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Can Recent MS Patents Affect Mono and DotGNU?
5p1urge asks: "I really love the Mono and DotGNU projects. As someone who's worked in Java for for over 5 years, I welcome C# and it's buddies to the OpenSource world. However, here's question: as far as I can tell, only the C# spec and System.* assemblies were submitted to ECMA and therefore made officially public. What happens when MS decides that, Linux -is- going to steal valuable income-generating business, and therefore it should use it's newly acquired patents to sue? I'd appreciate comments from IT lawyers / solicitors and individuals with experience in this area, as well as from the wider community. I'm asking this question because I want to code in mono / DotGnu but I'm cautious because I wonder if MS can take it away from us?"
Software patents will soon see their death.
It's only a matter of time before the processing of such irrational IP-related legal claims becomes impossible.
Which, of course, doesn't matter anyway because companies like Microsoft have made stealing ideas so profitable that they should have a patent on it.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
but I sure as hell wouldn't be giving them ideas.
>
You should have given an answer to that before you started Mono. At the end, you and your mates decided to support MS in order to let Linux have a cut of the glory.
No. Those patents will not affect Mono and DotGNU, and IAAL.
Next question.
i smell something SCO-ish brewing here...
well, it's nothing one behind the ear wouldn't cure
Why do people feel that Slashdot is an appropriate forum to ask legal questions? Half the posts on this thread are going to berate the poster and ask him to go hire a lawyer. The other half will give their two cents but claim "IANAL".
And, of course, to fall in both categories, I have to say IANAL
Ballmer, Allchin and others have made it clear many times that they are using these patents to pursue the strategy against open source software outlined in the halloween papers. Patents are a not new way for software makers to gain control over other people's intellectual property. And not a common one at all. There are not many software makers which have engaged in an extensive patenting strategy like Microsoft. Most of the extensive patenters are large hardware makers. Microsoft was the only software maker at the 1994 USPTO hearings that advocated software patents.
There is no god
I'm asking this question because I want to code in mono / DotGnu but I'm cautious because I wonder if MS can take it away from us?"
Yes, MS can take it away from you, but you know this already. Why not just code in
inux -is- going to steal valuable income-generating business, and therefore it should use it's newly acquired patents to sue? Are they going to use their patents? Yes. Thats why the got them. If they wanted everyone to use .NET, they wouldnt have patented it.
I welcome C# and it's buddies to the OpenSource world.
looked suspiciously like "I for one welcome our new C# overlords." the first and second times I read it.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
"I'm asking this question because I want to code in mono / DotGnu but I'm cautious because I wonder if MS can take it away from us?"
Yes.
"As someone who's worked in Java for for over 5 years, I welcome C# and it's buddies to the OpenSource world."
:)
That means that you never learned to develop Java applications?
Be prepared to get you job outsourced to Bangladesh
Microsoft has never made money on its development tools and I don't think they're betting they will now so there would be little reason to pull the leash on C# development tools and the language itself. C#'s purpose is to sell Windows Server 2003 and the other .NET servers as well. If you use Linux to write C# for a Windows server, that's a happy day for M$. Now, running .aspx pages on a non-Windows-based server on the other hand . . .
--- Don't be a player hater: I meta-mod ALL negative mods as Unfair.
I'm waiting for Parrot to mature. It's a register-oriented bytecode interpreter, designed for Perl 6, but with other languages in the wings. When it gets Perl's libraries, Ruby's syntax, real threads, and great speed, I think it will do well.
Litigious bastards
I would suggest to you that perhaps you should concentrate your efforts on freely available programming languages and protocols instead. Python is steadily gaining ground as an embedded scripting solution and more and more sites are turning to Perl so this will boost your employability.
As far as microsoft goes: man who sleeps with gates wakes up as goatse.
Don't do it.
.NET is halfopen, a great bit of .NET software won't run on linux anyways, which reduces the weight of one of the arguments for Mono significantly.
.NET might even be an interesting technology, community based (partial) support will only benefit Microsoft. It will add additional Software for Windows but probably only few Applications will arrive for Linux, since producing applications with a small subset of the API will be more work. Considering that a commercial QT license is not that expensive for businesses developing software compared to the labour cost, and the very few applications using this powerfull toolkit for easy multiplatform development, I really can't see many companies limiting themselves to the subset of .NET to create applications that also run on Linux.
I don't like the development of Mono and DotGnu anyways. Think about it. Gnome started in part because some people didn't like the QT license. A "problem" that is now resolved with QT being GPL licensed and a contract that will put it under a BSD-style license once Trolltech decides to stop working on it or is going out of business.
Mono on the other hand reproduces MS technology that MS apperantly doesn't want to be open despite it's (marketing) efforts to standardize a subset of the Framework. I think developing with/for mono is counterproductive since it allows possibly great Opensource software to be used with Windows, taking away another reason for people to switch or even consider a switch. Because only a subset of
While
So in the end it should be clear, don't support Mono by developing applications for/with it.
Fixed your post...unless you seriously think that you can have all four together. And if you do, I want some of what you're smoking!
Glad I'm not the only one!
Could be wrong, but I think Microsoft actually "sees the light" in some respects, especially when it comes to a development platform. It makes sense- it builds a larger base of developers using .NET. Maybe not to the degree /.ers would want, but judging by the amount of open-source sites and projects that have a Microsoft affiliation, I think they're moving more that way.
.NET. Other libraries build on that functionality (such as Microsoft Application Blocks), but the entire core functionality is in System.*
As for "just System.*" being an open standard, it's important to realize that comprises all of
maybe linux has *already* stolen "income-generating-business" and hence the recent focus on it by Microsoft?
I honestly don't think the specific language/implementation (Java vs C#) has much to do with it. Nor, for that matter, does the business integration concept of dot-net or mono.
What has *everything* to do with it (just IMHO) is whether a business process/procedure should be patentable in the first place, let alone specific implementations.
Just a qualifier here; I don't do that stuff, I guess I'm "the wider community". However, I'm not all that concerned if an organization could "take it away from us"; if they do so, they'll do it without the insight of the original founders even giving a crap if their organization lives or dies.
C|N>K
Another thought. Suppose they did `take it away'. What good will that do them? How many languages are there which duplicate or mimic large portions of basic C syntax and structures? It seems to me that all the Mono folks would need to do is declare that they were developing a new language using syntax similar to C#.
They could call it `D-flat'. :-)
philcrissman.com.
*and of course, the the USPTO, "novel" means "anything a 18-month old baby couldn't have authored."
