Slashdot Mirror
MS Gives 60-Day Deadline to Web Devs
capt turnpike writes "Since losing the patent case filed by Eolas, Microsoft has to change radically the way IE works with a lot of content, especially video and other ActiveX controls. eWEEK is reporting that Microsoft has gotten a one-time, 60-day extension in which developers and companies can try to re-engineer their Web pages and ads to work with the new regime. If devs don't make that deadline, users could face pages asking them to activate much of the content, plus ads."
You mean ActiveX websites will break? . . . And that's a *bad* thing?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
There are other technologies that can plug the hole. For some applications, an Ajax page could provide the same level of interactivity as ActiveX. For stuff like Flash, they can have a plugin architecture more line Firefox's.
Bottom line is Microsoft will use this to "encourage" websites to move away from ActiveX and toward their next annoying proprietary technology.
Free Conference Call -- No Spam, High Quality
From the article, it seems that unless the websites are redesigned, users would have to basically click an "OK" button before ActiveX content would load. This includes any ActiveX controls, including ads. Obviously, websites that use ActiveX to display ads would want to remove the need for a user to "authorize" the display of the ad.
Each page a user visits will require them to click a button to activate the underlying ActiveX control. Wow. BFD. And that is just for those websites that haven't updated their content by June. Chaotic? Far from it.
Aren't there a good number of JavaScript events that are handled through ActiveX on IE, for example onblur() and onclick()? I hope that I'm wrong or else I've got a lot of JS recoding to do, I hate JS.
Maybe I'm just out of it today, but what does this mean?
.NET for a hefty upgrade fee.
It means that users should find a better browser to use and developers should use a different technology for their web applications. Of course, the Microsoft solution would be to switch to IE7 and Visual Studio
Just goes to show Microsoft shouldn't copy other people's designs and make their own to prevent this kind of problem.
Tim Berners-Lee wrote the USPTO calling for this patent to be overturned due to prior art. A broad embedded content patent in 1998? Pu-lease. It's as bogus as a $3 bill.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Frankly after reading the article I havent got a clue where they came up with the ads part.
However, the gist I got from it is any embeded auto playing content ( heres their example list: Adobe's Reader and Flash, Apple's QuickTime Player, Microsoft's Windows Media Player, RealNetworks' RealPlayer and Sun's JVM ) will require activation before playing.
So for example, if you go to a page that has a stock ticker applet in it, instead of it automatically scrolling the current stock market stats, you will have to click it to start. However, if this is true, it would pretty much make Flash useless, as flash based GUIs would become irritating, flash based start pages wouldnt work right, etc...
Lastly, what I dont understand beyond the above question is... why arent Firefox, Opera, Safari etc... also affected?
No matter what you think of Microsoft, in the end, this is bad for the end user and the web in general. Insert misc active X jokes in your replys all you want, you would be suprised how much of the daily web actually depends on this stuff.
The sweet irony of it al
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Users will be forced to click once before punching the monkey.
They are lucky that there are so many vulnerabilities in IE that they need to release a patch every 1-2 months... without that, users could easily choose not to update.
Even then, they will have to be very careful. With some coverage in the general media, a lot of users could decide that it is better to diable windows update than to find their applications being crippled because of pointless quarrels in court.
If ActiveX is screwed to the point that some heavy engineering is needed to get the websites back into normal operation, some developers might start moving towards open standards that the non-IE browsers support pretty well.
For all those .\ users who say "ActiveX good riddance" - yes, EXCEPT that QuickTime, Flash, and all the other IE plugins are guess way - ActiveX plugins.
So that means every page with any usage of plugins will be broken.
"Six months from now, there will be no difference to the Internet experience whatsoever," Wallent said, insisting that customers and developers have been very receptive to making the necessary content modifications.
:(
He's right you know, and it is really too bad...so sad.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Software patents AT ALL is a problem. I don't care if it was the first person who patented something like this suing, it's just not good for the end user. Suppose MS patented browser extensions, and then sued Firefox or Opera devs... And they probably will start doing stuff like this in light of this decision. I'm no MS fan, but I was on their side for this case. No good can come of this.
Lastly, what I dont understand beyond the above question is... why arent Firefox, Opera, Safari etc... also affected?
Because the guy who owns the patent has stated that he is only going to sue microsoft.
