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Microsoft Confirms IE Changes in Wake of Lawsuit
theodp writes "On Monday, Microsoft verified that it will be making what it calls "modest" changes to Windows and IE to meet the requirements of the jury verdict against it in the Eolas patent infringement case. Microsoft says it will finish making the changes to IE and Windows by early next year and will provide developers that use IE technology with documentation to help them modify their applications, Web pages, and browser plug-ins to work with the new plug-in scheme, which affects all Web pages that use plug-in technologies such as Adobe Reader, Apple QuickTime, Macromedia Flash, RealNetworks RealOne, all versions of Java, and Windows Media Player. A preview of the new user experience shows the user being prompted to confirm loading of each ActiveX control."
Ok, what ever happened to holding everyones IP so valued?
Got Code?
And what about Mozilla? Opera? K-Meleon? Safari?
Is it clear just how much this patent ruling will affect the internet as we know it?
While $520 million might be a drop in Microsoft's $40 billion bucket, it's still a big enough factor to warrent a change in practices. Too bad the anti-trust efforts didn't enjoy this level of success...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
i think that the patent ruling is unfair to Microsoft... It's not right that they have to change thier whole brower just because of one company
all these products are supposed to enrich the quality of the living web ::not:: cause more pain by inflicting pop up warnings and alert boxes.
so now I need to accept 3 alert boxes before I can hit skip on your flash splash page ?? ;)
Fear Breeds Knowledge
Man, judging by that preview, this really sucks, for endusers as well as developers. The whole "does this load external data" thing is like trying to program in a new language, "Legalese.NET".
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
"A preview of the new user experience shows the user being prompted to confirm loading of each ActiveX control."
Would you like to install Clippy?
Yes? No? Can't I think it over?
Sorry. The words "Microsoft", "IE", and "User Experience" in the same sentence as "user will be prompted to load each ActiveX control"....
:)
Brings a tear to me eye.
You mean...something GOOD came out of a lawsuit with Microsoft? W00t!
On the OSS side of things, this should be a (small) boon to projects like Konq and Mozilla that aren't going to require all the online applications and plugins to be re-coded.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
I, for one, particularly like the idea of being notified before my browser loads an ActiveX control. Sounds to me like a feature that should already be in the browser for security purposes anyway. Yes, I know it's a user changeable option, but honestly, how many "Joe Sixpack" users know the option's there anyway, much less what it means?
The probability that someone is watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions.
As much as everyone here wants to see microsoft go down, there a thousands of windows applications that rely on these and you can bet that not all of them will be updated anytime soon. Many programs use OLE with WMP and IE to have these features but it sounds like older applications will now be incompatible.
Huh, who'da thunk it. I expected MS to buy the Eolas patent, or Eolas itself if necessary, and turn the patent against AOL/Netscape, Opera, and the rest of their competition. They're actually not being vicious bastards in this one...
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
My web browsing experience just got even better!
It guess it just goes to show you that at the end of the day, someone will always find a new way to screw everyone else over for money.
Even though it's just Microsoft, I can't help but think that this is going to end up affecting other stuff too. Once a company like Eolas gets away with this garbage, I doubt they'll quit while they're ahead. I see more lawsuits like this in the future.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Law of unintended consequences steps up to the plate. This security enhancement took a half billion dollar patent lawsuit to be brought about. What will bring about the next one be and how much will it cost? Maybe, just maybe, they will someday learn that fluid integration of third party code without user approval is a bad idea?
Yeah, they agreed to a list of stuff.
tcd004
What I see when I look at this new format, is a whole new era of popup ads. With Microsoft now requiring you to click 'Ok' before you can play a flash game, or watch a video, there will no doubt be an entire genre of popup ads designed to look just like these windows.
Ad ware will run rampant, as users are clicking OK left, right and center.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
"jack of all trades" - Master of NONE
http://www.geocities.com/baddsectorr
Will this prove to be an incentive for Netscape (AOL) to continue supporting the Mozilla Foundation?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Demanding that the user have the right to refuse all these plugins is a huge improvement! I don't trust Microsoft to automate this for me. Change all the Browsers then lets create a "User Environment Envelope" that automates these things. Make the envelope multiplatform and standards based and Voila we'll be thanking Ceolas.
Why can't Microsoft just licence the patent? Its interesting to see to matter what happens and what it costs microsoft will aways prefer to get round something that pay for it, even if it would be cheaper to pay for it.
James
Time to educate people! Must spread the word, Mozilla.org is worth checking out.
I am going to hell and I am going to take all of you with me.
Fantastic. More browser sniffing, more money spent on more developer time to code workarounds for the new behavior, and more dialogs to arbitrarily disrupt user experience.
You're ignoring (probably intentionally) the awful precident this sets in regards to the enforcement of (ridiculous) software patents. Let's recognize what is truly the greater evil here.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Software Companies will simply mould their plugins into whatever shape Microsoft desires as long as their browser controls 95% of the market.
Most users will probably blink and miss it.
I mean, the commercial plugin developers are unlikely to maintain two different code streams. Since IE is the market leader, they'll make a plugin that works in IE and everyone else has to play catchup. Mozilla will have to accomodate new plugins coming out in that format, and still deal with the 'legacy' plugins.
Blar.
To be really careful about security, I turn Active X off on all sites except a few. I get that annoying "This site may not display properly ...." message and cant get rid of it (Microsoft dosent want me to not use Active X remember) Now -users- of Active X will have it just as bad or worse it appears.
Let me get this straight: the user is presented with a dialog box with the following vast and overwhelming information and functionality:
1. The name of the application
2. "Press OK to continue"
3. An actual OK button
And if I press OK, it just pops up for the next control? And this will neither annoy nor confuse how many web users, exactly?
If you look at the site they show a new tag, NOEXTERNALDATA, which basically nullifies this change... I think we will see a lot of sites violating the patent while Microsoft sits is in compliance.
Sometimes it helps to read...
And I just finished training all my users to NOT click OK on boxes that pop-up when using the web. Now you're saying I have to train them to make educated decisions to accept or decline boxes?
The monkey trainers at the circus will have an easier time...
MS is making "modest" changes? WOW, that translates basically to millions of lost hours for their customers upgrading their browsers... and millions of dollars for third party companies to modify their plugins.. Thanks MicroShit!
This is one good example where enforcing the patent clearly isn't in the interests of the consumer (not that it's ever supposed to be). But now loads of web developers are going to have to go and put in horrible hacks and change code so that users aren't pestered by yet more pop-up messages and warnings that scare them away from using the Internet.
Presumably all the other browsers will follow suit in time?
If pine uses lynx to view html mail, isn't that a violation? Seems like you have to pay off Eolas if you want to do things the Unix way, in lots of small modules that do one thing well.
Ok, still doesn't apply to me...
What is this active x you speak of?
Sigh.
IMHO the Eolas vs M$ case proves once and for all that (software) patents -- used with good or bad intentions -- frustrate rather than further innovation.
--
Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it -- Andrew Young
This annoying feature was already present in one form in IE. If you check "don't start ActiveX controls" (or whatever this option was called), the dumb thing pops up a dialog box complaining about how you'll not see this site in it's full beauty because you don't like ActiveX.
;).
For every page, and for every damned control embeded in this page (IIRC, it's a while since I last used IE)
I'm glad the the yes-to-active-x fraction now gets their own piece of the pie
Didi you notice that the pop-up has only one button?
I mean, it's just a stupid OK button... If they said "Active Content Flash Plugin about to be loaded" then Yes or No it would make much more sense...
Anyway, people will still overabuse flash...
how long until
get IEradicator (sorry, no link, search google) and get rid of this crap completely.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Now i have to listen to my users cry about clicking ok. It might go something like this:
*cry*
i have to click ok to watch this uber cool flash pr0n!
*cry*
"..A preview of the new user experience shows the user being prompted to confirm loading of each ActiveX control."
