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Mozilla Foundation Sues Microsoft Over Tabbed Browsing
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slashdottit! tm
According to the german tech-site heise.de, the Mozilla Foundation is suing Microsoft over the use of tabbed browsing in Internet Explorer 7. The Mozilla Foundation owns the patent 5,160,296 through one of their developers (Solomon Katz, a former Opera dev) and has begun suing Microsoft in Mountainview, California. The Foundation wants that MS immediately ceases to distribute IE 7 and pays 1.4 Billion dollars in damages. Heise reports that Microsoft has issued no official response, but is contemplating to ship IE 7 NT (no tabs).
I think you've fallen for a hoax.
Dude, that only works the first time.
I want to see some ponies! pink ones! slashdot is lame.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Darnit, I just put my broom away, now I gotta go and get it back out of the closet.
This is going to have an impact on their Office 12 ribbon tab patents isnt it?
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
Good grief, they'll let you patent ANYTHING won't they?
audioLibre - freedom of music
Damm you, fooled again. Im going to play games all day as surfing online is just going to be "impractical" today for the next 24 timezones. Just when you think its over, bam another site in antoher timezone pulls a prank. ZE PAIN I CANT TAKE ANYMORE:
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
If you want to be corporately evil without the hoards of geekdom realising it, be evil on April the first.
Today is the day when Microsoft could start a hostile takeover of every linux company, and Google could announcetheir new policy of "Hang it, we'll start worshipping satan", without anyone being the wiser.
Apparently not.
I always thought April 1st is the best day for suing someone :)
May Peace Prevail On Earth
MEEEE TOOO! PLEASE.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I found out something. Try coding in large values in the URL string..
:)?
http://slashdot.org/slashdottit.shtml?vote="BIG NUMBER HERE"
It's interesting.
Did I succeed
The best result comes from everyone in the group doing what's best for himself and for the group
Opera started even years before Firefox with tabbed browsing....
I knew keeping my Netscape shares would pay off one day!
Task Mangler
It's no hoax folks.
April Fools' day was moved to April 2nd when the United States adjusted Daylight Savings Time this year.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Ok then.
If we can hit that bull's-eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate.
dunno, apple had ribbons in system 8 or even earlier maybe. And "tabbable" windows (windows dragged down would become tabs) which wasn't a bad idea in days where screen real estate was precious.
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Funny is the "metamoderation" doesn't know about April 1 and moderators will be punished to hell when this comment shows up in metamoderation 4 days later or something :)
This post is modded +5, Informative!
qntm.org
I discovered tabbed browsing with Opera. Was Mozilla really the first to implement it?
McCartney fans pay bus tickets. [...] Lennon fans too, with discretion.
414 Request URI too long
Yes, especially as its April 1st, and there is no mention of it on Mozilla's website. I doubt Mozilla would be so stupid anyway. The problem with patents is the sheer MAD ness. We could no doubt discover that some reviewer at the patent office has rubber-stamped MS's request for a patent on base 2 or something like that.
Couldn't agree more
Doesnt stop the patent office granting them :)
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/7028023.html
Linked lists have been around for decades and now its only patented in 2006.
I suggest everybody flood the patent office with prior art patents, You will be supprised how many get granted, then you have right to claim money and while you hold that money (dont spend it), earn interest on it then when the patent is revoked, you simply pay the money back :)
But youve made moeny.
Everybody should flood the system until breaking point by doing it. They are, so why dont you do it too. In effect, slashdot it.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
They're even filing patent lawsuits now! And I thought this post that Firefox was no longer alternative enough to be an "alternative browser" was taking things too far.
wtf???
/me goes off to sue /.
:P
I own the patents to jokes like this!!!
"sudo rm -rf your-face"
Please, I beg of you, man, don't give them any more Bad Ideas! I don't want to have to convert from hexidecimal to "Microsoft .NET Visual Base DOS" to decimal in order to figure out a BSOD!
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
No, your llama is full of RAM. And she's going to be really surprised when the crias are born. (Or would they be lambs? Maybe lias? Maybe crambs?)
I say YAY!!! for mozilla is this is true, and they win (which I seriously hope they do, maybe M$ will stop coming out with crappy new OSes like vista...) But if this is an April fool's article, Clever! I about leaped up and did cartwheels...
The schaedenfreud from a move like this would be most deserved on the Monopoly, but of course, noting the date, one can't help but laugh and wish it were true. Good story.
I'm glad April 1st is on Sunday this year. That way we don't have to worry about real news getting ignored and overlooked because Slashdot editors are too busy thinking up an entire day of bullshit stories.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Mozilla should hold out for...
One hundred billion dollars!!!
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Heh - obviously the moderators didn't bother to RTFPatent...
.. opera sues mozilla. (btw, i do know its an april fools)
God Be Gone
This had me fooled for a minute. I was screaming "Noooooooo! Mozilla, you're playing with fire!" After all, if Mozilla really had such a patent, they'd do well to save it for defensive purposes.