...you get burnt. Sooner of later M$ are gonna turn up the heat - guaranteed
Too bad the people at PARC did't patent the idea of a graphic windowing operating system. Where do you think Jobs and Gates got the idea? You very well could be buying your OS from Xerox.
If you're waiting for Parrot to be finished then you'll be waiting for quite a while then. It's been over two years and they have yet to produce anything remotely useful to any non-Parrot developer. The goal of supporting Perl6 is just a dream at this point because Perl6 has yet to specified. I've never seen a virtual machine as needlessly complicated and convoluted as Parrot's VM. Parrot has become some sort of bizarre quest to some destination only the developers know. I can't think of another language that has had as much publicity, time, developers and funding as Parrot and still have nothing substantial to show for it.
Too bad the people at PARC did't patent the idea of a graphic windowing operating system.
They did. They waited too long to enforce the patents. Xerox totally bungled their chance to become Microsoft.
What on earth is so great about .NET and or Mono. I see absolutely nothing about it that would make me desire to code with it.
Is it faster? No
Is Development Faster ? No
Is it cross platform ? No
Does it do things that other languages cannot? No
Is it Encumbered By Patents? Yes
Sure makes me want to use it....
Got Code?
I can't patent "A Device that Catches Small Animals", but I can patent "An Improved Device for Capturing Small Animals by Use of Magical Cheese" in the hardware world. In the software world, I can go so far as to patent "Magical Cheese" without the recipe for said cheese or an investigation into my magical bacteria.
We don't need to do completely away with software patents any more than we need to do away with all patents. We need to make both reasonable.
By reasonable, I mean non-profit groups should be exempt, patents should last 2-5 years depending upon the technology involved, and nothing that significantly advances a previous technology should fall under that technology's patent.
Patents should spawn innovation in exchange for the disclosure of the underlying technology. They shouldn't hold innovation hostage for decades to come.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Until .NET is installed on enough desktops, it is going to be difficult to justify developing distributeable applications with it.
The referenced article is old (11 Feb 2003), and refers to the patent *application*, not the patent itself. An application is not a patent - just the "inventors" hope that it will be one.
Unless someone can produce an actual granted patent number for this, then it's still "nothing to see, move along" for the time being.
-- Rhys Weatherley, author of DotGNU Portable.NET.
No, the courts have become very tolerant of patents with vague claims. A recent (upheld!) example is the patent on a credit-card-sized PDA, which was upheld as applying to a non-credit-card-sized PDA even though the patent didn't even describe how the small size was to be achieved.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The article appears to confuse an issued patent with a published patent applications, citing to one of the latter, recently published application 20030028685.
.mono plan for managing the inevitable patents, the plan so excoriated in the register article, is perfectly responsible and while risk is ever-present in developing interoperable code, perfectly workable. The fact of 18-month publication facilitates and permits actually permits present projects to begin early on its search for prior art.
The conditions necessary to obtain a published patent application are these: (1) file one and pay a filing fee, including the proper formal documents (like an inventor's declaration; and (2) wait 18 months. An application creates no presently enforceable rights, and none will accrue until the patent actually issues.
Indeed, by beginning with the wildly broad claims (and they are pretty astonishing, I'll admit), any narrowing amendments entered during prosecution are likely to give rise to a much more limited patent.
Let's not get hysterical before there is something to get hysterical about. The
Fears regarding the quoted paragraph [0101] are misguided. It is routine boilerplate and primarily precatory, of virtually no importance concerning the meaning of the claims.
I am told that some of these new decaffinated brands are just as tasty as the regular stuff. Let's not go nuts, at least not before there is a reason to go nuts.
Um, a lot of companies in Austin have it on their "skill required" list, and the Austin outlook for paying jobs right now is close to zip-point-squat. That's a good reason.
Perhaps it's the only reason. But it's still a reason.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
no text
having never played with C!@#$%^&*() or whatever it is, i can't compare it to java. however, you're dealin with the devil. and when you deal with the devil, you're gonna get burned.
<disclaimer> no, billyg and the boyz are not the devil, nor are they evil.</disclaimer>
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Yes, sadly, many programs for non-MS operating systems, like Linux, are blatant clones of that from Microsoft. It's always been a bit ironic, but livable. But cloning .NET--as Mono--is by far one of the dumbest moves ever, and I mean that in a non-trolling way. At its heart, .NET is a way to break free from the aged Win32 API and old fashioned languages like C and C++. This is they key point of .NET, not web services. Now you can use Visual Basic-like forms from any language. Now you can have garbage collection. Now you can have true modules, not the FORTRAN-era separate compilation of C. None of this is new; none of this was invented by Microsoft. But is all so much better than building apps with MFC or raw Win32 calls. Windows programmers are flocking to .NET for this reason.
.NET and C#. So anyone promoting Mono for Linux is putting their effort in entirely the wrong place. This is the one spot in which open source is already far superior, but for some reasons some zealots want to copy the inferfior solution, most likely just to spite Microsoft. What a complete waste of time.
But there are other ways to reach the same end. Python + a UI toolkit is a biggie. It's even more modern than C#, which is hopelessly mired in the 1990s philosophy of very strict object-orientation (Python is much looser in this regard). And it's interpreted, so you can incrementally build and test code, while still having all the same general benefits of
a million miles away, back on Day One when Icaza started talking up Mono?
An eventual attack by Microsoft of some sort, be it fuzzily defined protocols, patents, or something critical they 'forgot' to document was inevitable.
I actually figured that Microsoft would let Mono go on a bit longer before slamming the lid, and would have let the Linux community waste more effort and become more dependent on it.
I had an optimistic hope that perhaps Icaza was clever enough to walk a tightrope and come up with an unassailable implementation for Mono. I didn't see how it could be done, but he's much more programmer than me, and perhaps clever enough.
But what really stinks is that I have this cynical a view of Microsoft and their ethics.
What stinks even worse is that generally believing the worse appears justified.
We'll see what happens with Mono.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Microsoft is evil.
But they have never used software patents offensively. Why should they start now?
P.S. .NET can't be compared to other languages anyway because you can use any language in it. That's one of .NET's features.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Why even bother speculating? It is not for anyone to decide but Microsoft.
.NET platform.
The community should ask Microsoft to issue a direct agreement and public announcement that they will not pursue patent attacks against Mono and DotGnu for any part of the
If they won't do it, then the projects aren't safe and people have enough information to know to avoid them. Even if the lawsuits don't have merit, who wants to spend time in court that they could be spending on something more constructure (Like Parrot or OSS Java later this year if Sun follows through on its promise)
Until they clarify their position (and theirs is the ONLY one that matters), I would just assume they are doomed.