[rant] When did using a tool become an "experience"? I first head that word used for using the net in a Microsoft ad. No one says "Let me grab my hammer for a nail-pounding Experience." or "I just had a fearsome toilet Experience.."
It pisses me off that lame catch-words from advertising make it into the lingo. Computers are tools, you don't "experience" them, you use them. [/rant]
Trolling is a art,
I love how Microsoft, after a $500 million lawsuit, finally plans on putting a dialog box in that the user must click through to load an ActiveX control... ...when designing this dialog box, you'd you'd think someone would have mentioned how easy it would be to put a "Yes"/"No" choice in it. Right? Because sometimes users might want to not load controls, for various nefarious reasons we are all aware of. Right? Right???
wrong
Ha! From that page: "If the OBJECT element used to load the control contains PARAM elements but none of the PARAM elements specify a source of data external to the current Web page, then the control does not access remote data" and so the user will not be prompted.
I suppose that this is one of the concessions they were required to make: plugin content that "specifies a source of data external to the current page" was probably convered specifically by the patent in question.
But here's the VERY NEXT sentence: "The OBJECT element for an ActiveX control has a new attribute: NOEXTERNALDATA. Specify true for this attribute to indicate that the control does not access remote data and that Internet Explorer should not prompt the user." Notice that this doesn't say "specify this tag and we'll CHECK to see if there's external data." It's basically a way to turn off the prompt, no questions asked.
In fact, the code example directly following specifies a "param url=", which sounds a helluva lot like a "source of external data" to me. Is it just me, or does this directly flout the entire point of the changes? I can't imagine that's an accident... I think MS just said "here, we'll change our default behavior, but we'll let users subvert the change starting now."
Ha!
Other interpretations?
Geez. Come on moderators, follow the links before you mod.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
If anyone has read Jef Raskin's "The Humane Interface" they know that a dialog box that allows only one action has a information theoretic efficiency of 0 (E=0). He was referring to dialog boxes with that at least told the user something important or useful, "Finished searching document" for example. But this takes the cake. E must equal -1 (E=-1) they might as well just have a dialog box with a button and no message at all.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
This topic contains the following sections.
* Affected Web Pages
* User Experience for Affected Web Pages
--> * Creating Unaffected Web Pages
* Related Topics
Eolas Technologies, a University of California spin-off with one employee, no products, a handful of patents and 100 investors, on Monday prevailed in its $521 million patent-infringement suit against Microsoft.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Ok, let's suppose, this methode really does circumvent the patent (means that a judge would then rule in favor of M$)! Then what about a radio button labled
in the preferences ("opt in", of course!)?Pat
Nerdy by Nature!
Here we have a popup - which very helpfully (not) states "Click OK to continue loading this web page"
Encouraging users to click OK with no explaination WHY the webpage has stopped loading, or WHY they should click OK
And even not giving them the option of saying CANCEL is surely a bad thing?
The last thing that we need is people clicking a button just because they were told to!
(Click OK to speed up your internet connection)
It would only have taken a few extra lines, and a cancel button in the dialog to fix the problem:
This page is attempting to load active content. Click OK to continue loading the active content, or cancel to display the page with no active content
am happy about this. i got tired of flash and macromedia a long time again. in netscape and opera it's easy to remove the mime type but i never took the time to learn how to in IE.
Hopefully someone will soon sue about pop-ups. then maybe everyone on the internet will "downgrade" to a more usable web interface that is actually supported by all browsers.
wherever my djinn is he granted me my first wish. the left over ones are...
1. stopping pop-ups.
2. an XML virus.
3. an HTTP tunnelling virus.
Is this company alleging that any application that has pluggable pieces must prompt before executing them? That would affect event major application on the market! Browsers, office suites, testing software, databases, installers, media apps, games, etc. Many critical applications would completely break if they had to prompt the user.
Nuclear Operator 2.73
Plutonium inserted successfully.
Would you like to run the radiation level check?
[Yes] [No]
"Oops! Hey Boss - I accidentally clicked *-boom-*..."
The NOEXTERNALDATA tag can only be used when there are no parameters passed. If I simply have as their example shows, then the plugin will load, but will not know where to load data from. It'd be similar to loading the flash plugin but not pointing it to a data file... pretty useless.
Additional parameters (like a file) would be ignored if NOEXTERNALDATA is specified.
Oddly enough, the tag is theoretically the correct way to embed images, depending on how you read the HTML spec. Can you imagine a popup coming up for every image on a page?
by updating your code. I updated http://media.accettura.com last night to use a JS method recommended. Seems to work in all browsers I tested at the the moment. No dialog from IE's new release... only difference is JS is now required to see the object. But I don't think many people have JS still disabled.
Having 99% replaced ie with mozilla all I can say is "who gives a shit !"
;)
It seems that microsoft has become disinterested in the browser, probably feeling that ie6 is as far as they need to go.
They couldn't be more wrong.
I think it's time I got all my work colleagues to switch - most of them wouldn't know the difference anyway
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
I hate blatant karma whoring. YOU SUCK. Go sell your body elsewhere you bitch!
Was that misspelling of "gnashing" deliberate, cause one way or the other, it was really funny!
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
...based on the MSDN user experience page, this is going to prompt the use of the late-coming OBJECT tag, which is designed to be a nice fallback system to display alternative content if existing mechanisms aren't in place; eg, if an outer OBJECT block can't find a plug-in or isn't given permission, then it can fall back to the next inner-level OBJECT (maybe an image), or if no image capacities are their (in the case of lynx), fall back to a plain text HTML-based OBJECT. This tag was introduced in HTML 4, but because of the various reliances on EMBEDs and other methods for getting ActiveX controls and plugins to work, it never really caught hold. Additionally, note that if you have a certain advanced option on, you will never be asked to confirm loading plugins, and thus you will always fall back to alternative content. No more flash "punch-the-monkey" ads, hmm? (Mind you, this needs to be overridable page-by-page, so that some sites that ARE flash, like Homestar Runner, can be accessed correctly).
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Let me clarify: MS also mentions a way to inline base64 encoded data. This would stop the popup dialog, but I think it sort of kills part of the point of linking to data. If a page had some flash elements (or even images embedded with ), you'd have to load that content even with browsing with images/flash/etc disabled.
How many nanoseconds do you think it will take before someone releases a patch to get rid of this stupid irritating behaviour? Hopefully Microsoft themselves will 'leak' an alternate DLL that allows us to have a current IE, but without this stupid warning poping up every single time someone's got a bit of Flash on their page.
:)
What was the patent anyway? "Allowing embedded content to load without telling the user with a yellow pop-up"? I can't think of anything sensible they could have patented, which would result in MS having to implement this behaviour.
So, in the meantime, can everyone go here and hit reload until it don't-reload-no-more, cos if there was ever a case for a company to deserve a slashdotting, now is it...
Besides, it was announced months ago that standalone MSIE is dead and there will be no further versions.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I guess this means Moz is safe?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
I bet they implement this change in nomenclature: "these aren't 'embedded program objects', they're 'inlayed process components'...they're two totally separate things!"
That would give the lawyers something to chew on for a few more years.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
The following example shows an OBJECT tag that loads a control without a prompt from Internet Explorer because the NOEXTERNALDATA attribute is set to true. The control does not receive the URL property.
In other words, the control doesn't get that URL parameter, it's just loading the component without a data source.
the user being prompted to confirm loading of each ActiveX control.
.NET?
A few years ago, I was involved in building an application where the front end was a bunch of nested ActiveX controls. I can just imagine how the UE for that app is going down the tubes. I mean, who doesn't want to click "OK" fifteen times just to log into an application.
Its been some time... Is there any new development occurring with ActiveX or is that part of the planned obselesence with
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
This sounds like a load of shit to me.