As of 2003 (when Eolas won judgement against M$), Mozilla hadn't attempted to reach any agreement. Their post on the subject says to simply keep an eye out and be ready to change if we have to change.
Wikipedia currently is still saying "Other browsers such as Opera, Mozilla Firefox and Apple's Safari might have to implement a similar change to avoid infringement, or to license Eolas' patent".
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Hey, this isn't a "pro-Microsoft" rant, but wouldn't it be just dandy if the courts declared "Heal yourselves!" to the myriad silly and frivolous lawsuitery that is drowning the domestic business environment?
Of course, you'd have LOTS of poor widdle lawyers out of business.
But hey, is that REALLY such a bad thing?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
I thought one of microsoft's main anti-linux FUD points was that if you use M$ technologies that you'll be protected against patent troubles like this...
wtf happened?
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
Additionally... can't ajax/dhtml count as "automatically playing content"? It would be pretty trivial to create a scrolling stock ticker in ajax/dhtml which automatically starts when the page loads.
:p
How do you stop this? Disable Javascript?
It would include, as part of this re-engineering effort, a dialog that would appear, explaining to the user, why this is happening- pointing out the destructive nature of software patents. The effect is, that since someone else "owns" the ability to do things a certain way, you are required to do it differently, or fork out some cash. If enough people are made aware of just how sofware patents really do have an effect on what they can and cannot do, perhaps this could be the beginning of some grassroots support for much-needed change.
Where I'm seeing the biggest potential problem is here: Say a company hired somebody a few years ago to make them a brochure style website, and it had a flash intro, banner, etc. The company is used to seeing their website a certain way. When all of the sudden the website starts making them click 'OK' every time they go to their homepage they're going to get pissed off. They also aren't going to know why it's happening, or care, or switch browsers, or bitch about Eolas being a bullshit company, they are just going to call the person who made the site and have them fix it. I think there are going to be a lot of cases like this. Sure big companies are going to see this coming and change their code, and yes nerds will just use FireFox... but many small non-tech-savvy people with websites are going to be hit by this.
nothing
Apple has a helpful page detailing what to do in order to get your pages to continue working as usual with IE.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
Generally, with what I have seen going on I would say they don't in general. On the other hand, patents do encourage people to come up clever alternatives to avoid having to pay money to the patent, that they might have otherwise infinged. Kind of ironic that creativity is not in the patents, but in the avoidence of patents.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Some people are saying it's going to change everything (flash, movies, some JS, etc) while others say that no one will notice the difference.
What's the difference, and what do developers have to do for there to be no difference?
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
The eWeek article doesn't do a very good job of highlighting that.
As noted elsewhere, ALL browser plug-in architectures are vulnerable (the reason TBL got involved in the first place). IE was just the first target because 1) they didn't license it (actually thumbed their noses at it), and 2) they have the largest market share.
Mozilla could be hit at any point Eolas feels like it.
Eolas expected Microsoft to finally roll over and eat it and take out an official license. Microsoft called the bluff, only Eolas is still holding the higher hand right now.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Before everybody says "good riddance," note that the upcoming IE update will simply mean you have to click first to enable interaction with the embedded object. This means that things like Flash ads and streaming video will still run automatically -- a user would need to click on them to be able to interact with them, i.e. find the tiny little "mute" or "close" button to make them go away. This page previews the update and shows exactly how it will change things.
*WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!*
Not so active now. Are ya' sunshine?
*KABLAM!*
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
ah yes, money. there is nothing to be gained from filing suit against mozilla. of course that's why my school district gets sued, but the teachers themselves rarely do.
this highlights a real problem with our IP laws and patents. while patents are good for things, for ideas they are horrible.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I'll byte.
indemnify
v. to guarantee against any loss which another might suffer. Example: two parties settle a dispute over a contract, and one of them may agree to pay any claims which may arise from the contract, holding the other harmless.
You see, if you understood the word, you would realize that the end user is not suffering a loss. They are losing some convenience.
Microsoft is just the first case. All other browsers will be required to change their way of business as well. The precedent has been set. There is nothing 'indemnifying" Firefox or Opera.
The one that cracks me up is "its permissions-based scheme which is dramatically more hackable than Java's sandbox-based scheme" - lol - never really read about computers before I take it? The patent does not only affect activeX it also affects Java, since last time I looked, Java was a plug-in. Both are affected by the ruling. That baseless statement of false facts (about hackable) does not even apply.