Well, wait until Longhorn comes out, which will be using .NET for its interface, and Win32 will be replaced by it. Longhorn will be the big .NET push. The whole Windows system will be based on it (and by then people will be clamoring for a Windows upgrade, not to mention all the incredible features Longhorn is already boasting, so I imagine it will be a big seller).
"Sufferin' succotash."
As someone who's worked in Java for for over 5 years, I welcome C# and it's buddies to the OpenSource world.
:)
.NET platform, and I don't see it's justifiable to implement .NET on Linux than Windows. You're right that MS is holding the balls of Mono and they could do whatever they like with it. So, why take the risk?
:)
I highly recommend you stick to Java.
All our major projects are developed under J2EE and we first use Tomcat as it's free. Later we switched to BEA because it has better performance; years later we changed our deployment to Oracle App servers for Linux because Oracle offered some attractive discounts for their Linux initiatives. We saved huge amount of operational/maintenance budge in switching from UNIX/Windows to Linux.
All of the migrations took us very minimal efforts because all J2EE platforms are pretty much agree on the same standard. Sweet isn't it?
I don't think you've such a freedom in
(Ok Ok, I know SUN is holding the balls of others with that J2EE certification, but you can see their difference.
While they might not be able to use these patents to protect themselves, they definitely have some way to protect their investment in .NET. They have some way to prevent open source implementations of .NET from becoming the de facto standard. They have some way of preventing threatening uses of .NET in open source software. They stand to loose too much of their investment in .NET.
If it is based outside of the US, can software patents still effect them?
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
I'd appreciate comments from IT lawyers / solicitors and individuals with experience in this area, as well as from the wider community.
In other words...
They're seeking comments from absolutely everyone.
---
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. -- AE
The Register article is pointing at a patent APPLICATION. Despite their comment, "But an umbrella claim that protects its .NET APIs, granted last week, highlights the extent of its determination to protect its interfaces," I don't see any patent granted last week.
.NET API is even patentable. Certainly claim 1, as written, is not patentable: "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 are a zillion systems out there that match the terms of this claim precisely. So it is hardly novel.
It remains to be seen whether the
In fact the whole patent application is written so poorly that I can't see it being granted in anything like its present form. Maybe there is a way of patenting an API but this ain't it.
Since every post here seems to thinks doomsday is unavoidable when using MS ideas on other platforms, may I remind everyone that you don't have to follow them to the letter!.
I mean, they opened up the basics that open up the platform, but does Linux/anything else really need WindowsForms/ASPX/ADO.NET/Whatever else that's not covered?
Imitation is nice, but I'm assuming that there are other ideas that can be explored and potentially take a twist for the better?... really, The beauty of the whole thing is if you write your own stuff that isn't legally ambiguous then you control where it can go so instead of a windows focused WindowForms you can have a Windowing library that is more generic and say works across several platforms and perhaps even windows... So, instead of ASPX you could hook up an "enhanced" PHP, use another dataset API instead of ADO and write a better windowing api, and that way your on stable legal terms instead of taking risks on ambiguity.
Mono's approach is somewhat on the right direction, they're basically copying down to the letter (with some creative license) and if a legal issue appears they'll just change the affected parts.
But that's just my 2 cents.
GNOME distribution with Mono is DANGEROUS!
this is incorrect. The .NET runtime version 1.1 comes with Windows Server 2003.
.NET Runtime version 1 comes with certain packagines of Windows XP (tablet PC, perhaps ? Media Center ?)
.net is seeing admirable deployment on the server side. However, unlike java, it is also seeing some real-world apps on the client as well.
I am probably wrong on this, but i think the
the runtime is getting out there. More and more things will start to require it.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
The .NET CLR does not yet come with any version of Windows
I thought for sure it came with Windows Server 2003. And I'd be honestly surprised if it's not included in the post-SP2 copies of XP.
NO CARRIER
In this day of trading MP3s, and downloading ISOs of your favorite Linux, 25MBs is far too much. (Sarcasm)
In so many of these issues regarding Microsoft Corporation put your fears aside as you are dealing with a company of the highest intellectual and moral fiber. Why would you darken the clear waters of healthy cooperation with trivial concerns over self preservation or fair treatment. Never doubt your continued prosperity, aren't they the most wealthy company in the world? Why would the begrudge you a small fortune when they have so much?
The United States Department of Justice Under the watchful gaze of our Kindler Gentler president will protect you in the event there is some sort of oversight. They won't turn coat at the change of an election and shirk their duty to protect the balance of the American Markets.
As a small business or individual you can put your fears at rest. Don't trouble yourself to read too deeply into what Redmond says.
Software is about organized data after all. Its systems are the expressed will of those who design and promote it. And since it is all about connectivity the largest interests must be the most connected. They must recognize their moral responsibility to bring people together cheaply, reliably and openly. They bear the burden of democracy that communication should not be clandestine but open and meaningful. This must be the honorable road of the greatest hero of the marketplace, the most democratic of companies, a organization that the United States is proud of.
After all the trouble Sun did to Microsoft regarding their own implementation of Java. MS should be less restrictive when others are using their technologies.
I don't know if Microsoft will use its patents to crush the MONO project but it may be an option. That should be enough to give the developers of MONO pause.
There was an anonymous coward who posted claiming to be a lawyer who said that these patents wouldn't effect MONO but he didn't elaborate. I have got to be skeptical.
The bottom line is: It is never a good idea to give Microsoft the option of crushing you. No one really knows what Microsoft will do except whatever it is, it will for sure be in their own best interest.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I'm surprised to not see any IANAL posts up till now.
Get real... a schoolboy could program better than that guy. He's an idiot.
Dan, the author of the Parrot VM, has a bet with Pythong's Guido van Rossum. Dan bet Guido that Parrot can execute pure Python bytecode faster than the Python interpreter can. The battle will be decided at OSCON 2004 in Portland, OR. He sounds pretty confident:
"Boys and girls, let's get this straight. I'm only going to say this once. Parrot is an order of magnitude faster than perl 5 doing equivalent things. Without enabling any extraordinary measures. You know how Python's performance rates against Perl 5. Do the math."
Dan's blog entry about the bet: http://www.sidhe.org/~dan/blog/archives/000139.ht
cpeterso
I meta-mod all positive moderation Unfair, because it's abuse of the system.
