Suppose it just goes to show these are not patentable and are pretty clearly obvious features if 2 rivals can develop them independently at around the same time.
Did you even look at the link I provided? It's the Slashdot article about how Microsoft bought Skype.
Did you even read the article in it? They have put in an offer that Skype's shareholders have said is agreeable, the sale hasn't even passed through FTC regulators yet, MS are still far from actually owning Skype, it looks like they will, but they certainly don't yet. The point is they most certainly do not own Skype IP and absolutely cannot mount legal challenges based on it.
LAMP and jQuery aren't exactly used by mom & pop end users.
Just about everyone I know has a website of some sort either for personal use or for a business. A good chuck of those are using LAMP and some sort of open source CMS and a lot of those use jQuery/prototype.js and the like. As I say, they probably have no idea how to use it or that they even are - but they do use it.
So of course the 'usability' aspect - which is my point - of those applications is completely irrelevant because that end user never has any interaction with the product directly anyway - like you said, they probably have no idea how to use it - as opposed to something like Skype which they do need to directly interact with and know how to use.
mIRC was an example of a solo developer implementing a highly popular client without the need of massive resources or the need to patent every little piece of code he wrote.
There isn't exactly anything patentable in mIRC, and really it's just a basic chat program that used the IRC protocol from the BBS days.
As to programs that are used by professionals to mom & pop end users, there are quite a few that come to mind:
Sure wordpress, firefox and thunderbird are popular open source applications, im not saying it can't be done but over the life of the open source movement there are very few shining examples of usability done well enough for the general populace, so such a thing is *far* from easy. LAMP and jQuery aren't exactly used by mom & pop end users.
even though they may not be handing Google cash for these things it is no more fundamentally open from any perspective other than business model than Windows Mobile was.
Fair enough, I suppose that's the real point then isn't it, assuming licensing restrictions (whatever they may be) and licensing costs aren't overly incumbent for a company choosing something like WM then the barrier to entry wouldn't be that much different between the two.
Im not saying it is, but it isn't an example of the ease of building a system in the first place.
and once you have the protocol reverse engineered you still need to build a program to use it. 1 guy did this
errr...I take it you haven't actually looked a this then.
An example of how it works well is mIRC - one guy built it, others expanded on it, there's various flavours from stand alone programs to browser plugins, to website integration and it's been free and is to this day one of the best chat room programs available.
Are you sure you know what mIRC is? Because mIRC is an IRC client application and I can't say i've seen the mIRC client integrated as a browser plugin or into a website.
Anyway the difference with Skype is that it is used by people from tech professionals to mom & pop end users, open source is traditionally not very good at the latter level of usability.
How do you think it's available to many, many manufacturers? It's by virtue of it being open.
Actually, no. It's available to many, many manufacturers because it is Google's business model to do broad licensing - which has nothing to do with being open source per se.
I explicitly avoided saying 'open source' because open != open source. It's 'open' insofar as there is no barrier to entry and OEMs can do pretty much whatever they want with the software, you don't have to go and pay the OS developer and get involved in license agreements. The fact that they can customize the OS without having to worry about the OS developer and licensing agreements getting in the way makes it a lot easier for OEMs to differentiate which makes it an attractive platform.
Because the quality that gives it a big marketshare is obviously a very important feature for the product....which is what we are discussing...duh.
The main reason you even have to consider such nonsense is the "winner take all" mindset of the fanboys of proprietary systems.
No, the reason market position is being considered in this discussion is that the feature in question is predominantly responsible for it...pretty obvious isn't it?
Apple can ignore me and it's fanboys can try to marginalize me
What the hell are you talking about? Why are you trying so desperately to be victimised? I don't think anyone cares about you enough for you to have anything to worry about there...you need to relax.
I would assume that the reason Android has a bigger marketshare than iPhone OS is because it's licensed to many, many manufacturers, whereas iPhone OS is only available on Apple products. I don't think that has anything to do with it being "open."
How do you think it's available to many, many manufacturers? It's by virtue of it being open.
You're arguing that it is a good thing Microsoft is forcing a touch interface on a desktop.
Wow...first look at this interface for 4 minutes and already this is MS forcing a touch interface on a desktop. Certainly this could never be refined or changed as this is the final version albeit with no release date.
Same vulnerabilities that will make me want to puke when my friends and families and co-workers are infested with malware.
Yes, when your friends, families and co-workers click through 2 security warnings because they want to execute free_porn.avi.exe that will happen...it's vulnerability but it doesn't matter what platform you're on.
Create a new OS from the ground up and have Windows run as a VM till apps can be ported over appropriately.