"Ajax page could provide the same level of interactivity as ActiveX" - please - do you have any idea what you are talking about? I didn't think so. Ajax can help avoid postbacks to the server. ActiveX controls are code that has full access to the Win32 stack. Show me an Ajax control^h^h^h^h^h^h^hscript that does what the ActiveX performance Monitor control does.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
There is an optional update at Windows Update that says something to the effect of "This update changes the way Internet Explorer handles ActiveX ... blah blah blah".
I figure they'll move it from optional to required when the deadline is reached.
I've already installed the update so I can get my sites ready.
ActiveX controls cause a little dialog box to appear that makes you hit either "Ok" or "Yes" in order to use an ActiveX control. Honestly this is fairly rare occurance when browsing most sites.
The big thing that is going to trip people up are flash movies. All flash movies now have a border around them when you mouse over them with a tooltip that says "click to activate and use this control".
The good news is that non-interactive flash movies work regardless of whether or not you activate the controls. Not sure why that is, but that has been my expeience. The bad news is that flash menus (unfortunately some clients want that junk) no longer work until you click on the flash movie to activate the control. This also goes for interactive flash movies that track mouse movement and whatnot.
The workaround is to write the flash movie using javascript.
you can do something simple like document.write() each line of the object tag or use something like UFO (http://osflash.org/ufo) that is XHTML compliant.
So how exactly is this going to benifit Eolas in the long run? Seems like infringers don't mind coding around the patent. So then what? Hang the patent up on a wall framed?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
While I'm link-whoring, here's some more stuff if you want insight on the guy: Doyle's homepage, another eWeek interview "Browser Victory Shouldn't Alter HTML", and an article from I, Cringely that was one of the first media pieces on the whole issue. More can be found on Google and Wikipedia, of course.
Regardless of Doyle's intentions, I'm against the whole software and business-method patenting regimes. It's been said many times before, but patenting software or business-methods is as ludicrous as patenting story ideas in literature.
Maybe your senior devs and management might want to take a look at GPL code now. This and many other reasons make it attractive, no vendor lock in (don't you think bill gates and MS are rich enough now?), helps to avoid future patent disputes, etc. It's as good as time as any,and you have 60 days, besides the one demo. Avoid future FUBARs like this, or at least minimise the chances. MS has a clear track record of shady deals and monopolistic abusive tendencies. It is their *business model*. Why be associated with people like that? And something to throw at senior management-where is the fat check from MS to pay for all the stuff you have to change because they were thieves and lost in court and people got sucked into using their stolen code? Aren't they the straight suits dream business? Where's this idemnification action?
The old saying fits, "sleep with the dogs, wake up with fleas"
This seems to be where Microsoft gets around the patent by requiring a click to start interactivity. What kills me is that, had the developers of MediaMosaic made a slightly different design decision to enable Embedded-View Editing by default, we wouldn't have this problem. Clearly, MediaMosaic had the concept of in-place interactivity, but one minute design decision blocks the rest of us from taking that next logical step. Shouldn't patents be novel and non-obvious? Seems glaringly obvious to me. The patent examiner states that all points of the patent must be declared in or suggested by prior art. The prior art references include static items that render automatically (without the user first clicking to initiate rendering) and interactive items that require a click. If a static item can start without a click, so can a dynamic item. I disagree with the examiner that the prior art does not suggest the possibility of an automatically interactive dynamic item. Don't you?
A simple design decision enables this patent. Does that not make the patent itself seem untenable? Here stands one more reason why software patents are bad.
If the reasoning was to exclude object creation from the source code, we still have an OBJECT statement, but it's inside of Javascript now. And court said that it makes the difference? WTF?!!
So, if I write a code that creates JPEG file, but saves it as a text file, with following renaming .TXT to .JPG, have I just avoided JPEG PATENT?
Wow, you pick out the tiniest thing from the entire post and your conclusion is "Fucktard"... Seriously, the reference is that the end user is not suffering a loss of usability, nor a financial loss. They will simply endure a minor inconvenience. Grow up a little and get over yourself, bud. Let the adults talk.
I'm no programming or computer genius, but please correct me if I'm wrong....
doesn't MS Update use Active X?
Wouldn't this make every update after the first one very obvious to the user and very frustrating?