This person's publically available patent information is then provided for the public good to facilitate technological innovation in our country.
( Allows others to learn about that technology ).
Totally untrue. Xerox was paid by Apple for the right to use some of their ideas. To see the real story, go here. Here's a quote for you:
Sapere aude!
You'll all be relieved to know that you cannot get mononucleosis from Microsoft patents:
Huh?Mono's an open source software project you say?
Oh, that's a whole different thing then. Nevermind.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
I have been coding in Java for last 7 years and Java platform just rocks. Just with JDK 1.4.1 things looks better than any gui on client side. On server side Java beats .Net hands down.
Largest Java Installs are: EBAY, HomeDepot, Wallmart, Nokia, Sony, AA, SWA, all insurance compannies, UPS, Fedex etc
There free server available like JBOSS, Apache, JoANS
ID: Elipse, Netbeans, JEDIT.
See Waffle Iron's comment for a more amusing rejoinder. But I figured I should put this in for all the people that only read the subjects...
the more I think a mass eruption of the entire chain of volcanoes surrounding Redmond would be less-than-tragic.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Gates has plenty of it and there are folks in high places willing to sell their mothers for it, so don't expect software IP patents to go away anytime soon.
The question Linux coders who want to continue using MONO have to ask themselves is: "Do I have enough money to defend myself against an MS lawsuit?"
If so, then the next question is "Will the 9th Circut court of appeals throw out a win I might have and give the decision to MS?" Or, put another way, "IF Boise and the DOJ can win against MS but get their victory thrown away by "negotiations" in the appeals process, what chance do I have against MS and 6 of 9 Judges who attended a workshop at George Washington University designed to reveal ways to neutralize the US anti-monoply laws?"
Forget
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
So Dan codes up some contrived Parrot assembler benchmark using 32 bit integers and compares it to Perl 5 using scalar values - it's no comparison because it's like apples and oranges. It proves nothing. Once you use PMCs for scalars in Parrot for Perl - all bets are off. All those quick integer ops will now have to be called via a much much slower vtable methods. The speed will then be roughly the same - that's assuming Parrot ever implements Perl or Python, of course.
So, Microsoft submits C#, the CLR, and the System.* assemblies to the ECMA standardizations process. (Far, far more than Sun has EVER done with Java.)
And Slashdot has any reason to complain? Boo fucking hoo that Microsoft didn't submit EVERY LINE OF CODE THEY HAVE EVER WRITTEN to ECMA.
The attitude of the original poster is that of a whiner. Microsoft gives you something for basically free (a decent spec for a decent language/runtime), and you WHINE that they didn't give you more.
Boo fucking hoo. Grow up.
A complete list of Microsoft owned patents that have been the basis for legal action from Microsoft against a third party:
1.
Thankyou for reading.
Tongue in cheek, and I know this needs to be considered as part of risk planning, but as far as I'm aware, there has never been legal action based upon patent infringement from Microsoft - and not from lack of opportunity I suspect. Give some credit where credit is due.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Maybe we can subvert .Net by offering our own .Net implementation. We could attract IT managers by adding the extra eye-candy that they desire over the Microsoft product.
.Net thing would collapse under its own weight.
We could get into a battle with us going tit-for-tat with Microsoft over which implementation had the the most masturbatory features. This would totally distract Microsoft from the real issues and force them to add all kinds of useless cruft to their product. Then eventually the whole
Guess I shouldn't hold my breath.
No sig, sorry.
OK, Windows is Microsoft's flagship OS, and they want to defend their turf. So, lets say developers and their customers pay MS the required tithe. If you play this software game too far, is there any room for little-guy developers of even Windows itself?
When MS started out with DOS and then with Windows, I think they went to great lengths to get "mindshare" of developers: MSDN, Visual Basic for applications programmers, VC++ for heavy-metal programmers, and so on. And then you had all the "third parties." Where would the PC have been without Lotus 123? Where would programming languages on the PC be without Borland? It is said that MS treatment of developers is what sunk OS/2. IBM was charging an arm-and-a-leg for OS/2 development tools at a time when MS was handing tools out at conferences to get developers to forgo OS/2 and develop for Win32.
But a good part of MS was that they fostered 3rd party developers, but when you got big enough they either bought you out or squashed you.
So having good developer relations was important to the growth of Windows and Microsoft, and the fact that there were a lot of people besides Microsoft writing apps for Windows was part of what was so great about Windows, especially since early iterations of Microsoft compilers, spread sheets, and other apps were pretty lame.
But now the development tools all cost an arm and a leg, and with software patents as a club, what size developer will Microsoft tolerate. If you are selling a recipe program written in VB to a handful of friends, you will be off the radar, but at what market size does MS these days decide they want all of that market.
More importantly, if independent software developers are all put out of business through the enforcement of IP, how is MS going to develop new markets through their usual strategy of buying out or squashing out the pioneers. MS has in the past been pretty clumsy in all their attempts at new markets and has depended on acquisition (can you say Anders Hejlsberg? I knew you could!).
Besides choking off small developers, at what point is MS going to shoot themselves in the foot?
I think the JBuilder slows can be partly attributed to Java Swing.
I am old (learned Pascal in a course taught by Brinch Hansen back in the 70's) and am comfortable with Pascal. For a Visual-Basicy experience with a compiled language, Delphi rocks. Do others have experience with C++ Builder?
I "discovered" that VS.NET saves design-time properties in code while the Borland setup saves it in files (as in persistent objects that save themselves to streams). It took me a long time to figure this out because VS.NET hides the code that expresses design properties unless you click the outline expansion box: it took lots of Googling to find this out as MSDN is really frustrating in explaining such stuff.
I guess I like expansion of design properties into code in that I like to code to fully explain what a program is doing rather than relying on some "magic" tied away in a hidden data file somewhere (I was influenced in this prejudice by Brinch Hansen's opinions on side-effects in programming systems).
On the other hand, the code method presents "round-trip" problems, especially if someone ignores the warning comments and changes some of the code. If you drop an untested widget on to a form, you can bugger up the code when trying to remove a widget that crashes the designer by trying to edit code. I also think the design properties in a data file approach makes it easier to hook into the saving and retrieving of properties to implement custom property data types -- with the code approach you have to tinker with code parser objects (Document Object Model parser objects) which is beyond my skills at this point.
