate MS: Go Eolas!
I hate patents: Go MS!
I hate flash: Go Eolas!
Agreed. Flash has its uses, but I hate it when I stumble into a site some fucktard thought would be cool to do 100% in Flash. After gritting my teeth over -click not working to open a link in a new window and the right-click context menu not being available, I invariably hit or - out of habit to navigate back one link and end up backing out of the whole damn site, forcing me to thread my way back in to whatever buried page I was reading. Rule #1 of web design should be don't fuck with higher-level UI elements, and Flash fails miserably in that regard.
Now, don't get me wrong; I don't think there's anything wrong with a browser downloading Flash, or data in any other format.
What I find really annoying is that current browsers insist that they are going to handle a list of file formats themselves, in their own window, and you can't do anything about it.
If they were forced to give me the option of saying to handle MIME type foo/bar in a separate app, that would be a huge improvement.
For example, on my cute new Powerbook, I've found that I can't feed things like Flash or XML to an independent app. The browsers (IE, mozilla, Safari) insist that they will handle those themselves, with their standard plugin. It doesn't matter whether I have an app of my own to handle them; my attempts to add the handler to the list are rebuffed.
The XML case is especially annoying. I'me testing some XML apps, and I'd really like to use some of them as plugins. I've asked a couple of times in the usual mozilla fora, and the answer seems to be "Tough luck; we're smarter than you, and we know how to handle XML, so we won't let you do it." Right. Their XML handler chokes on the slightest syntax error, fails to show any of the text, and thus gives a big middle finger to any poor schmuck trying to debug his XML generator.
Similarly, when I download MP3s or MIDI files to mozilla on my Powerbook, it insists on feeding them to the embedded Quicktime, and ignores my attempts to use a separate handler. The Quicktime plugin has only a dumb slider for backspacing, plus start/stop buttons. You can't do anything with the data at all. Again, I asked in a couple of newsgroups, and was told in no uncertain terms that I'm too stupid to know how to do such things, and I should just leave it to my betters.
It's interesting that on my linux box, MP3 and MIDI can be handed off by mozilla to a separate app. This lets me do lots of interesting stuff with those formats. But with mozilla on my Powerbook, the same thing doesn't work.
If "seamless" plugins are eliminated, maybe we can get browsers that are friendly to not-so-dumb users. It would be really useful (especially for XML and MIDI) if we could point to a separate app to handle all files of any specific type.
Actually, I suspect that the ability to do this might be buried in the current browsers. But it doesn't do me much good if I can't learn how to use it. And note that, with mozilla, Preferences -> Navigator -> Helper Applications doesn't allow one to override the builtin handling of some types (such as XML). Some types are handled by builtin plugins, and if they don't do what you need, tough.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Call me an optimist, but I have a strong feel in my right gut that Eolas will provide dual licensure for the patent, similar to Trolltech and Qt, where free software (BSD, GPL, Artistic license) gains free use and closed-source has to pay a "reasonable" fee.
Reason I think this is that (a) legally, it's a pain in the colon for lawyers to sue open sourcers; (b) it's horrible PR, just look at that company in Utah. Then again, lawyers tend to not give a flaming f--- about reasonable measures.
And to be clear, I hope to high heaven that they get as much of the $5 x 10^8 they can, because UC could _really_ use that cash to defray what the state's screwing them out of.
just don't mod me down, please.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
Most universities and large business sift through the fruits of their employees' work and look for intellectual property that can be patented and possibly licensed or traded like any other property of real value. It helps them cover their investment (capitalism, and all that stuff). Heck, I found out a couple of months ago that I am the holder of two patents that had been filed by an old, old employer. You can be a patent holder and not even know it. Most of us sign something when hired by a company assigning the company exclusive license to intellectual property developed there in the course of one's work.
Having actually done some research on this Eolas patent and how it relates to the Microsoft judgement, I found out some interesting stuff that should be considered before we all condemn this in a knee-jerk response to the infringement this places on our freedom to develop software.
A few guys were working at the University of California and developed a plugin technology with the old NSCA Mosaic browser that allowed a server to ship executable content down the line along with the HTML and then have the browser do things it couldn't do before. Routinely, a patent application was filed by their employer on this work. The guys who did the work thought that this was neat technology and worked a deal with the University that they could try to maybe get this technology out into the wider world, and so, as there was a patent filed on it already, they worked an exclusive licensing agreement with the University.
So these guys form a company and start making calls on the big players in the Internet technology world at the time. They visit Microsoft, demonstrate this plug-in technology and the cool things that it would allow a browser to do, and received a big yawn and sent on their way with a "don't call us, we'll call you" sort of brush-off. They call on a number of other Silicon Valley companies, but these guys aren't businessmen, they're academics. They don't know how the commercial IP game is played. The end result is a lot of people in a lot of companies was this technology and took a pass on licensing it into their own products (which most probably would have been very, very cheap to do back then).
Time passes. These same companies start enhancing browsers with their own plug-in technologies for executable content. No action is taken initially by these guys. Finally, Microsoft starts to dominate Netscape. Attempts are made to reopen discussions by these guys and are rebuffed. These guys start involving lawyers to try to get Microsoft's attention. These attempts are rebuffed too. Finally, they file suit against Microsoft for patent infringement. Many years pass as Microsoft makes motion after motion in hearing after hearing to have the suit dismissed and each time, fails. But they achieve one of their goals which is to delay the proceedings significantly. Meanwhile, the Internet bubble comes and goes. There are many products that now do this plug-in sort of thing. The idea becomes obvious because everyone sees it going on around them in other products. Finally, the patent infringment suit against Microsoft goes to trial. After many weeks of trial in which mountains of evidence are presented by Microsoft, twelve regular joes on the jury aren't convinced that there was (1) prior art or prior effort on Microsoft's part, (2) lack of knowledge by Microsoft about the invention or patent (2) or an invalid patent granted to the University of California.
The Federal jury trial found for Eolas and against Microsoft on all counts. Apparently the evidence was so strong that jury deliberations took just one day. You can say what you want about jury trials, but having seen what judges have done, or not done, when the decision is theirs alone [when Microsoft was found gui
Everyone seems to not be noticing that this action will probably play to microsofts interests. Of course MS would rather not pay 0.5 Billion dollars in penaties but now that they are they can tunr this to their advantage. here's how.
.NET the killer app. MS would love to see plug-ins die, especiall y if they die for other browsers too. What's left to step in its place then? basically two things, .NET and a chaos of non-standard solutions.
.NET is part of our OS and the browser had to be integrated there's no other solutions due the breadth of the EOLAS patent.
.NET and other fee based licesced extensions for MS.
1) it makes
2) MS would love to be able to go to the judge and say, look we had to integrate the broswer into the OS. there was no other way since it lost all its stand-alon functionality.
3) MS can appeal and maybe ret the 0.5 billion penalty reduced. and they can string along the usefulness of IE till 2005 when longhorn emerges. then pfft. MS will say EOLAS was totally right and has a solid case against us and all the other browsers. And here's our payment in full so you can fund your legal effort.
4) Maybe MS will invest another 0.5 billion and buy the IP from EOLAS. its will have been tested in court and they could shutdown all the other browsers that didn't use
we're hosed.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.