About Eolas Since its formation as spinoff from the University of California, Eolas' seminal research in next-generation Web applications, 3-D biomedical visualization, and morpho-spatial genomic activity mapping has led to patents for the development of fundamental and revolutionary Web browser technologies, including the systems which currently provide plug-ins and applets to over 500 million users, worldwide. Eolas' cryptographic timestamp innovations solve previously intractable problems created by the new national HIPAA regulations. Our advances in gene expression mapping technologies are spearheading the creation of the new field of biomedical research called "spatial genomics." Eolas is also involved in several current research efforts that are pioneering new areas of the technological landscape.Is it just me or is an alert box with just an OK button completely worthless in this case? All it does is delay loading the control without giving the user the ability to not have it load. The user only has two choices: load the potentially dangerous control, or leave the dialog box on screen. This doesn't solve any of the problems and just adds more headaches to the browsing experience.
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Looking at the changes to the user experience document from MS, it seems to me that this may be trivial in the long run.
... and it may not, depending on the way it was written (anyone have a link to the patent itself?) If not, then all we need are some good mime-encoders. The main bad part, I guess, is getting away from standard HTML, but then you were doing that anyway when you embedded a plugin...
You can't pass "PARAM" lines with clear text data, but you *can* pass DATA lines with base64 encoded data. So what do we need to do? Encode our PARAM data lines, of course.
This may break the patent
The developer preview they have is a standalone version of IE. In other words, it doesn't affect anything else on your system, and it can be completely uninstalled.
Didn't Microsoft say this sort of thing was impossible, back in the days of the antitrust suit? Might we have evidence of perjury on our hands?
a macromedia community manager talks about macromedia's response, and mentions the work-around they are endorsing.e s/003427.cfm
http://www.markme.com/cantrell/archiv
So, if I don't want to load the ActiveX control or continue loading the page, where's the "Cancel" button? There's an option to have everything blocked and alternate content rendered, but I don't see any way to selectively cancel out ActiveX controls.
At least they were able to keep COM as the method of creating plug-ins. With Microsoft so invested in COM and, as such, most other companies writing for the MS platform, this was my biggest concern. It has come along way in years, and the interfaces required of ActiveX controls - as well as more secure sandboxing - are pushing the ActiveX guidelines to help developers write more secure code. It would've been a waste to have to drop it all, not to mention millions or billions in re-development costs.
Any developer (platform- or web-based) should put EOLAS at the top of their sh*t list! Drop the MS propaganda for a while and help fight back. As so many people are concerned, how will this affect Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, etc.? Let's not find out.
How stupid can you be? "Noone" is pronounced like "noon", as anyone knows. Now, obviously the grandparent post was referring to Peter Noone, of the 1960s band Herman's Hermits. Do you really need such obvious things pointed out to you?
http://www.ozzie.net/blog/stories/2003/09/12/savin gTheBrowser.html
"If you fight, fight without fear. If you love, love without reservation." -- J. Michael Straczynski, Babylon 5
Microsoft probably would have liked to license the patent, but the owner of (privatly held) Eolas said he had no interest in licencing the patent to Microsoft.
I have read that he wanted to help the competing browsers, but if that were true I would think that he would have given them a licence. Since he hasn't (that I am aware of) it makes me question this "helpful" stance.
Oh well, time will tell. Eventually Microsoft will convince everyone that having to blindly click on an OK button for every Active X is a good thing. Given Microsoft's security record, perhaps it is......
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
<rant>
If it wasn't for bloody MS and all their bloody IE bloody ActiveX sh1t, we wouldn't have all these bloody crappy websites that blink, flash, fart, whistle and crap junk all over your HD as soon as you visit in the first place.
As if normal popups aren't bad enough, now you can experience an all new level of frustration as you receive twenty "OK" dialogs on each page.
</rant>
Thank God for Opera.
Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
Don't you see ?
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1304247,00.aM$ is taking the full advantage of the situation, this is just an excuse for them to slowly squeeze out thirdparty plugin technology from the browser. I would rather pay Eolas 10$ in a licence fee than paying M$ xxx$. Here's a interview with Eolas:
...and if you do that, the value of URL will not be passed to the effing control. *You* RTFA.
This means that most of those stupid animated Flash banner ads won't load any more! Just think of it -- no more "punch the monkey and win a prize" boxes dancing around above your favorite website! YES! YES! YES!
Some attempt to describe previous work, related to Lotus Notes, is available at http://www.ozzie.net/blog/stories/2003/09/12/savin gTheBrowser.html (sorry Ozzie if you'll be slashdotted...)
VDM
Back at the peaceful Simpsons house. Homer is reading "Internet for Dummies".
HOMER
Oh, they have the Internet on computers now!
MARGE
Homer, Bill Gates is here.
HOMER
Bill Gates?! Millionaire computer nerd Bill Gates! Oh my god. Oh my god. Get out of sight, Marge. I don't want this to look like a two-bit operation.
Marge groans and rolls her eyes. Bill Gates and two "associates" enter.
GATES
Mr. Simpson?
HOMER
You don't look so rich.
GATES
Don't let the haircut fool you, I am exceedingly wealthy.
HOMER
(quietly to Marge) Get a load of the bowl-job, Marge!
GATES
Your Internet ad was brought to my attention, but I can't figure out what, if anything, CompuGlobalHyperMegaNet does, so rather than risk competing with you, I've decided simply to buy you out.
Homer and Marge step aside to talk privately.
HOMER
This is it Marge. I've poured my heart and soul into this business and now it's finally paying off. (covering his mouth) We're rich! Richer than astronauts.
MARGE
Homer quiet. Acquire the deal.
HOMER
(to Gates) I reluctantly accept your proposal!
GATES
Well everyone always does. Buy 'em out, boys!
Bill Gates companions begin to trash the "office".
HOMER
Hey, what the hell's going on!
GATES
Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!
Bill Gates lets out a maniacal laugh. Homer and Marge cower in the corner as the room continues to be trashed.
Very sleazy... essentially, Microsoft makes your page present useless dialogs "Press OK to continue loading." (with no possibility to cancel the control), which no web developer would possibly want. Then, they add a new attribute "NOEXTERNAL" (which might as well be called "DOESNOTVIOLATETHEPATENT") that turns off the prompt. Basically, they shift the legal responsibility onto the web page developer, while essentially ensuring that "NOEXTERNAL" becomes "just one of those things" that you always put, no matter what.
Anyway, hurting Microsoft with software patents is a good way to get an ally in the fight against them!
As much as I hate this whole patent issue I wonder if this might actually improve the whole browsing experience for the users. A lot of companies are going to remove many of their flash/activex/whatever plugins so that users will not get an anoying popup everytime they visit their site and instead replace them with proper html/dhtml. One example would be the flash banners appearing on many pages these days. They could all go back to simple gif/jpg/png again. Doesn't sound all that bad to me.
It seems that Eolas just wants money from MS and from money-making companies...s p.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1304252,00.a
A patent can be selectively enforced with relatively little consequences on the holder. They could opt to not enforce this against the other browsers (Not that I am saying they will do this thing, but it's entirely possible...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
How long will it take to condition users to blindly click through this box at the first sign of it's flashing open? How long after will pop-up ads appear looking exactly like the box? Then everybody in the world will have a homepage either pointing to Gator or Pornography. Personally I'd rather have my homepage point to Goatse then Gator.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Switch to mac OS! No Active X at all. No Patent Violation.!
Fuckers
This guy seems to be doing it for a vendetta, not for money. If it was purely a money thing, the free browsers would have little worry since they aren't good targets. I mean, no point taking someone to court who has no assets, it'll just be a waste of your time and money. Well he's not out for that reason, despite asking lots of money, he's out to cripple Microsoft. Ok, many people here would say that's a good thing (I'd say it's anti-capatalistic, but never mind). However, what happens if he gets a burr up his ass about another browser? Say he decides that Opera is unfair, since it charges money and he thinks all browsers should be no cost. Or maybe he gets in a abr fight with a Mozilla dev and gets mad at Mozilla. Then what? He can again use his patent as a weapon.