Having a version of Win32 written for ARM as well as the.Net CLR seems like a pretty good solution.
This is a perfect example of how little effort it takes to develop something like this and how easily a community could maintain it for the world to use but companies have to protect their billions
No it isn't, breaking the lock on an existing house is a hell of a lot easier than building a house.
I don't want to touch my monitor on my desktop and get fingerprints all over it. This is great for tablets and phones, but making this the default UI for your desktop is nothing short of asinine.
I agree, but i don't think they would go that far. I would say you would get a desktop interface in a desktop environment (like in the excel example) and the tablet interface in a tablet environment, with the ability to switch if you have a dockable device.
And Windows 8 ARM might as well be dead on arrival given that it can't run x86 apps.
It can run.Net apps and win32 apps would just need a recompile.
Windows 8, project codename "D.E.R.I.V.A.T.I.V.E.". I've been scanning the video, looking for something - anything - that they've actually invented.
It's not about 'inventing' something new, it's about pulling the existing good ideas into a single package. Just like Apple did with their iPhone, every single thing in that device already existed, they just pulled it all together into a single device.
If this is to have any chance of success, they will need to ditch the traditional Windows GUI and have Old Windows programs run in a compatibility layer, otherwise this new UI will be ignored by the majority of developers and users, and it will become nothing more than a fullscreen Side Bar.
It seems as though you wouldn't use the touch interface and applications where a mouse/keyboard is preferable (like the example where existing excel was shown). It reduces the data duplication so you have one device suitable for mobile (tablet) and desktop environments depending on which environment you are in.
Slashdot Mirror
Suppose it just goes to show these are not patentable and are pretty clearly obvious features if 2 rivals can develop them independently at around the same time.
Did you even look at the link I provided? It's the Slashdot article about how Microsoft bought Skype.
Did you even read the article in it? They have put in an offer that Skype's shareholders have said is agreeable, the sale hasn't even passed through FTC regulators yet, MS are still far from actually owning Skype, it looks like they will, but they certainly don't yet. The point is they most certainly do not own Skype IP and absolutely cannot mount legal challenges based on it.
That's a feature.
No, they were taking a page from the book of Jobs...'you're looking at it wrong'.
LAMP and jQuery aren't exactly used by mom & pop end users.
Just about everyone I know has a website of some sort either for personal use or for a business. A good chuck of those are using LAMP and some sort of open source CMS and a lot of those use jQuery/prototype.js and the like. As I say, they probably have no idea how to use it or that they even are - but they do use it.
So of course the 'usability' aspect - which is my point - of those applications is completely irrelevant because that end user never has any interaction with the product directly anyway - like you said, they probably have no idea how to use it - as opposed to something like Skype which they do need to directly interact with and know how to use.
But Microsoft doesn't own Skype, hence they don't own the protocol.
mIRC was an example of a solo developer implementing a highly popular client without the need of massive resources or the need to patent every little piece of code he wrote.
There isn't exactly anything patentable in mIRC, and really it's just a basic chat program that used the IRC protocol from the BBS days.
As to programs that are used by professionals to mom & pop end users, there are quite a few that come to mind:
Sure wordpress, firefox and thunderbird are popular open source applications, im not saying it can't be done but over the life of the open source movement there are very few shining examples of usability done well enough for the general populace, so such a thing is *far* from easy. LAMP and jQuery aren't exactly used by mom & pop end users.
Same with the various Symbian releases, they didn't outsell their predecessors in 8 months.
even though they may not be handing Google cash for these things it is no more fundamentally open from any perspective other than business model than Windows Mobile was.
Fair enough, I suppose that's the real point then isn't it, assuming licensing restrictions (whatever they may be) and licensing costs aren't overly incumbent for a company choosing something like WM then the barrier to entry wouldn't be that much different between the two.
Reverse engineering in itself is no easy task
Im not saying it is, but it isn't an example of the ease of building a system in the first place.
and once you have the protocol reverse engineered you still need to build a program to use it. 1 guy did this
errr...I take it you haven't actually looked a this then.
An example of how it works well is mIRC - one guy built it, others expanded on it, there's various flavours from stand alone programs to browser plugins, to website integration and it's been free and is to this day one of the best chat room programs available.
Are you sure you know what mIRC is? Because mIRC is an IRC client application and I can't say i've seen the mIRC client integrated as a browser plugin or into a website.
Anyway the difference with Skype is that it is used by people from tech professionals to mom & pop end users, open source is traditionally not very good at the latter level of usability.
it's GNU/LibreSkype you insensitive clod ;)
How do you think it's available to many, many manufacturers? It's by virtue of it being open.