Just a thought
Is it ironic that I had to install a Quicktime plug-in to view the patent images in question at USPTO.gov
All I'm suggesting is that Microsoft could use this as an excuse to get developers to switch over to newer technologies that could bring in more money. Adobe is doing the same by withholding a Universal patch for Photoshop to get everyone to spend money upgrading to the next release. When you got companies depending on regular upgrades to maintain a revenue stream, they will use any excuse to shake down users for an expensive upgrade.
:P
As to why my crap keeps getting modded up, check out my Slashdot F.A.Q.
In related news, web developers worldwide have given notice to Microsoft to fix Internet Explorer to actually conform to the standards it purports to support. Any web browser that is not fixed in 60 days will no longer work with many web sites.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
There goes the case for preferring Windows over other OSes
;)
because of the superior IP idemnification offered by Microsoft.
I have heard/read before that Microsoft provides "protection"
for its users. I have heard/read before that this "protection"
is strong. IMHO claims about "protection" are empty without
including protection of the investment of your customers in
your proprietary technology - and websites using ActiveX
extensively are just such investment, and a huge one for some
companies, e.g. a few banks I know of.
So, what's the value of IP idemnification after the first major
test? Dubious, at best. What's the qualification of the claims
for "superiority of Windows because of better IP idemnificaction"?
FUD?
Ah, those pesky patents
"At least that is how it works in civilised countries."
Where I can I find one of those?
Seriously, while I agree strongly with everything you say, I've also found that the world is full of managers who don't want to face reality, and blame their employees instead. "Find a better job" sounds nice, but I find PHBs everywhere I go. Much like gravity, one cannot escape it, only increase one's distance from it.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Microsoft routinely and regularly pulls the rug out from under developers and end-users alike. What amazes me is that people continue to choose Microsoft, no matter how many times they get burned.
Say the parent undertakes a massive switch to the
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I just got out of a meeting about this. One of the software packages we install and support at work will be heavily impacted. The web version of the application is composed of three ActiveX controls and tends to spawn a lot of new windows for search results. On April 11th, it will cease to work in anything resembling a useable manner. We now have to update about 700 installation seats spread over 500 miles in the next 13 days. Even worse, the vendor won't have a fix until Monday (with 8 days left) and the fix will only be for the newest version of the software. Our clients will need to "upgrade or die". Some have software that is three versions old and will need a lot of retraining on the new system.
it's not my coding problem! I really don't care who owns what patent with activeX! Thanks for telling me/informing me, but I honestly do not care at this point. I am more concerned over the further ramifications of software patents in general. I prefer a no patents, GPL world, if that was possible. The article is an example, it wouldn't be an article if the patents didn't exist. *That* is the problem, not the minutiae of this or that case. Real companies big and small are getting nailed now, and the deluge has hardly begin, it is only going to get worse here on out, because more and more ridiculous patents are being issued. It's an artificially created problem, brought about by short market cycle greedsters, IMO, I'll add.
I am pessimistic anything good will happen until the system gets so complex that it collapses, which I think it will sometime. With thousands of software patents going in yearly...it'll collapse, bound to, because it was nuts to begin with.. After collapse, when even the dood in the street notices how far it is gone because it is affecting his life, then maybe we might see some positive changes for the better. It might take another decade, but collapse it will, when it becomes almost impossible to write one line of code without infringing on someones "IP" and when coders need a full time lawyer sitting right next to them as they type. That's the direction it is heading now, and I see nothing that will stop that extrapolated outlook on the horizon now.
"IP" is in a MAJOR push in the WTO,including software patents and patents on such things as the necessities of life, food, etc, and by far the WTO calls the shots on international business now, it's not this government or that government, it's the large corporations that run the WTO in the background insisting on this sort of thing. Some nations will hold out and not adopt software patents for awhile, but faced with trade sanctions from the major players..they'll cave.
The whole 'click to activate' thing can be bypassed by using Javascript to embed your plugin/activex content.
It's really easy, and there's a number of solutions for embedding Flash and Quicktime content. (And these methods make it much easier to embed the content and detect the presence of the plugin anyway. Many people are already using it, like youtube.com for example.
Enjoy this while you can!
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
"We're in discussions with major players in the Linux world and are working on a plan to resolve the '906 patent issue with the entire Linux community," Eolas Founder Michael Doyle told eWEEK.com, referring in short hand to the patent's full number. "The solution will be supportive of the open-source community."
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1437469,00.as p
I haven't heard anything more on this in the intervening time.