However, what he does is really not relivant. The point is that patents should NOT be allowed to be used as weapons by anyone, small or large. The point of a patent, and this is explicitly(*) spelled out, is to provide an inventor some protection so they can make money off an idea in the intrestes of promoting PROGRESS. In other words, you get a time limited right to your idea that people can't infringe on, so you are encouraged to share it with the world to use, and recieve compensation as a result. It isn't so some random guy or corperation that didn't invent shit can play bully with people.
Patent bullying needs to be stopped period.
(*): It's article 1, section 8, clause 8 of the constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
In the security settings you can tell it to prompt you before running ActiveX controls (and also in other places like before downloading them).
Yeah ok, that works for web page authors, so long as they dont want to access remote data (which is quite often)... but what about all those pages out there that don't get changed? I want to be able to hack IE to display them as normal, not expect web page developers to modify their pages. This 'NOEXTERNALDATA' flag tell IE to go looking for remote data in the params and not pass it to the object if it exists - not the 'one byte hack to the client' I was hoping for.
_you_ read my fucking post.
I.O.U One Sig.
I say that all free programmers writing new code should use GPL with a rider that says that no entity that owns any software patents can use this code. After a while it would become increasingly painful to even own a software patent.
On the OSS side of things, this should be a (small) boon to projects like Konq and Mozilla that aren't going to require all the online applications and plugins to be re-coded.
In other words, it took a silly patent lawsuit against Microsoft that is bad for the web for the OSS browsers to bother catching up to IE's level of usage.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Shouldn't be too hard to write a program that watches for that dialog box and hits OK for you. Security be damned. Its a windows box. As for open source browsers, if they are required to do something like this they should be sure there is an easy source code work around. Maybe they can't distribute their software with the work around in place, but just download the source, muck with a few lines of code, and re-compile. At least power-users won't have to deal with it. There's no law against modifying the source on your system. Yet.
Go to teh security settings and tell IE to prompt you before running an ActiveX control. It'll then ask your permission, which you may give or not. This box is a lame-ass notification that they are forcing on people because of the patent. IF you want it to ask you, that's a different setting, and already available.
..or useful or good in any real way - but I suppose you already knew that.
I think we'll be seeing more and more of this garbage in the years to come - software coded awkwardly to get around useless patents.
My solution? Cut the time on software/business patents to 3 years. Plenty of time to build a lead based on a valid new idea - very little opportunity to "pre-patent" an obvious idea to extort with later.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Only those web developers who have been in the habit of putting form before substance. So long as web sites work well with all "extras" like Java, Javascript and ActiveX they can serve users who disable those features.
I quite agree, Eolas are a much worse evil in this instance (though I'm sure they do not seem themselves that way, they no doubt belive they are heros of some kind), I was so disgusted I sent them the following email...
To: info@eolas.com
Date: Tue Oct 07, 2003 03:09:36 PM BST
Subject: Congratulations on your lawsuit
I would like to congratulate you on managing to successfully sue Microsoft and still manage to be seen as a despicable bunch of malevolent malcontents by the public at large (including industry professionals).
By exploiting the US legal and patent system and it's weaknesses (in particular it's notorious inability to deal with technical software cases) and infecting the rest of the world with your insipid patent claim (which is an insult to everybody with any knowledge of browsers, plugins, going as far back as the original inspiration for Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Atkinson's HyperCard) you have made the web a less pleasant experience, and you haven't actually contributed anything new to the concept of software plugins (those of us who remember HyperCards XCMD's are more than aware of that, even if the US patent office and the courts were not).
I'm sure your all convincing yourselves you've 'slain a giant' and that you are trying to re-enforce that opinion among yourselves for your own benefit, even though the rest of the world is largely telling you otherwise, most vocally. I'm sure you will casually disregard the voices you do not wish to hear.
Many people (those working for free in the open source world, as well as plugin developers and commercial software developers and web content maintainers) will now have to spend many man years working on an alternative non-patent-infringing format so they can be sure to remain free from your legal shenanigans. This is time that they could have spent working on other free an open software for the benefit of everyone (or who knows, even at the park, or at home with their families!). Not to mention all the end users that will be effected by this and who will have to now spend time downloading, installing and working around 'fixes' that will be necessary in the wake of your decision to sue.
In your own special way, you have truly made the world a worse place to live in.
Congratulations.
--
Ahh, the joys of the useless, single choice confirm box.
How exactly does this solve anything?
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
Nice choices.
"Press OK to continue loading the content of this page."
The only choice is OK! there's no cancel, no, or fuck yourself ms!
This is a perfect example of what we do NOT want to see happening all over. Eolas is as wrong on this issue as SCO is on Linux, and just as evil. Claiming to own such an idea is silly, and it greatly undermines the idea of an open web.
Perhaps this would have been a perfect oportunity to more-vocally show Microsoft that we stand on principles of openness. At least in this article I see little hint of the outrage that would have been caused if it had happened (and it still could) to a product we care about. We should care deeply. As long as Microsoft ships a browser that relies on a number of open standards, it represents a victory of Netscape over Microsoft. That Microsoft still earns no money (in the usual Microsoft-extorted sense) on this browser is a further victory.
It would have done the cause of open software a lot more good to have Microsoft more-vocally supported on principles of openness and freedom by fighting against this instead of letting them release a quick fix and fall back to the position "we respect intellectual property of other companies [because next time we will be sure it is us screwing the community for profit]."
Perhaps Microsoft was not willing, but who has tried to make any sort of campaign of it?
As with SCO, we should be sure that the perpetrators of this evil act are tracked and having the name of Eolas software on your resume is considered a black mark by our community.
This is ridiculous. Basically the ruling appears to state that:
Plug-ins are OK as long they don't load external data
If they do, microsoft can't load it for you without a prompt
BUT you can document.write it in and avoid the prompt
BUT only if the script is in an external file...
So the key point here seems not to be with plug-ins (which obviously pre-date the patent) but plug-ins using EXTERNAL data...
Now this just doesn't make sense. The HTML standard has ALWAYS supported full urls being used in ALL tag that can get data ie. <img src="http://external.com/image.gif"> In fact the HTML standard was written specifically so that it doesn't care if data is local or not.
So in conclusion, why would Chewbacca live on Endor... this just does not make sense... I rest my case
In IE6, I can already get a prompt that asks "Do you want to allow software such as ActiveX controls and plug-ins to run?". You can also choose to get prompted for (un)signed controls when they are first downloaded and installed. It looks like you can also set up IE to only run Administrator approved controls, or choose to disable them altogether.
All this change will do is prompt in certain situations regardless of the security settings you have chosen.
yes I misspell words so it gives people who are unable to post witty comebacks something to write about.
By generating the ActiveX create control client side in a JavaScript. See here.
IANAL, but it seems to me that this work-around simply puts the responsibility for the patent breach on the web-site owner and not Microsoft. Lets see Eolas go after and sue every Joe WebMeister. Let me guess, they'll go after the pr0n sites first?...
I am very concerned about the real out come from this. Since my crystal ball runs Windowz it is not working. Micro$oft settled with these "People" and gave them enough cash to pay lawyers for quite a long time. Who/what else is going to wind up "infringing" ?
Now Micro$oft is going to make "changes" to IE, just what is no longer compatible? Let me guess, all older versions of IE. Are all web pages no longer going to be able to support older versions of IE with out "infringing"? Now which versions of the Microsoft OS are going to get new versions of IE? Win XP for sure, Win2K? Win9x will probably not get a new version. Now it will become unusable.
Now it's easy to start a rallying cry about getting new users on the LINUX platform, by suggesting that disgruntled users will switch. However most of them are probably not really tech savvy and were really stressed to get their AOL CD into the computer in the first place.
I guess more obsolete computers on the used/surplus/junk market is a good thing? The users left in the lurch will most likely buy new computers with some Micro$oft OS, on them.
Now worst cast paranoid thought. Micro$oft wanted this to happen.