Microsoft will announce "updates" to C# that will be implemented in
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
This whole concept of .ToString etc that is used in Java, error handling, etc also taken by C#, did that orginate in Java, or did they take it from somewhere else? If you look at the underlying technology in dotnet, its seriously just how Java 2.0 SHOULD of been, the REAL R&D effort to think of designing something like this, actually goes to SUN. The OSS Community should let mono keep doing what there doing, and create yet another version, that is a rewrite of the api's, remoting namespace becomes RMI. C# becomes C2, common language runtime becomes, Any Language Runtime :-) -- WinForms, api could gain some improvements from mixing and matching of WinForms, Swing, SWT. WebForms, could use portions of Jfaces. This would address the issue of the Patenting the interface, as for process patents, further analysis of those would have to be done regarding what they patented on webservices, the other stuff, for the most part has plenty of prior art.
This is you in bed with Microsoft.
This is you getting fucked.
Any questions?
Simply reciting a proverb does not constitute insight.
For every proverb there is an equal and opposite proverb.
Fear is the mind killer!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
In the U.S.,
- Anyone can sue.
- Anyone rich (eg, M$) can sue you and win, b/c you can't afford to fight it.
This is called rule by corporations...
Perhaps it is a new twist on fascism.
"I'm An Anonymous Lawyer" ?
-pyrrho
I know of a patent where IR-light is used to warm the cement to remove old window-panes. The heat softens the cements.
The combination of IR+window cement = invention!
Conclusion: Everyone inside that patent trade knows that patents are stupid. The first to patent wins.
Therefor, patent more or at least describe all your good ideas on a web page so that no one else can patent them.
And by the way, i do not understand a free-in-mind people helping MS to get strategic advantage !
;-)
Those mono guy are realy dumb. How can they think they can fool MS ? IMHO those guys are only MS zealots that try to split the opensource comunity in several camps with FUD !
Be united ! With the 2.6 kernel, Linux+Java will be the final killer solution against MS world domination
"You never knows what today will brought you..."
TestMan
Yes and that is why MS is sueing everybody using their patent portfolio...
Ooops... It is Eolas sueing MS, it is SCO sueing everybody in the world...
Come on people, MS might be "evil" in some eyes, but they do not have a sue culture. In fact the last thing MS does is sue...
It does get to me that they think big bad MS is going to use patents to stop other people, when in fact other people are abusing their patents. Use the power of slashdot to go against them...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
MS will enforce its patents when it perceives it to benefit the company, i.e. when the cost of bad publicity (impressing the public with their monopolistic brutality) outweighs the benefit of market control. Look at what they've done for DOJ: when they started to get beat up in the papers, they "settled". MS has a department full of IP lawyers at the waiting. Who do you have on your side?
"I don't think the heavy stuff is going to come down for quite some time yet."
While there is never any reason to "get hysterical" and "go nuts," there is a case for fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
This is, as you say, only a pending application. In the US, as in the rest of the world, applications for patent are published 18 months after filing. The patent office probably hasn't even begun to examine it yet.
But if I'm a developer (of any type) I'm thinking "OK, but how does this help me?" Claim 1 is so broad it covers EVERYTHING I DO. If the patent issues in present form - and MS decides to enforce it - I am sunk. Fear sets in.
Then the uncertaintly. I start walking the halls mumbling to myself, "Should I abandon 2000 hours of programming and completely change what I am doing, or assume the patent office will substantially reduce the claim?"
I am not comforted by the fact that there is NO prior art cited on the published application (because it is not necessary.) I have no idea if the examiner has that 10 year old copy of "computer geek" which would be a knock-out prior art.
My confidence suffers as I remind myself that that public cannot participate in the prosecution in a meaningful way and must wait until the patent is granted before it is known what claims will be issued and what prior art was available.
Then I start a serious effort into self-delusion and convince myself that "the patent office would never issue such a broad claim."
Then the doubt sets in.
A differing view would suggest that PHP is taking more market share from Perl for web apps than Python is at this point.
Now, I'm not really sure what the appeal of PHP is from a language standpoint as it seems to be a step backward from Perl (it doesn't even have namespaces). But PHP makes does web development easy.
Now consider Ruby: Currently, Ruby is running a distant third to Perl and Python. However it is a very appealing language with a philophy that is much closer to Perl's 'There's more than one way to do it' than Python's 'there's only one way to do it'. Ruby is a much 'deeper' language than Python (which always strikes me as being rather 'shallow' - as in I get to the point where I say "is that all?") and since it is philosophically closer to Perl it is likely to attract a lot of Perl'ers looking for a cleaner language that still retains Perl's power. As Perl6 (the language) becomes more and more delayed, the restless masses of Perlmongers looking for something truly OO and cleaner will inevitably be drawn to Ruby as many a former Perl coder already has. If Parrot materializes in the next year or so AND a good Ruby front-end appears for Parrot...well these are some large 'if's, but if those two things happen then I see Ruby gaining a lot of ground and coming from behind to give Python a real run for it's money (and very likely winning).
In the meantime, Ruby needs to come up with ways to make the creation of web-apps as easy as it is in PHP. There are already a lot of good frameworks for Ruby that should give PHP a run for it's money on it's home turf. They need to be further developed, and perhaps even more importantly, they need to be well documented.
unlike java, it is also seeing some real-world apps on the client as well
Well, perhaps you don't regard an IDE as a "real world" app, but Borland's (excellent, imho) JBuilder is written in Java. Two other Java apps I use from time to time are SQuireL, an SQL client, and JEdit, a "everything plus the kitchen sink" text editor.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Every line of .NET framework code (J#/C#/VB.NET) is a line that didn't get written in Java. From that perspective, Mono and DotGNU help Microsoft to expand the market for .NET.
.NET though? Microsoft charges only for the development environment, which you can purchase from Borland if you like. The real strategy is to keep people focused on the Windows platform. .NET's value to Micrososft is to make Windows developers more productive.
.NET on Linux? Maybe for a short time this could happen, and it is a danger, but I just wonder if they'll dare pull such a stunt given the EU/US anti-trust watchdogs. The only reason they would do it is to try and slow down the march towards Linux, which, frankly, will not be affected by the presence of .NET on that platform.
.NET at all on Linux (note that I LOVE .NET on Windows)? The whole point of writing distributed applications with Web services is so that platforms can communicate over SOAP (or SOAP-ey) protocols. I don't see any major advantage of .NET over J2EE for an enterprise dedicated to Linux.
What is the revenue model for
Bottom line: Microsoft will likely allow Mono (as they have so far) and DotGNU until applications utilizing it on Linux reach critical mass. At that point, Microosft will probably start charging royalties to commercial developers (either per programmer, or rev share).
