Hi All - We may not like what Mattel is doing - using lawyers instead of improving their software. (Some here may also recall the bitter lawsuit over the Aqua song "Barbie Girl") But as a corporation they may only respond to their bottom line. For years, the NAACP had great success in using boycotts or the threat of boycotts to get some concessions from large companies. Can we simply start some sort of boycott of Mattel? I have an eight year old daughter, and I can certainly find other toys for her besides Barbie dolls. With email and the web, the word of such a boycott could be spread quickly and with little cost. TWR
It was nice of Jeff Bezos to publicly respond, but to me, Jay Walker of priceline.com is the Bill Gates of patent abuse. Not only is he trying to enforce a business model patent of "reverse auctions" (Otherwise known as "haggling" - is he going to try and shut down Tijuana street vendors?) but he has set up a company solely to patent various business models etc. in what amounts to an attempted "land grab" of Internet patents. So although Jeff Bezos deserves some criticism for the One Click controversy, IMO Jay Walker is the real villian in this area. Tom Rombouts, Torrance, CA
Whether or not you agree with anything he said about Delphi, Linux, Microsoft, etc, it is a nice change to get some frank, direct commentary from a large software company. He handled a lot of "tough" questions head on. More typically we just get a vague "statement of direction" etc. Re Inprise, I think now that Philippe is largely out of the picture things can only get better. If Xbase for Linux does not speed up soon, I will very likely be learning Delphi. Tom Rombouts, Torrance, CA
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Hi All - We may not like what Mattel is doing - using lawyers instead of improving their software. (Some here may also recall the bitter lawsuit over the Aqua song "Barbie Girl") But as a corporation they may only respond to their bottom line. For years, the NAACP had great success in using boycotts or the threat of boycotts to get some concessions from large companies. Can we simply start some sort of boycott of Mattel? I have an eight year old daughter, and I can certainly find other toys for her besides Barbie dolls. With email and the web, the word of such a boycott could be spread quickly and with little cost. TWR
It was nice of Jeff Bezos to publicly respond, but to me, Jay Walker of priceline.com is the Bill Gates of patent abuse. Not only is he trying to enforce a business model patent of "reverse auctions" (Otherwise known as "haggling" - is he going to try and shut down Tijuana street vendors?) but he has set up a company solely to patent various business models etc. in what amounts to an attempted "land grab" of Internet patents. So although Jeff Bezos deserves some criticism for the One Click controversy, IMO Jay Walker is the real villian in this area. Tom Rombouts, Torrance, CA
Whether or not you agree with anything he said about Delphi, Linux, Microsoft, etc, it is a nice change to get some frank, direct commentary from a large software company. He handled a lot of "tough" questions head on. More typically we just get a vague "statement of direction" etc. Re Inprise, I think now that Philippe is largely out of the picture things can only get better. If Xbase for Linux does not speed up soon, I will very likely be learning Delphi. Tom Rombouts, Torrance, CA