In the preview page there is a sample of the dialog box that will be presented to the user when a plug-in with external data is used. Notice that it only has one button and that is the OK button. This is terrible UI. There should be at least another button, cancel, where the plugin will not be loaded if it is selected and possibly any alt text displayed. It would be nice if there was a simple way to diable plug-ins from that dialog box as well instead of having to hunt and peck through the prefs.
I can just see users getting fed up with this and feeling yelling something like, "No it is NOT okay!"
Great... are they reading /. now? The ad says "Entertainment that tunes into you".
Why doesn't any one care or mention that Michael Doyle is
a University Researcher
and does
Tcl programming
and that Microsoft had been in talks with him for years concerning embeding applications into IE before they dissed him.
This guy is a typical Slashdot geek - shafted by Microsoft.
I'm a little skeptical of Microsoft/Macromedia's fix. A jury of 12 reasonable Joe Blows decided that Eolas has a patent on all web-browser plugin technology. Microsoft's fix is to use Javascript write the tag instead of having it directly on the page.
This feels more like a PR move than a solution to the patent.
For f**k's sake! What is so hard about the word "lose"? "Loose" means something completely different.
All this Eolas guy did was clamp down on the independent browser makers -more-.
so MS figures out a workaround... due to the fact that IE holds 95% of the market, all the big plugin vendors will change their access methods to support the new workaround.
So web developers who wish maximum coverage (nearly all) will change their html code to support the new access method.
Then, either other browser vendors have to spend just as much money to maintain compatibility, or they lose the features on any site that has switched to support 95% of the internet.
And a small browser company's turnover time for making the change is going to be longer than MS, as they don't have the swarms of programmers. So it costs the independent software developers at least the same in programmer wages (excepting -purely- OSS browsers) to do the change, but costs them more in user-satisfaction and market-share as they have a longer time without the features, and they've lost programming time they could have been using to -improve- their own browser.
How much time has the Opera or Safari team already lost just doing CYA code reviews to ensure they're not in an exposed legal position?
And as for this altruistic notion that Eolas is only out to stop the Big Bad Guy... what happens if IE does lose market share to something like Opera? What happens when Eolas would suddenly decide that that Opera's business tactics weren't fair either?
There's too much legal risk for a browser developer to -not- migrate to supporting the new method right away. Sure, they'll probably be backwards compatible to the old way - but what web developer wants to embed an activex plugin in their web content that is unusable to 95% of their potential market?
Keep in mind that this new plugin requirement only needs to displays an 'Ok' box in the event that the plugin data is remote. Meaning if you go to homestarrunner.com and watch an sbemail flash movie hosted from homestarrunner.com - there's no messagebox; it's still a seamless experience.
So what does this mean? Well... it does mean that you'll have to click Ok once for every remotely hosted activex ad (nightmare).
I myself tend to think that web hosts would sooner drop plugin ads, or start hosting locally long before they'd suffer through potentially losing 95% of their viewers.
(I certainly hope that IE ads a config option so I can disable remote activex data streams altogether. That'd be a pretty good adblocker. I guess there may be a silver lining.)
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Maybe some jobs will be created out of this. We need them badly.
br>
This is really bad. ActiveX exploits will have a field day with this one.
Right now, it is a rare event when IE pops the "security alert". Rare enough that, if it does pop up, my father/mother/sister will be surprised, call me and ask me what the fuck is that. If it is kosher, I authorize it. If it isn't (as is the case, 90% of times) I refuse it. The point is, it is a "rare and unknown" event in the browsing experience and it raises alarm flags.
But now, if it becomes a commonplace ocurrence, people will (in bigger numbers than before!) click on yes without ever reading the warning. Say hello to ActiveX 0wn3r5h1p of your windows box.
I've been having IE prompt me to run ActiveX controls since IE5 came out. And it's not THAT big of a deal to click 'Cancel' on a site that I don't approve of.
The full quote is:
"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
--Martin Niemoeller
Feel free to mod offtopic...
The summary lists some rather interesting looking automated solutions for updating your web pages, though the manual method may be more reliable.
No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
Gosh, back in 1996 I wrote an ActiveX control trying to warn everyone that this was a bad, bad idea. Embedding native code on a web page is plain stupid. Maybe it's time to open source the code for this thing so it can be brought up to date now that everyone is interested again? Last time I opened my mouth about this Cornelius Willis (platform director at M$) called me "...clearly not an author that anyone can trust" and I ended up spending $600 on lawyers to fend off their proxy attack via Verisign. Anyone else willing to take up the cause? Mike Doyle has been pretty clear about his intent on this, he intends to deny MS the patent and allow other browsers to keep on rolling. His intent? To allow the web to return to it's original platform agnostic experience. Not a bad thing given that 95% of the (IMHO) foolish public is running IE these days. Since most web sites only support IE and Netscrape 4.7 (gack!) isn't this a good thing?
I'm so conflicted over this. I mean, on the one hand, I applaud MS's stance in all of this. By breaking their browser, they are sending a message to the world that software patents suck. On the other hand, they're breaking their browser and making a lot of busy work for web developers to go back and fix their sites.
The part I really love though is the instructions for dealing with the changes. Basically, if your Active-X control references content which is outside of the loading page, the confirm box pops up. Ah, but if you encode all of your parameters in base64 and pass them in that way, the confirm box won't pop up (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
but the Eolas guy specifically says that he wanted to use his patent to change the landscape of the broswer industry; he talks about allowing other browsers back into the market by only enforcing his patent against Microsoft
I fail to see how this will "change the landscape of the broswer industry". Microsoft published instructions on how to create web pages that do not prompt the user. Greater than 90% of web browsers are IE. So every web developement firm (or company that puts up it's own public website) will have to do extra work to fix old sites and write new ones (or else their customers, the people whose content on the sites will complain).
Nothing will change, except for wasted work hours. IE will still be the dominant web browser (which may change in the future, but not because of Eolas).
The point of this dialog is NOT to enhance security, or give the user a choice, it's to get around the patent. That's it's only purpose.
http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/EdCur ry
I knew Ed himself at the time he died. While Microsoft did nothing directly to him that caused the stroke, I have no doubt in my mind that they were behind the events that led to him being unable to find employment.
InThane
I believe the previous poster was referring to a one-byte hack in IE, not the control. If you are running IE v 7.0, just run this little batch file that lauches DEBUG.EXE to change byte at address 0x80000000 from a 1 to a 0 and you will no longer be bothered by this silly little dialog box that pops up. Or just run a tiny little program that is constantly looking for a dialog with the specified Title and Body and automatically presses the OK button for you. You would barely even see the flashing dlg.
It's not just the precedent. If/When Eolas comes racketeering for the other browsers, they've got a problem: no $420 million to pony up. Since this sort of functionality is essential to modern browsers, what Eolas has essentially done is raise a barrier to entry to the browser market that only rich, established companies can hurdle. Microsoft actually *wins* on this one, because (a) they look like a victim while (b) they get one of their favorite things, a non-technical barrier to entry against competitors.
Tweet, tweet.
Tested by me in Firebird v0.7rc and it works like a charm. Great extension!
Should work with no problems in Mozilla too.
Seems to me that it's not really a bad idea that IE prompt the user before loading active-x controls anyway...loading them by default is a pretty big security risk...
Not me! I want Microsoft to lose this case. If microsoft loses this case, more and more people will become aware of the danger of software patents. Nobody is going to realise the danger of software patents when a handful of Free software projects are affected. This specific case has drawn a lot of attention to the issue of software patents because it's microsoft at one end. I wish more and more software lawsuits would come up and more and more people become aware of this. There is nothing to be complacent about when microsoft or somebody like them wins a couple of lawsuits and software patents largly remain.
That'll teach ya to spend your time doing useful work instead of studying pedantic english rules all day.
- Clippy
According to Microsoft's User Experience page:
"In some cases--for example, streaming media--it may not be desirable to provide all data within the current Web page. You can prevent Internet Explorer from prompting the user by using Dynamic HTML (DHTML) to load ActiveX controls from script."