Will Microsoft forbid
Devil's Advocate note: I also wonder if they'll try to stop it now because if they let it go for too long without challenging it, the courts might say they didn't defend it for so long that they lost their chance (but I'm not a lawyer).
Finally: Why use
More and more things will start to require it. .net is seeing admirable deployment on the server side.
I can't believe you are delighted to see that MS is increasing their stranglehold on the computing world.
owever, unlike java, it is also seeing some real-world apps on the client as well.
What about Eclipse then? And we could see a lot more of them if people wouldn't buy into the anti-java FUD.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
I think M$ would be on the losing end of a patent dispute. I used to code in VB, some C++ and have coded in Java over the last 4 years. I'm not a .NET expert, but from what I've seen, it's a watered down version of Java. The event model is the only significantly difference I've seen between Java and .NET. So if anyone were to bring out the lawsuits, I would expect Sun to do so. I think the real question is why someone would want com+, the M$ transaction management services, and security holes in M$ products over the much cleaner and better implemented J2EE equivalents? The only advantage M$ has over java in my opinion id their ide. M$ does make some kick but development tools. The next question is how long will it be before a major security hole is discovered in the .NET platform? I would consider the ability to reflect private methods a security hole, but that's up for debate. Thirdly, how long will it be before people separate the hype from reality with .NET solutions? Remember how DCOM and COM were supposed to be the be all, end all solutions of distributed and interposes computing? Now they are on the way out the door. For the smashing I've done of .NET, I will give it props to VB..NET and ASP.NET for being significantly superior to their predecessors. Speaking of which, what benefit is there to using VB.NET over C#? C# is pretty much a M$ version of Java and does the same exact things as VB.NET so the only difference I can see is the syntax and that provides no real value.
It comes down via Windows Update, also if you sell your product on CD or deploy your application manually to your clients, you can always include the .NET redistributable (25mb is nothing on a CD) with it.
.NET CLR. (Given that they don't install the Java VM by default on Windows XP already, I can almost smell another lawsuit coming).
Expect newer versions of Windows to come pre-installed with
This one has to be one of the dumbest pot I have seen on /. so far.
If you are stupid enough to trust MS promoted "standards" you deserve to be shafted.
In summary, I think that these patented interfaces are not only bad, but they are corrupting and dividing the open source and free software implementations of the software.
I find it amazing that dotgnu has a contest to implement patented interfaces. They say, that this stuff is #ifdef'd out, but it still throws a bad light onto the whole competition.
Why should they pay people to implement code that will need to be thrown away?
You might want to read
MY MAIL ABOUT THIS SUBJECT HERE.
mike
Introspection is the key to understanding
Microsoft is rapidly catching up on the scripting front. Take a look at the newest versions of JScript. It's becoming remarkably similar to Python in its capabilities. It's dynamically typed but now features optional static typing for performance, cross-language compatibility and error checing. It supports both "script" mode development and static compilation to assemblies. The latest versions add a real class system to the original JavaScript object model and a host of other features. As a .NET language it has access to the complete .NET library which is quickly catching up with Python's "batteries included" libraries.
Be afraid.
I am a big fan of Python and also a code contributor. But when I look at where JScript is going it gives me an eerie feeling. So far Microsoft isn't pushing it too hard but it has real potential. One of the undeniable advantages of JScript is that it has a familiar C-like syntax. While I prefer the Python syntax I am aware that on first impression it is a turnoff for most programmers.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Aka "from the when-hell-freezes-over dept".
Black holes are where God divided by zero
Note that they are not claiming an apparatus or method claim. They are claiming the architecture. A claim is interpreted within the context of the disclosure part of the patent. The disclosure part of this patent is a CD submitted with it containing the help files for the .NET web services API.
The are claiming the API. Not any API that matches this general description. They are claiming the specific API.
Disclaimer: IANAPA (I am not a patent attorney) but I do have some experience in the patent area. I could still be simply wrong or perhaps an undercover agent for Microsoft corporation...
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Compared to what? Plain C, compiled by a highly optimizing compiler for a certain platform? No, of course not. JAVA? Maybe. Interpreted languages without bytecode support? Maybe.
There is no reason why a high-quality bytecode-based VM system should not match or even beat optimised plain C, if the bytecode interpreter does run-time profiling and translates bytecodes to native instructions. After all, the VM can find the actual bottlenecks during execution as against the predicted bottlenecks at compile time. This works in practice - IBM's Java VMs can give application performance equal to (and occasionally even better to than) optimised C code.
> Is Development Faster ? No
Yes, on Winodws with visual studio. At least compared to plain C with a texteditor. This also requires use of all the non open stuff of course.
Systems like Java and
> Does it do things that other languages cannot? No
No but that would be an argument against any other language. But having different languages is a good thing. Besides, in theory
[stuff cut]
In principle, any machine code, real or virtual in a VM, is language dependent. The Java VM is not just for Java - there are many languages that can use it, such as JPython, and Smalltalk. The
I think you are doing a good job as programmers, but I have always been a bit worried that you are helping MS to slay Java. To me it seems they are fighting really hard on two fronts now, against Linux and against Java. If they manage to get .Net/C# and all that to be the business standard, with your help, won't that make it easier for them to turn against the one remaining target?
When will people step down from their warhorses viewing others as the "enemy", and start realizing we're all here together? We depend on eachother and those who try to live in glasshouses, should notice the cracks in it. Quotes such as "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", is still ignorant, stupid and dangerous thinking as it always has been. WHEN WILL YOU PEOPLE LEARN?
The "enemy" are our thoughts that we are the "good guys" and the others are "evil". Thoughts of separation, which is the ONLY reason we go to war.
To be more OT, what matters if people want to support certain technology? Software is software, screw the politics and manipulations. If people like some ideas, let them implement them. Stop viewing everything as a threat to YOU, as we have enough tyrants and paranoid leaders in this world. We don't need more with such mode of thinking, and nobody need your political approval of their pet project.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
For anything related to DotGNU or .NET or webservices in general or bytecode systems in general, I invite you to use the DotGNU "visionaries" mailing list for creating a public record that can if neccessary be used later as "prior art" for invalidating patents on essentially the same ideas.
Greetings, Norbert.
.... Blows Swing away...
Then don't use Swing. Use IBM's SWT instead. Its a native GUI library, fully-featured, open source, and available pre-compiled for lots of platforms (OS/X, Windows, Linux etc). Under Windows it allows use of COM/ActiveX etc.
