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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."
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?
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.
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
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.
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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
Actually, the dialog shown only allows you to click "OK". Who needs options when you've got Windows :-)
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
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?
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
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
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"
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.
--
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