So maybe their hearts just aren't really in it.
Tis I: Me.
==========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Hi Pirhana, take a bite out of this one: The word "loose" means "not tight" or "to set free". The word you're looking for is "lose", which means "to not win (a game)". An easy way to remember this is that 'lose lost an o to loose, who was set loose.' Unless you meant to imply that Microsoft should "set the case free"? Just kidding. Happy typing! GrammarFairy dust for you: ,.'"`~'.~'".,~',.
-GrammarFairy
Hi,
I see here:
http://eolas.com/licensing.html
that you engage in licensing your technologies.
I am interested in licensing all available rights to your "Web Application
Platform" (U.S. Patent 5,838,906) technology, aka "plug-ins", for use by the
entire Internet community via a free, transferable, commercial license, e.g.
the LGPL, for the rest of the term of your patent.
Many products would potentially use this license, including all versions of
every web browser, possibly including every browser listed here:
http://www.browserlist.browser.org/
The license would also be extended to any group or individual for any new
product or technology development, including but not limited to web browsers.
The market size is difficult to estimate, though you may already have some
internal estimates. Since it would be available under a maximally flexible
license, e.g. the LGPL, my estimate is that the first year market size in
number of users may be in the 10 to 100 million range, possibly approaching a
billion or more during the term of the license period.
There are great benefits to this licensing agreement. The plug-in technology
would inevitably do the public as much good as it has already. Your company
would enjoy the high praise of the Internet commons. The technology would
maintain an historically important place in your patent portfolio. And, I
must add, you would have my deep thanks.
I think you will see that this situation is very exciting and so agree to
engage in this most promising of licensing opportunities.
Cheers,
Pablo Mayrgundter
freality.com
(haha, /. pulls one on the grammar fairy: here's a formatted message in plain old text)
,.'"`~'.~'".,~',.
Hi Pirhana, take a bite out of this one:
The word "loose" means "not tight" or "to set free". The word you're looking for is "lose", which means "to not win (a game)".
An easy way to remember this is that 'lose lost an o to loose, who was set loose.'
Unless you meant to imply that Microsoft should "set the case free"? Just kidding.
Happy typing!
GrammarFairy dust for you:
-GrammarFairy
From the article:
"We believe the evidence will ultimately show that there was no infringement of any kind, and that the accused feature in our browser technology was developed by our own engineers based on pre-existing Microsoft technology," a Microsoft spokesperson said in early August when a federal court jury delivered its verdict.
Welcome to what happens when you open Pandora's Box. What the lawyer/spokesperson/talking head missed here is that it *doesn't matter* if you built the system inside of a dark room sealed in a nuke-proof underground bunker - if someone else already has a patent on it, they own the idea. There is no "but *we* built this version!" cry that works, when someone 'patents software' they are essentially forbidding you to think or create without their permission.
Copyright prevents you from lifting their code and claiming it as your own.
Patents prevent you from building your own ideas if they happen to overlap someone else's.
Yep, you are ALL partially correct, and I will therefore partially retract my statement.
I will admit that the stability is MUCH better on NT based systems (W2K, XP), but the machine I use the most, which is at work, is still Win98. That is where I have the occasional IE crashes that also freeze the whole machine.
I will grant that it might be something else in the background, like Novell, etc. causing the crash, but at the time it happens I was only activly using IE, so that is where I place the blame. (Also, IIRC, the blue screen text points the finger at IE as well.)
(E.A.R., Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt by the way.)
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
I assume you are accusing me of witlessness?
I have better things to do than correct people's spelling. I meant it was funny that you chose "knashing" because of the KDE obsession with preceding everything with a K. I just wondered if it was a deliberate choice, Freudian slip, or just coincidence...
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
We don' need no steeeking laches!
meh.
Eolas' website says they "invented" the stylized "e" logo (the @ symbol applied to the letter "e") and in 1997 licensed it to IBM.
My original Nettle blog had not only the "e" but the "n", the "t", and the "l" stylized in the logo. I registered the nettle.com domain in 1996, and the first thing I did was create a logo for it.
See here: http://www.nettle.com/archives/000061.html
My test page demonstrates that the suggested solution doesn't work. Even when I externally document.write() the <object> or <applet> tag, the popup still appears.
Gerv
I am by no means an expert, but if we start having users clicking "OK" to continue boxes and people get trained to do so, won't it be VERY easy to make a fake dialoge that is actualy a POP up that will do nasty things?
http://www.ohlssonvox.com
What better way to make the public aware of this patent crap than by popping up irritating dialog boxes mentioning it every time they look at a web site.
K
Has Microsoft or anybody else attempted to patent the workaround/solution to the Eolas patent? Has Microsoft said they will not patent it, or attempt to?
I don't know that there was one. Their only other alternative was a dialog box with a choice. From their descriptions, it sounds like the user can pick this alternative if they'd like. Pretending the dialog box is some kind of security measure would be retarded, given how easy it is to work around (and working around it is what MS wants everyone to do!).
And that's the real solution - everyone will work around this to get back to "the way it always was". Web authors will quickly discover how to accomplish exactly the same things (seamless integration) using script and such (as MS explains on the article page).
That message box will quickly be seen as an error message, the equivalent of "page authors didn't update page to take into account this thing - hit OK to continue". And that's exactly what MS wants it to be - an obstacle to get everyone to work around.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
What follows is from What do I know
-----------
Get Ready for IE Changes
Apple has posted helpful developer documentation concerning the changes Microsoft will be making (as required by the Eolas case) to Internet Explorer in early 2004, and how web developers (on any platform) can prepare now in advance:
To prepare yourself for the ensuing insanity, solution includes using external javascript files to write (document.write) the object / embed tags into a document instead of directly writing the tags into your code. This means that each and every piece of embedded content (Flash, QuickTime, Java, whatever) would require a unique external javascript file, or a builder-function you pass attributes to to embed your rich content.
By abstracting the embedding process through JavaScript, rich media content will behave in the same seamless, non-user initiated manner it currently does. But if developers don't abstract the object/embed elements, and a visitor views the page using the upcoming revised build of IE, they will have to click through a series of dialog boxes granting permission for their browser to load the content.
Whichever way, the new workarounds will lead to page bloat, additional server-calls, confusion, and additional monetary expense / time suckage for businesses and web developers everywhere. Yay Eolas.
help out.
What a mess.
Certainly there must be prior art for such an obvious software implementation. Thank you USPTO for your complete ineptitude. And thank you legal system for your ineptitude as well.
Eolas probabally just wants to cash-in on the $250 million patent settlement. I don't think MS intentionally lost the case in order to squeeze the competition. MS provides a trivial javascript work-around at the bottom of the new IE documentation. Any browser which runs javascript can presumably do the same. MS' documentation seems to state that the patent covers external program and data referenced within a web page, but it does not cover a second layer of indirection, such as an externally included javascript file that itself includes external activex object data.
So that is the new work around.
But it does create a whole new upgrade-cycle of
browser exploits. Previously, javascript could be filtered, which made it much more simple to filter out the remaining active content.
But now all the active content must be put into javascript, so filters will have to be able to process javascript to indirectly filter out the active content. Since the majority of the IE exploits target activex and embedded objects, there will be a long road of successful IE exploits until this new filter technology is stable.
This disproves the conspiracy theory that says MS lost the patent case intentionally.
Why would MS lose this patent case and accept the consequences of a whole new round of IE exploits and Virii/worms?
That would be just plain dumb, especially when your company is being sued in California for creating insecure software, and your reputation for providing secure products is at an all time low!
It'll be interesting if Opera is required to make changes to its browser. Remember, it's based in Norway, and (Norwegians, please correct me if I'm wrong on this) Norway doesn't quite have patents as of now.
More than mere navel gazing.