Microsoft's development tools always been good
Sorry, this is nonsense. Having dealt with MS tools for nearly 25 years I have found them to often be some of the worst I have ever used. Visual Studio is a catch-up job, replacing truly awful and buggy command-line tools in the 80s and early 90s. Microsoft were one of the last companies to provide development tools for Windows that actually ran under Windows! I have been used to quality systems like Smalltalk IDEs which include integrated class browsers, run-time re-compilation, object inspectors, class and method finders and documentation. I have also been used to small and efficent IDEs such as those provided by Borland/Inprise. Over the past few years I have been supporting users developing in Visual Basic 6, and the whole thing is a mess, to the extent of some Visual Basic programs actually crashing Visual Studio!
MS tools may look pretty, and be easy for beginners to get started, but for professional OOP development they are definitely low-quality.
NZHeretic, you STILL don't explain why a GTK# desktop application NEEDS to use SOAP or web services, you just assume it does!
You also appear to be making the flawed assumption that it's possible to patent something that is otherwise unpatentable by covering the "interoperation" of components - yet again you do not deem it important to explain this point.
The doomsday scenario on this one is that lots of people end up coding C#/ASP.NET on a Linux platform, Microsoft work out a legitimate way to get it off Linux, and corporations see the best way forward as being to port their code to Windows.
I know Java is in the hands of a corporation, but Java is designed to work cross platform.
What's wrong with PHP and Python anyway?
5. Profit!
If MS has indeed made any claims of this kind, please give me the exact reference. This could become important.
Greetings,
Norbert,
The biggest problem with languages like Java and C# is the fact that they are built for one system (JavaVM and Windows+CLR) by one company (SUN/MS). A language like C++ on the other hand is built to work on any OS and it does (*NIX, Linux, *BSD, Windows, AOS, etc, etc, etc). On top of that it is not owned by one company, nor is it produced for one company.
C++ and C# are great languages, for what they were built to do. I can't stand Java unfortunatly, because it simply isn't good at all. And on top of this we have many different C++ APIs, one great C# one (.NET) and well, there is a Java API as well;)
So if the open source world actually wants a Java/C# class language, I would suggest finding an open patent (I've never used that one before, and if noone else has, I want to (C), (T), patent, and claim it!;)) language or create one. Then build one good API for it.
There are also languages such as D (technically there seems to be many Ds out there), Obj-C (or does it suffer the same problems? I never got sure of that.), and if the problem allows it there is always Ruby and Python.
Before I discuss the .Net initiative itself, I didtinctly remember a Ballmer quote (here on /. as well, I think?) stating that MS will use its patents to increase marketshare. At the moment MS will leave .Net alone, for sure, as it is vastly more immature than MS' implementation, but woe betide the day when even one, just one, large Mono application (application server, distributed CRM or ERP app?) gains popularity amongst the many governments and businesses now moving to Linux. That is the day when MS will send its lawyers around for a chat on patent laws.
.Net sounds like the fantasy that many VB coders, MS shops and PHB's have had for years: The ability to code an application in a mess of languages (in all probability it will be C++,VB and C#) and actually produce something that is both useful and full of buzzword compliance.
.Net or Mono does is truly new. They are refinements of current coding practices. You can do exactly the same thing in Java, C++ and Python, just in a longer timeframe. This might be good in terms of productivity but I can almost certainly see this producing yet another generation of VB type coders with little discipline and chaotic understanding of OOP.
On the technical side
But, it would be good to note that nothing that
My guess is that this is simply what MS is betting the farm on in order to move away from Win32 and at the same time corral developers and customers into staying with Windows. I read the EULA for VS.Net2003 and it seems you can neither publish benchmarks nor develop Office applications with it.
Are you sure you want to go down that road? Hasn't SCO been an eye opener enough?
While I've only played trumpet and piano for 6-7 years... C# is D flat. B flat is A#. Sharps are a half step up, flats are a half step down.
Why would that be a problem? People would never be aware that the 26Mb download was actually 25Mb runtime and 1Mb application :) not only that, they don't really care.
Do you care that the Mozilla runtime is actually a 10Mb Gecko runtime and a 100k front end?
What about IE? Regardless of MS business tactics there, developers sure had no problem distributing the 15Mb IE runtime so that thier application had access to the latest common controls and the internet API.
Microsoft is able to 'get away' with getting these patents in exactly the same way Eolas was able to be granted it's plugin patent for browsers, dispite Apples HyperCard and LotusNotes had the same functionality -- by tying that patented functionality to a platform.
Where Eolas was able to get the plugin patent for browsers, Microsoft is quite able to get patents for existing functionality on it's .net platform -- even if the same functionality has been demonstrated on Java/Perl/Python/CORBA etc.
The US Patent Office is a over a year behind in it's proccessing of patent applications, new applications covering the .NET API for network and webapplications are just appearing.
Didn't you just violate the MS EULA that says "Thou shalt not publish .NET benchmarking statistics"?
I think trying to implement the 'Windows'* and 'Microsoft' namespaces is a mistake. Firstly, these are not codified in a standard, and are liable to change at any time. In addition, the code and API in the Windows namespace is not designed to be portable, making plenty of assumptions about the Windows registry, Win32 window handles and so forth.
What the Mono people should be doing is making a sturdy, open implementation of the .NET CLR and the 'System' class library, and then let people create libraries for Gtk+ (already done), Qt and anything else. The 'System' class library (to my knowledge) makes no such assumptions about the underlying platform, and a properly-designed application should have the GUI code separate from the main code anyway, so creating a cross-platform application will simply require writing a different implementation of the GUI.
The only loss with this approach is that Mono won't be able to run applications designed for Windows, but I don't consider that a useful goal anyway. What is needed is good, solid open source applications using consistant UI toolkits to create a desktop that feels like it goes together.
* why Microsoft put the 'Windows' namespace under 'System' I have no idea, but let's just pretend they put it under 'Microsoft' where this unportable API logically belongs.
when gnome is interally written in c ?
This is a very good point, one that the DotGNU Steering Committee agrees with. We would very much like to equally support C# and Java, and a significant amount of work has been done in this direction. Our compiler suite is not only able to emit bytecode for the Microsoft-designed CLR, but it can also be used to generate bytecode for the JVM. We also have a Java-compiler front-end. Unfortunately, both of these areas of coding work are current dormant for lack of volunteers.
Who will volunteer to champion our Java efforts?
Greetings,
Norbert.
The IE patent infringmenet case they just lost.
