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Microsoft Bows to Eolas, Revamps IE
Tenacious Dee writes "The patent quarrel between Microsoft and Eolas takes a strange turn with an announcement from Redmond that the Internet Explorer browser will be modified to change the way ActiveX controls are handled. A Microsoft white paper details the behavior change."
They could perhaps just remove ActiveX entirely, insecure as it has proven to be.
It sounds like this might break a few IE-based applications out there as well...
That's what should happen anyway, stupid patent or no stupid patent. You shouldn't be able to go to a web page and have it run whatever it wants to on your computer. This won't protect against tricking the human, but it does raise the bar slightly for classic phishing popups, viruses and spyware.
I'd say Microsoft wised up a little, except that there are probably other ways to get IE to run ActiveX without user intervention.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
I think that's a great idea too. However I'm under impression there's a larger issue at stake which may affect more than just the IE ActiveX technology. Eolas stands to "adversely" affect other technologies with a court ruling in its favour. I'm not commenting on who is right or wrong. I don't have enough info. Maybe somebody else could comment futher on what else might be a stake besides Microsoft's ActiveX technology ...
Here's an article from 1995 (Yeah, pdf sucks, but it's very telling about what's going on)
It appears no browser will be safe. Safari, Firefox, Opera, KHTML, etc. The 1995 article discusses applets, not ActiveX. This is precedent setting, and could have consequences for all browser plugins.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If I understand Microsoft's writeup correctly, ActiveX controls will still load without user intervention, but will require an additional click to begin accepting user input the first time.
What if someone were to write an ActiveX control that goes around and does all the clicking for other controls on the same page?
I can't see a notable security benefit in this...
-- Sig down
Is my enemy's enemy my friend? I don't think so. If I chastise Microsoft for patenting software (which I do), then I can hardly endorse it in anyone else. When what you dislike is the weapons themselves, then it hardly matters who is using them on who.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
MS must be holding a really bad grudge at this point to go through all this trouble rather than licensing the patent.
Why are so many people acting like this is somehow some great strike against ActiveX? Aside from the fact that ActiveX controls will still run (you just have to click an extra time to interact with their UI), keep in mind that this applies to ANYTHING loaded with APPLET, EMBED, or OBJECT tags. That includes Java applets for sure (which are protected by the sandbox). It very well might also include Flash, SVG, etc. As I understand it, this covers basically any high-interactivity component of any web page, on any platform, with any browser if affected. This is just Microsoft's solution to the problem. Other browsers will need to come up with solutions as well.
-James
The problem is they can. The problem is that I have not seen anything that proves beyond reasonable doubt that they will not. What would be such proof? Offering any GPL product the royalty free use of the patent. Offering the royalty free use of the patent to any browser that is available for non-windows platforms and updated regularly. The lawyers can hash out the language, but until there is more than an empty promis, suing MS is just a publicity stunt to win the support of the ignorant masses.
If Eolas intends to provide the patent to other browsers, they should do so in formal written manner. Until they do so, I can only assume that they are starting with MS for the big win, and then will pick everyone else off one by one.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The whole reason why MS bowed to this incredibly bad patent, was in their own interest.
It is obvious to everyone that Eolas doesn't have a legitamate patent. But MS couldn't afford to beat them in court. If MS won, then it would illegitamize most of MS's patent portfolio of similarly bad patents.
Just a thought.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The GPL premble states this:
Where, presumably, "everyone" includes Microsoft. Granting some GPL-specific, Firefox-specific, or non-Windows-specific patent grant surely violates this intent.
Because of the GPL, Firefox will need to work-around the patent, even if Eolas is not specifically going after them.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
While I agree with you on the main point (Eolas doesn't have the nuts to go after other browsers), it's for a totally different reason.
Take the second biggest browser competitor to Internet Explorer; Mozilla's Firefox. Firefox's developers are not (for the most part) incorporated, or in a lot of cases, even compensated for working on Firefox. So, when you go to sue, you can't sue Mozilla Firefox; you have to sue about a thousand individuals who released patches, or specifically pick off the ones that didn't modify the plugin code in any way. You're still looking at a law team just to find these invididuals, then you have to send them out, see what company they work for, and start legal proceedings with them.
Now, what's one of the largest Firefox supporters right now? Google. Does Eolas really want to unleash Google on them? Do no evil doesn't cover corporate takeovers for patent reasonings, I fear. While some people at Eolas would praise the giant buying them, I'm sure the laid off individuals would be quite pissed about it.
But, I only unleash one scenario, which just shows you how unlikely things would be that Eolas would dare. I could see them going after Apple, as they are a single corporate entity which is easier to attack, but if Apple plays the webcore defense, their up the same creek that they would be with Firefox; finding each individual, and suing them personally, or through the company that sponsored the development.
Eolas just stuck Microsoft with the bill because it was so easy; Microsoft can't afford to go to war anymore, and these are bad times for the big M. The euro hounds want them, the Justice department grumbles here and there, Google's ganging up on them, Apple's out dazzling them, open source companies are shooting up and grabbing capital all over, and on top of all of this, they decide to enter an entire new market which hates new hardware competitors (the gaming business).