Actually, no. It's available to many, many manufacturers because it is Google's business model to do broad licensing - which has nothing to do with being open source per se.
I explicitly avoided saying 'open source' because open != open source. It's 'open' insofar as there is no barrier to entry and OEMs can do pretty much whatever they want with the software, you don't have to go and pay the OS developer and get involved in license agreements. The fact that they can customize the OS without having to worry about the OS developer and licensing agreements getting in the way makes it a lot easier for OEMs to differentiate which makes it an attractive platform.
Who cares WHY it has a bigger market share?
Because the quality that gives it a big marketshare is obviously a very important feature for the product....which is what we are discussing...duh.
The main reason you even have to consider such nonsense is the "winner take all" mindset of the fanboys of proprietary systems.
No, the reason market position is being considered in this discussion is that the feature in question is predominantly responsible for it...pretty obvious isn't it?
Apple can ignore me and it's fanboys can try to marginalize me
What the hell are you talking about? Why are you trying so desperately to be victimised? I don't think anyone cares about you enough for you to have anything to worry about there...you need to relax.
Anything else I missed?
There's nothing wrong with antenna, you're just holding it wrong.
I would assume that the reason Android has a bigger marketshare than iPhone OS is because it's licensed to many, many manufacturers, whereas iPhone OS is only available on Apple products. I don't think that has anything to do with it being "open."
How do you think it's available to many, many manufacturers? It's by virtue of it being open.
You're arguing that it is a good thing Microsoft is forcing a touch interface on a desktop.
Wow...first look at this interface for 4 minutes and already this is MS forcing a touch interface on a desktop. Certainly this could never be refined or changed as this is the final version albeit with no release date.
Same bloat of legacy code.
Highly unlikely on ARM.
Same vulnerabilities that will make me want to puke when my friends and families and co-workers are infested with malware.
Yes, when your friends, families and co-workers click through 2 security warnings because they want to execute free_porn.avi.exe that will happen...it's vulnerability but it doesn't matter what platform you're on.
Create a new OS from the ground up and have Windows run as a VM till apps can be ported over appropriately.
Having a version of Win32 written for ARM as well as the .Net CLR seems like a pretty good solution.
Then you're going to have trouble finding it in a menu anyway.
Porting to new architecture is not simply a matter of recompiling.
Unless you're written architecture-specific assembly it usually is.
And how many developers have ported to 64-bit so far? Microsoft has only been pushing that for the past 8 years and can't get developers on board.
Because for the vast majority of applications there is no advantage, so why do it.
If he is in the US, he can still be sued for violating the patents Microsoft owns on the protocol
You mean Skype.
This is a perfect example of how little effort it takes to develop something like this and how easily a community could maintain it for the world to use but companies have to protect their billions
No it isn't, breaking the lock on an existing house is a hell of a lot easier than building a house.
I don't use Skype - not because I can't, just because I can't be bothered running yet another bloated application on my computer
How is it 'bloated'?
call it ... LibreSkype.
please don't.
I don't want to touch my monitor on my desktop and get fingerprints all over it. This is great for tablets and phones, but making this the default UI for your desktop is nothing short of asinine.
I agree, but i don't think they would go that far. I would say you would get a desktop interface in a desktop environment (like in the excel example) and the tablet interface in a tablet environment, with the ability to switch if you have a dockable device.
And Windows 8 ARM might as well be dead on arrival given that it can't run x86 apps.
It can run .Net apps and win32 apps would just need a recompile.
Windows 8, project codename "D.E.R.I.V.A.T.I.V.E.". I've been scanning the video, looking for something - anything - that they've actually invented.
It's not about 'inventing' something new, it's about pulling the existing good ideas into a single package. Just like Apple did with their iPhone, every single thing in that device already existed, they just pulled it all together into a single device.
If this is to have any chance of success, they will need to ditch the traditional Windows GUI and have Old Windows programs run in a compatibility layer, otherwise this new UI will be ignored by the majority of developers and users, and it will become nothing more than a fullscreen Side Bar.
It seems as though you wouldn't use the touch interface and applications where a mouse/keyboard is preferable (like the example where existing excel was shown). It reduces the data duplication so you have one device suitable for mobile (tablet) and desktop environments depending on which environment you are in.
In the same time frame 36 million Android devices were sold, 27 million Symbian and 16 million iPhones. Even RIM sold 13 million.
Stop the presses!!! A new platform sold less than many years-old established platforms?!?!?! This can't be!