However we are still concerned about the bugs in the US legal system, because we would like computer users in the US to be able to freely use and redistribute all of DotGNU, and contribute to its development.
Greetings,
Norbert.
This may be true in many areas, but in the case of software patents the US has definately gone too far. There can be no doubt that every useful technology will get implemented in Free Software sooner or later, and technology that is useful to many people will get implemented sooner.
The US patent system can only restrict what US residents and US based businesses can do. The rest of the world will happily move forward with Free Software. If the US patents system prevents a Free Software .NET competitor in the US, those parts which are not allowed in the US can still be developed and used outside the US.
It is well-known that when a profit-oriented company has a monopoly on anything that is of key importance for the business world, that is good only for that company and its major shareholders, but not for the economy as a whole.
Hence it should be expected that if the US legal system allows this to happen, businesses will migrate to countries where they will not be encumbered by software patents. Whether we like it or not, globalization is a reality.
Greetings,
Norbert.
Not really. As a developer, we downloaded the .NET Runtime, include it on the CD, and do the install if a .NET CLR isn't detected as already present. It is very easy to do using an installer program (like 15 minutes worth of work, including the download of the CLR from Microsoft and you only have to do it once).
The last word from the US Supreme Court is that software is not patentable. For software patents to be truly defeated, all you need is for a case to make it to the supreme court so they can smack down the lower-court Alappat decision that contradicted them. Unfortunately, they're asked to hear 10x as many cases as they can actually hear, so we'll see.
Read the Diamond v. Diehr decision yourself if you don't believe me.
The dirty tricks played by MS against its erstwhile partner should give anyone pause if they were to believe MS has no history of unfair business practices.
Moreover, one need not have followed the antitrust case against MS to wonder about your apparent obliviousness.
Finally, much older and from personal experience: In PC Magazine I read a letter stating that WordPerfect required a license number prior to offering technical support. Later I called WP tech support to get my license number only to be told that by the support person that they have no access to that information. Moreover, I was not asked as asserted what my license number was!
I guess I accidentally hit the "Post Anonymously" checkbox on my way to the preview button. The parent was posted by me.
I don't see any patent granted last week.
Do you sincerely believe in the ability of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to research prior art for an invention named in a patent? Do you believe in the USPTO's judgment of what constitutes an invention that is not obvious to anyone with a B.S. in computer science?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Where? How does it do raw pointers?
/..sig file not found - permission denied.
The poster implicitly assumes that he has unencumbered alternatives to .NET. That may be wrong. Who knows how many patents Python infringes? Perl?
Get used to it. Even though Python was both invented and coded by Guido van Rossum, someone else may hold crucial patents. The only way to be sure is to check all applicable patents. If you don't feel like that either just ignore the question, or fight software patents
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
To my mind, the whole debate about the open source .NET projects will come down to what I call the Office.NET test, which goes like this...
.NET framework.
.NET frameworks?
.NET is the real deal, a cross platform programming environment.
.NET isn't a cross programming environment, regardless of what the Mono and dotGnu forces say.
At some point in the not too distant future, Microsoft will release Office.NET. That is, their office suite re-written to run under the
The test is, will Office.NET run, out of the box with no significant crashes or non-functioning features, on non-Microsoft
If yes, then
If no, then
I think you meant to type "You are correct. If the powerful still got their wealth from growing cotton, ..."
back in the tube at one time.
gewg
Until i see a written document from Microsoft where they openly state they wont go after Mono in any way i will consider MONO a big pile of toxic waste in Gnome. One can only ponder as to why Miquel hasnt done anything to get the legal things in order?
Any company but MS and i wouldnt be so scared.
Miquel, i really hope you dont put Gnome in a rough spot here. I dont think thats something enyone would want on their consiense?
HTTP/1.1 400
IMHO, one of .Net's main purpose of existence is to kill Java. M$ will do what it takes to kill it. So, I do not see M$ killing any Open Source .Net implementations as long as Java lives and rules. .Net and its patents.
If and when M$ manages to make Java irrelevant, is when I want to know where M$ will take
Al Stevens had a column in Dr. Dobbs Journal for years where he developed a DOS based windowing library in C++ and called it D-Flat...
Well, my statement was based on the first paragraph of the article (do people even get that far before posting?). But it's third-hand knowledge at best. Also, by defensive, I didn't mean that it only defended products that were related to the patent. I thought it was more like IBM's where if you sued them for patent infringement, they'd probably have many patents covering the everyday use of computers, allowing them to counter-sue.
Since my original post, I read that Microsoft did, in fact, use software patents to force a free ASF video implementation to shut down.
Screw their laws. just move Linux development to Freenet.
Legalize Everything. www.infoshop.org
Billy-Bob invents a new dohicky, doesn't have the resources to practically implement it, or the money to patent it. Joe-Jack hears about Billy-Bob's invention and gets a patent on it using a horrendously obfuscated, yet entirely typical name. Billy-Bob secures funding for his wonderful invention, it's a hit, sells millions. Joe-Jack dusts off "his" patent and sues the pants off of Billy-Bob.
The joys of the USPO fostering innovation and progress as usual.
someone247356
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
Any app that uses the .Net runtime will come with the runtime on disk, in much the same way that most DX games come with DirectX on cd, or how most applications come with a version of MFC.
The two main toolkits for Python are tk/tcl and wxWindows. wxWin is a big winner here, and is not more known just because Guido van Rossum doesn't know how to use it.
It's being used by Mitch Kapor to create a competitor to MS exchange/outlook called Chandler.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
>>I'm sorry, but I don't consider Paul Thurrott to be a reliable source of information.
:-p
>Why wouldn't you consider him a reliable source of Windows information? Considering he has actual sources inside >Microsoft and all. Most of his Longhorn information is from the WinHEC, complete with screenshots. You're just being >difficult to be difficult.
Sources? Does he pay them for information or receive a wage from microsoft's marketing department?
And will *longhorn* have flawless DOS support?
Really, is the entire Linux community have no developer tools creator who is as good as that Dutch guy from Borland!
This is my sig.
Second, MS doesnt own WordPerfect. I also have no idea what your anecdote is supposed to prove. PC Magazine says something about required info, which the company doesnt actually need. Big deal! Who cares? I fail to see what you are trying to say.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
"Paracutin...1943, a Mexican farmer sees smoke coming out of the middle of his cornfield. A week later there's a volcano a thousand feet high. There's no history of anything until it happens. Then there is. "
--Volcano
Have a nice day.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.