I haven't hit the sack yet, so it didn't quite sink in that it was April Fool's Day. In fact, with all the all-nighters I've been pulling lately, I think my biological clock is only up to about March 20 or so.
:-) and cat did not get my tongue.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Great. Make the lawyer's rich. This is like a little British boat moving close to Iranian waters. Really.
It's the excuse Microsoft needs to start their barrage of litigation. They have lawyers. They have money. Guess who doesn't?
Ballmer's been waiting for this moment, and The Mozilla Foundation handed it to him on a platter. Wanna see what happens when it's not really David vs. Goliath, rather Genghis Khan vs your neighbors? Watch.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Bah. Nobody appreciates (or even notices) subtle puns any longer. Or reads the article(s) cited, for the matter.
Perhaps I was a little too subtle. Next time, it's strictly "OMFG PONIES!" That way, if anyone rates that "overrated", Taco will come down from on high and turn their css all pink.
Heeee's baaaack!
Ummm... it's April 1, dude.
Crikey I didn't realise Che Guevara was working in open source now. Bill must be quaking in his boots.
Like most ACs on here (except me)you truly need to get laid.
great! You might as well sue Dillotoo ya bastards!
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
I understand that it is a /. tradition to have lots of April Fools stories on the first, but does the whole page have to be composed of these this year? I am not trying to be flame bait I am just saying once is funny, 4 is wearing thin and this many is just plain tired..
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
Because the new Slashdot design does not render properly in Firefox.
What asshat designer would not make sure that a site like frigging SLASHDOT! doesn't work in frigging FIREFOX!
Jeez, I hate IE!
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
"April Fools"
You ruined it for all of the people who just read the title of the article.
(spoiler warning)
The patents supporting images are of paper file folders with tabs sticking up from the top.
If you must!
i can imagine the tabs being damaging... they are competing about the global tab share. you see, when a microsoft user brings about 10 tabs, it raises the total number of tabs in the world, and is 10 tabs less for other browsers. the ratio of tabs is relative to a sum of money the software companies get paid by the government for being efficient and space saving. what you all should do now is to open 100 tabs in your firefoxes, or more preferably in your local bar, so we cab really take this issue on to the next level.
Using tabs for separate windows in an app pre-dates FF's use of them. Using them in a browser is hardly innovative. Sounds to me like the Mozilla patent is just another BAD patent.
Crias is correct. However, with the advent of TiSP and google's quest to take over the world, I am afraid we will now have to call the gCrias.
This is not a sig. This is a llama-duck. Quack.
I'm not so suare: the child of a male donkey and a female horse is a mule. A female donkey and a male horse make a hinney.
What do you call the result of a llama that's been stuffed with RAM? Maybe we need a new word: for a woolly-thinking creature that has lots of memory that can't be accessed, we could call it a reagan?
Opera had tab browings first.
well, it looks like opera-mozilla finally got the drop on bill and steve. that patent app is airtight, believe me. fair and square. crazy, but redmond is just going to have to bite the bullet and start calling them something else, at least here in the states. maybe they could try "knobs." no wait, i know: "babs!" yep. that could work. in other oddness i heard that hex thing on saturn is really a giant nut holding the planet together - and it's loosening! why is april so damn weird? - js.
Funnily, IBM actually owns the patent to tabbed browsing...
http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT6049812&id= cA0EAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&dq=tabbed+br owsing
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Now, if only this didn't have to go through a lawsuit ... and microsoft would just give them the money ... for free ... not on april fools ... because they felt like it ...
but, what are the chances of that ever happening?
i probably should disconnect my internet for the next 11 hours ... i was asleep before so it didn't matter ... but now ...
Microsoft Performs Illegal Operation, Shuts Down
Microsoft Corp. issued a surprise press release this morning announcing that the company had "performed an illegal operation and would be shut down." Company executives refused to provide further information regarding the cause of the unexpected shutdown, only issuing a cryptic error number of $00038FF577 and advising all interested parties to "contact their system administrator."
you could, say, go outside. Toss a frisbee. Walk the dog. Strike up a conversation with a real world human being.
Seriously, you can survive one full day without regular Slashdot. You can.
If you look at the drawing for the patent, you'll see a hanging file folder with a tab in it. Where can I get that firefox theme and can I get it in standard green?
Uh, you do see the dates when you meta-moderate, you know.
All your base are belong to Wii.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
The sad thing is I never even thought that. I just thought - "head -n 1000000 /dev/random > Windows.com"? - what a horrible waste of entropy...
This outlines a course of action I am critical of because i think too much money would be involved in litigation and you can't fight the money makers with money. But this is only my gut feeling and this idea deserves more recognition than a post deep in slashdot discussion theme. You might contact some anti-patents movement and submit it as an idea.
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