Could an entity with a solid claim to prior art sue the USPO to get the patent withdrawn? If granting patents like this isn't negligence I don't know what is. Any real (as opposed to armchair) lawyers care to comment?
>Not me ! I want Microsoft to loose this case. If microsoft loose this case, more and more people will become aware of the danger of software patents. Nobody is going to realise the danger of software patents when a handful of Free software projects are affected.
I thought the same thing at first, that it would be best for Microsoft to win this so that others do not get sued. But that would be justice, and hardly a shining example for the public to see if we want them to think that software patents are bad.
Now, it's a bit of a stretch (but maybe not too much). Remember how during the antitrust hearings Microsoft suddenly started using the word "innovation" about every ten seconds? Then it began appearing in all their advertising. Now they need to step up the propoganda campaign again with a message to the public that software patents stifle their ability to Innovate.
"...at Microsoft, it's about creativity and innovation. It's about people, not patents..."
By leveraging the immense Mircosoft lobbying and propaganda machine, we might actually get something done about software patents! What if everyone started writing to Microsoft with concern about what software patents might do to them? "We're worried about your business!" It might actually be a lot more effective than trying to complain directly to our reps in congress.
Umm... a jury already awarded Eolas $521 million in damages due to the patent infringement. What else do you want them to lose?
"Microsoft is abusing companies with a ridiculous set of patents"
Microsoft is actually using their patent portofolio in a purely defensive way; they have never yet sued a company based on the patents allocated to them.
You mean "Opportunity Pops Up".
These new pop up ads designed to look like a Windows dialog will not easily confuse you or me, or Mac users. Users of good browsers won't even see these popups.
It really affects only IE users, who are unable to disable popups, and whose genuine dialog box looks like the popup.
Another beneficial effect is that Windows users will be so accustomed to OK'ing these dialogs, that they will think nothing of it. This makes it easier to run a plug in that does something bad.
And all of this is a bad thing how again?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I'd like to boycott ActiveX anyway... I don't want to encourage people to create ActiveX apps (Sidestep) which only run on IE.
"he drew his sword Ringil that glittered like ice... and he wounded Morgoth with seven wounds..."
You have to abide by the laws of the country you do bussiness in. So if the US requires that you do X to obey a law, you must to X if you wish to sell your product here. Now no one forces you to sell here, you can tell the US to fuck off and do as you please in your home land, but if you want to sell in a given place, you have to obey the laws.
Good example: Gun magazines. The US currently has a law restricting the sale of any new gun magazines to 10 rounds (with few exceptions). Well, many pistols have a higher native capacity than that, their normal magazine is larger. However, when sold in the US civilian market, they are sold with 10 round magazines, though they are sold with larger ones elsewhere.
Progress with respect to inventions means that new things get invented and people have access to them. If I invent a cool new thing or process, I can get a patent so people can't rip off my idea. That makes it available to the world (you can just look at teh patent to see what I did), but allows me to make money. The ecenomic incentive also encourages people to do research like this. Lots of research is very expensive on the research side, but cheap on the manufacturing side. Materials research is often like this. You spend billions comming up with some awesome new materials (like Kevlar) which can then be fairly cheaply manufactured by anyone. Well there must be some economic incentive to be the one guy that spends teh billions ot research it as opposed to those that just take the idea and make it, hence patents.
This is NOT what this guy is doing. He's using his patent as a weapon to try and unfairly cripple one company. It is unfair, make no mistake. This is just as unfair as if Microsoft owned the patent and tried to do the same thing to Mozilla. Being the biggest does not change anything.
However this is really a bad patent. PAtents are supposed to be only for novel processess and non-obvious ideas. The concempt of embedding things seemesly is perfectly obvious.
It's a bad patent and he's using it in a way he shouldn't. It shows what is wrong with teh patent system.
Given that you can get someone offed for some far more trivial than the the sum Microsoft paid to this Eolas guy, I think he would be wise to invest some cash in an object suite of bodyguards. Microsoft is like an elephant, it has a long memory and I assume they're going to watch him to try and make a slip up somewhere.
http://www.ozzie.net/blog/stories/2003/09/12/savin gTheBrowser.html
Only for Windows users. Nobody else. Thank God.
Wow, the technical details of the workaround are so, so sad:
(1) It's not ok for the <object> to have a <param> with a URL value; but it's ok if the <param> value is a URL that has been "disguised" by using BASE64 encoding.
(2) It's not ok for a <script> to generate the HTML for the <object> if a <param> contains a URL value, unless that script is located in a different source file.
Man, this is seriously jacked up. It's infuriating that the judge in the patent case will never understand that the only thing that's been accomplished here is forcing engineers to make stupid little changes in their code.
The people who know how fucked up this is don't have any power; and the people with the power don't have a fucking clue.
... they ought to fix IE's .png support as well. Not that I use IE, but it annoys me when the transparencies in my avatars don't show up correctly on other people's computers!
The new IE will generate a warning when processing an OBJECT tag that references external data. The only exception to this will be OBJECT tags generated from within javascript
The warning will be a dialog box with a single choice "OK" after that the active-X component (flash, java, quicktime, etc..) will function normally
To see a good sample on how to use OBJECT tags in the new version of IE look here
So nobody (including me) likes Eolas because they're (ab)using software patents. Microsoft and many web page authors will have to do a lot of work because of it. What if Eolas donates his ill-gotten $$$$ to Mozilla? What if Eolas allows Mozilla to use the "infringing" technology?
Hypocrites abound...
Behold the new ad campaign, every internet advert will look just like this ...
Click here to continue
I can harldly wait!
MoRe... LaTeR... -=PJK=-
OK - so far so good. Then they get to this part: I can see where this is going... So- in summary: Writing the code directly in HTML is a violation and will trigger IE to spit the silly dialog box. Having JavaScript (and therefore the browser itself) write the offending code is just kosher. Wow.
Culture is more than commerce
This is clearly what is meant by "innovation through litigation." It's about the only way Microsoft is going to make any changes to IE anymore now that it has no competition.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Because the software world hasn't had big, market changing innovations lately. Really, I mean that. And I see no reason why a new software idea couldn't be on the market within a year.
Think I'm wrong? Name one real software idea that fits these criteria:
1. Patented in the last 3 years
2. Could not be exploited for a reasonable "head start" profit in 3 years
Show me that, and I'll show you a useless, obvious or redundant patent - a patent that will only be used to harm innovation down the road.
It's only been luck that we haven't seen more damage from bad software patents. Law should be changed now, or we'll see real problems in 2015. 3 years (or thereabouts) is a compromise that could protect most legitimate interests, I think.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Any idiot knows that if you set all the others to default and just disable "Script ActiveX controls marked safe for scripting." to diabled you'll never run any ActiveX controls safe or otherwise and you won't get that popup warning either.
Another Slashdot poster with the mentality of a rock, that's never bothered to figure out how the IE browser really works.
Microsoft just got hit with a $500M damage award for past infringement. You can buy a lot of lawyers for that much money, even discounting the cost of modifying IE. I'm sure they did their best to fight the patent.
The patent applies to the people making the browser, not the people making the websites.
Yes they will, and you'll be forced to click through a pop-up dialog with no cancel button for each one, too.
DNA just wants to be free...
If HTML had been a patented product of some company then nobody would have used it. It really wouldn't have been that hard to come up with a competitor language. Or perhaps they could have hid the patent for years, and then dug it up to blackmail everyone in 1999 with it. Great!
Alternatively, perhaps they could have patented the whole idea of markup language (or something). Wouldn't you have been glad this patent wore off after 3 years (say, around 1995)? Do you remember that Netscape charged a lot of money for their browser at one point, and made a lot of money doing so? If they had had exclusivity from a patent, they could have made more.
A 3 year patent would have done absolutely nothing to help them
They certainly could have got off to a good start in that much time. Evidence: they did - even without a patent preventing competition (and they made money doing so). Do you remember the period in which Netscape still charged $50 for Navigator and Internet Explorer was free? 3 years is an eternity for software.