Yes, it was opportunistic. But that's how you often have to be in the software world, and yes, that's how Microsoft rose to the top in the first place.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
No matter how much you hate the weapons, it's still pretty sweet to see their greatest proponent taste its own bitter medicine, though. ;)
I don't know where you got the silly idea that distributed development can make mozilla.org or Apple magically immune from patent litigation. They are still distributing the software.
No, wait, I do know where you got the idea -- it's the "Not Me!" defense plagiarized from Family Circle.
> Does Eolas really want to unleash Google on them?
You're aware they just successfully beat Microsoft, right?
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
They are parasites feeding off the innovation of other companies. Folks, this does not just affect ActiveX but every other plug-in technology and applets.
There really should be an RICO-like law to prevent people from forming companies whose sole revenue source is through patents. They should be required to be actively producing something in the area they have patents in. This is nothing more than corporate racketeering.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Now that Microsoft can't freely use the patented method, it isn't going to pay Eolas to use its patented method, it's going to work around it.
What does Eolas gain from its patent? Nothing.
What does the end user gain from this? Nothing, except hassle (OK, clicking a dialog box isn't much of a bother, but there isn't going to be the seemless integration of components that people have been used to).
Software patents are pathetic, especially pointless ones such as this.
If everybody agrees to create work-arounds - regardless of how much hassle it gives end-users - hopefully everybody will begin to loathe software patents, and will all join up to put an end to this pathetic excuse for the stifling of software progress and ease-of-use.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
So if I am getting this right, Firefox et al won't require me to activate the UI controls even after i've installed a version of IE that does? Hopefully MS provides a way of returning said controls back to their old behavior instead of this new one.
Not to mention that in Europe, Microsoft no longer has control of programming whatever they please, they have to get the EU's governmental approval.
Blame the user, not the software.
spurn them for their individual USE of patents/enforcement/licensing terms.
if I patent software and publically license it as beerware ad infinitium, do you chastise me for patenting?
We have to live within the system we have for now.. so- patent does not mean MUST be evil.. it can work two ways.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Taste of their own medicine? huh?
IIRC - unlike some other companies out there *cough* IBM *cough*, Microsoft isn't really a big software patent litigator.
You act like "FOSS" has some sort of central brain or something. The truth is:
(A) Replicating DCOM is actually quite difficult, even if you have all the specs, as the WINE people have learned.
(B) NIH factors have created 9 incompatible copies of COM (XPCOM, KParts, Bonobo, etc) because nobody had any foresight in the matter.
(C) Outside of web browsers, Open Source developers actually don't give a fuck about full standards support.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
That's a strange post. Sometimes vile weapons are used against vile people. I think an intelligent person can see shades of grey and see the good that comes out of use of patents sometimes.
IN this case if it hurts MS then it's good, if it makes it harder to hack IE then that's even better.
Well if you can accept that I'm intelligent and that I simultaneously hold a different point of view to you, then I'll happily explain my position.
I think software patents are wrong. Leaving aside the unresolved issue of whether it is ethical to patent mathematical algorithms, the immediate effect of allowing software patents is to close the market and stifle innovation. Just to clarify the difference between copyright and patents, copyright allows you to protect how you did something. Patents allow you to say no-one else can try. Nor can anyone else do something that follows on or builds on the patented idea. Nor does the idea necessarily even need to have been acted upon by the patent holder. Patents turn creativity into a territory that you need to pay for. That's a brief summation of why I do not like patents in software. I've kept it brief because I really only want to illustrate that my opposition to these is not based on which company holds them, but from first principles. They are wrong.
You say that anything that hurts Microsoft is good, but my dislike of Microsoft is not an a priori value, that doesn't need to be defended. I dislike Microsoft because of their business practices (including software patents). If I see another company take up those same business practices, then it doesn't matter to me if they turn those practices on each other. The net effect is more patents, and more reinforcement and embedding of the patent system. Time will pass and the settlements and companies involved will become irrelevent history, but the system which I object to has been made stronger and more patents claimed.
To put it another way, the deer doesn't take satisfaction in seeing that there are now two lions fighting over who gets to eat it. And the deer, in this metaphor, by the way. represents mankinds creativity.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
(a) True
(b) Also true, to a certain extent.
(c) Bullshit. OpenDocument, SMTP, DNS (remember the Verisign debacle?), TCP/IP. We care about full standards support where information exchange is at issue. Sometimes it's just better to use steel studs instead of wood, even if the building codes mandate balsa wood.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
When it comes to DNS, there is nothing in RFC 1034 nor RFC 1035 that says that Verisign can't have unregistered .com names point to a website they control. What Verisign did may be slimey, but please RTFS before claiming that Verisign broke the standard.
This is like the people who think that any DNS server that acts differently than BIND somehow breaks the standard.
/me considers the irony of opening that pdf with Adobe's "plugin"....
Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it
But that in turn hurts Microsoft. If their products become less streamlined than they were, they are less attractive for users.
Why is that a good thing? Are you suggesting that Open Source software cannot compete? That it depends on Microsoft being hamstrung by litigation?
The better Microsoft's products are, the better for their users and the better for Open Source that must raise its game. Unless you want Microsoft's users to suffer (and that's a large number of people some of which are bound to be innocent), or unless you want Open Source software to suffer a lack of competition, then let Microsoft do their best. The more they improve their products, the more the standard of software rises for all of us.
So long as we can fight off the patent system, that is.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.