Windows CE. What is patentable there? The idea of a handheld operating system? Well, in that case Palm definitely demonstrated that you can build a solid business out of a short lead. A perfect example, really. Imagine if they'd had 3 years of exclusivity on the whole idea? Or if Psion had? Or even HP?
Imagine now that someone had been able to patent "software to play mp3s on a portable device". Supposing it took a year to get to market, that's still two years of monopoly. That would be a huge windfall to pay for their innovation.
Again, I can't think of bad example.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
So if I understand what's going on...
Some folks have a patent that is infringed by the behavour of embed and object tags in web pages. Sooooo Instead of paying these folks the exorbidant cost of a patent license, 'cause they wanted too much..., we are going to redesign the browser to avoid use of that method.
Ok. So the new method is no harder to employ.
[I just checked the FAQ on the macromedia site.] Just different, and it avoids the patent. Until then and forever, old browsers work with the new or old technology.[ibid] And the new browser will annoy everyone with a popup for every infringing embed tag.
The patent holder gets nothing.
We all run around like chickens updating browsers.
The laywers go home with lots of fees for this case.
And after all the dust settles, the WWW looks just like it did before...
I wanna be a laywer when I grow up....
A. C. [who is 54 now and wishes he went to law school rather than C S school.]
What you are saying essentially boils down to "patents create monopolies" and "monopolies do not promote progress". The first one may be true or not, I'm not sure. But the second one is not.
Look at Microsoft. Why do they create a new version of MS Office every now and then? NOT because there is competition. You could even argue that there is no competetion. In fact, I bet that MS does not fear Open Office as a competitor.
A monopolist creates new versions of its products to be able to sell. For the sake of argument, imagine MS Office 2005 is perfect. Plain perfect. Nothing can be improved. No competitor can do better. Does that mean we'd be using MS Office 2005 long after 2030? Unlike physical goods, software doesn't break down simply because of its age. There is no corrosion. But no, I bet there would be an Office 2007 as well. MS would need the revenue of the new version.
This story may seem highly hypothetical to you all, but it does show that competition is not the only possible driver to inovation. A software monopolist has very good reasons to inovate as well.
Are you sure you want to click on this link?
Are you really sure you want to click on this link?
Clicking on this link will make your computer blow up, do you want to continue?
YES YES YES!!! All I want to do is load the slashdot homepage!
I'm becoming more and more convinced that prior art isn't the issue with software patents, and much more should be considered than what is currently. In the case you point out there was prior art, but this isn't always the case with software patents. Sometimes they're just small extensions to ideas that already exist. (Think one-click shopping, for example, which is just another business application for existing technology.)
In the context of physical invention, it's actually plausible to have a patent that spans a number of years. This is a reasonable time for someone to be able to take their idea, develop it, market it and make money from it. Most likely however, with a few exceptions that should be picked up by the patent office, it's not very likely that someone else will develop the same solution to the same problem within a short time. This is not true with software.
One of the biggest problem with software patents is that they last for a length of time that's dis-proportionate to the software development medium in which they restrict. Technology and software ideas in particular is moving as a phenomenal pace compared with physical invention. It'd make more sense for software patents to last no longer than a year or two at most, and that's being generous.
Software patents are completely different. Technology advances and people immedaitely have ideas to take advantage of the improved technology. But if you have a great idea about how to use new technology in an innovative way, it's likely that other people will also have the same idea completely independently. If they don't have that idea before you, then they'll probably have it within a short time.
The problem is that even though both people develop and market their idea, it's only the first person who can get the patent.
I suppose the biggest problem here is that most software patents are trivial, even if it's not obvious at the time. The fact that within a short space of time most software ideas are likely to be duplicated independently should demonstrate that awarding them to one person for such a long time is just silly.
If software patents are to exist, then they should also take into account just how rapidly things change and how quickly people independently come to the same conclusions and ways of doing things. Something trivial in software is different from something trivial in physical-world inventions. It shouldn't just be prior art that matters with software patents. Future art that is developed within some reasonable time span should also be considered.
i can see how many gator installations i will have to clean off because of this crap new system. i dont see why MS has to be such idiots. if they had just liscensed the technology from the start we wouldnt have to deal with the crap like this
On seeing the icons in this story it's remarkable that the IE logo still looks good after all those years. I guess it's a testiment to the enduring beauty of simplicity. It's partly the reason i don't like KDE, which has often been keen to endorse "Trendy" stuff like glassball icons and aquafied look.
...why would Chewbacca live on Endor[?]...
Midget Pussy
Eh, as long as Mozilla keeps up with their current font handeling I'm stuck compiling it every release anyway. Tracking down the exact code in there the first time would be a pain, but it's be fairly trivial past that point to get the old functionality back even if they did change it.
Everything will be taken away from you.
The point is top level policy and security now has to HARDCODED to call named applications in pages - messy and plain stupid. A minor change in policy requires a global revision of all pages. This is incredibly bad and time consuming. Zero administration just did a U-turn bigtime.
MS needs to define some extra global variables in its browser so that 99% of the common apps are pre defined. However this does not fix the problem that by allowing apps to automatically reply to an active x prompt, viruses and worms will have an equal opportunity to asynchonously spawn a thread and self approve their actions.
If IE remains dominant, so will its reputation for allowing viruses and worms wreak havoc every so often. The extra information so hardcoded, is also information a carefully crafted virus can discover and act upon.
The security implications are not good.
This is a HUGE deal.
Many of my client's web sites employ some form of rich-media through the use of plug-ins.
I will have to implement this crappy workaround for each and every one... all while explaining to my clients why they have to pay me again to fix something that was working fine.
And don't give me that "plugins = bad" nonsense. I'm not talking about sites completely built in Flash or annoying 3 minute intros to a web site with two pages.
Microsoft will will on appeal, Juries are full of idiots that couldn't get out of jury duty.
What users are you referring to?
I've never met an "average user" who actually read dialog boxes or technical commentary - regardless of length or non-techiness.
Besides, MS preaching to users about software patent legislation would be laughable since they employ the same practices themselves!
So now when I visit a site that has three, four or more separate plug-in elements on the page, I gotta click three, four or more times before I can even view the content.
Yeah, that's not bad or anything.
Now that most people have gotten adjusted to using the Internet, they'll be in for a little shock when they have a dialogue box pop up every time they come to a website with dynamic components that access external data.
Your Mother/Grandmother (and the neophytes of the world): "Son/Grandson, what happened to my Internet? I used to get the dancing baby, but, after I upgraded my Internet to the new version my computer told me was critical to get, I get this funny message box every time I go to that site. Could you fix that for me?"
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
Reading the "tips" page from MS says that only OBJECT tags with parameters cause the loading confirmation box, presumably because the parameters refer to an external data source. If the app is a static blob, w/out external data, no confirmation is required.
Oh, or if you add the magic "just do it" tag/attribute (I forgot the name, but it's there).
All this crud is contingent upon tips in the HTML, IE is still happy to run ActiveVex trojans, er, valuable content automagically in many situations.
Yow! I'm supposed to have a plan?
If I don't implement/install those changes that they made to IE and the o/s, is Microsoft still liable?
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Since prior art doesn't seem to matter, this should be a cinch. You could call it "Method and process for annoying the heck out of web surfers".
It's working for me in Mozilla and Safari.
=S
I think MS chose the wording they did...
...specifically to make it clear that there was no functionality here (ie, that this wasn't some new security feature or something) - that it is just a time wasting interstitial.
Press OK to continue loading the content of this page.
I think your wording accomplishes the same, while also perhaps giving the unclued developer some hint as to how to fix it. Perhaps they also could have had an extra little help button to provide an explanation of where the box came from.
Anyways, the whole thing frustrates me...
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Is the patent ruling effective worldwide, or only in the USA? Will Microsoft offer me a Canadian version of MSIE which loads plug-ins the way it's supposed to, or has Eolas ruined it for everybody?