If you start with that assumption, then why worry about whether Microsoft does or does not publish anything? They can sue you anyway.
There's no damages without willful infringement.
And if Microsoft publishes something that says "here is our technique, you need it for interoperability" without telling you that it's patented, then their claims of damages are arguably weaker. Either way, open source wins.
Microsoft's not doing that. They're saying "This is an internal document that we are being forced to publish by the court. We don't want you to use anything in here, so to discourage you we're making you pay us $14k to see it. If you're a non-commercial open source developer we won't sue you if you use anything in it, but that's not going to stop us from using your package to beat up on any distros that use it, and you better not make any money from it yourself."
And I sure wasn't planning on upgrading to Leopard until I knew APE was supported on it.
Oh, and they don't go anywhere near the OS. That's why they're Application enhancers, not kernel enhancers. I've got a few of those, too... they're called "drivers" and "kernel extensions".
I think it points out a larger problem that apple has, for the most part, addressed - why can't the OS come bundled with "all the little utilities and applications" you've come to depend on?
How has Apple addressed this when two of the Haxies I use, as well as two kernel modules I've installed, are there to work around problems Apple themselves are responsible for?
Gee, what are the odds that changing the underlying application would cause such a module to *not* wreak havoc on a system?
Pretty good, actually, given that only a fraction of users have problems. It's when you're binary-patching the kernel at runtime that you really have to start worrying... I've done that, on occasion, once I was still up to my elbows in debuggers five minutes before a demo for the CEO because two drivers decided to give completely different entry points the same name. It's a shame that Apple makes it necessary to do this kind of shenanigans... and I wasn't planning on upgrading until after Unsanity had gotten their stuff working reliably under Leopard anyway.
There are similar Windows applications that modify the OS. They have been known to not work on new versions of the OS. Even the most extreme Microsoft skeptic wouldn't say it was Microsoft's fault if Windowblinds had to be upgraded to work with Vista.
If you're doing an upgrade to the OS, and you're using any third party system extensions, you remove them before you upgrade. That's pretty basic.
It's easy to point fingers, and the upgrade process should in truth be discontinued altogether (imco) and rather provide utilities that will help a user migrate personal settings and preferences to a new build via a back-up utility of some type.
I was just trying to point out that the Dock menu is a bad place to put stuff, because it's non-obvious.
That's another issue, of course... the dock menu should be easier to hit, and the whole passive-aggressive right-mouse-button deal needs to be resolved. Right now you can control-click, click-and-hold, and right-click... and all are supposed to get you a contextual menu, except that Apple provides absolutely no support at the application level for making that happen: if you're extending a widget or writing your own you have to explicitly test for all three cases.
That should be handled at the OS level, by the input manager. The application should only ever see the separate events if it explicitly looks at raw events instead of symbolic ones.
In the meantime it means that the dock menu comes up if you wait too long before moving the mouse when reorganizing objects in the dock.
But back to the point here. First, Apple's already making the dock menu more prominent in Leopard. Second, there are other options... that was just one possibility. Third, you can always make the foreground application in the dock prominent. Fourth, if pop-up menus are the normal way of doing things then using pop-up menus in the Dock would be natural and consistent.
I've used window systems that work this way, including both of Xerox's window systems (the one that was used by Smalltalk and in a slightly different way in Interlisp-D, and the Xerox Star). Smalltalk's had a different menu or behavior for just about every combination of mouse clicks, which was a bad idea and one that probably led to Apple's ovveraction to mouse buttons in the first place, but on the Star Office System it was completely consistent and worked very very well.
on the other hand, it introduces a new choice before accessing a menu
Perhaps. It could also be an exclusive choice... you select in preferences whether the menu bar or the global popup menu is available.
Jobs already came up with another approach in NeXTstep, which was a "pop-up menu" style menu attached to the active window's title bar, that went away when you selected another window. The only problem was that you couldn't get rid of it. Making it a contextual click on the title bar might be a possibility.
the first leads to big Dock menus
An average of five or six extra top level menu items is not a big deal... but there wouldn't even be that many. Most of the menu items in any application only make sense when a window is up, and so you would usually only have the main menu for the application (which is already partially there) plus (depending on the application) File and Window. The few applications that need more already tend to have more than that in their Dock menu.
the second makes the menu that appears dependent on a non-obvious mode
Indeed. That's why I suggested that the Dock icon could be used. However, the behavior of the contextual menu in OS X is already non-obvious... depending on which combination you use to activate it it may or may not work for a non-focussed window.
A common scheme is that every application has at least one component (a window or an icon) on the screen at all times, and that component is the target for that applications default contextual menu. On OSX that would be the Dock icon.
the context menu is only a shortcut to begin with; it should never be the main way to access things.
As originally designed, it was the ONLY way to access things, and it still is in all user interfaces based on the original Xerox model rather than Apple's variant. And it works well.
The Services menu is incredibly dumb
It made a lot more sense when the menu was right there next to the window you were working on, rather than up at the top of the screen out of the way. The fact that it becomes "dumb" when menus are a long way from the mouse is really an indication of why the menu bar was only a reasonable design when the scre
I'm using my mind to access the Internet right now, and I don't even have anything implanted.
In fact, I can't think of many substantial uses of the Internet that don't require you to use your mind, even the ones that are specifically targeted at your gonads.
Personally, I'd be more worried about implanting something in my brain that allowed my mind to directly access Microsoft Windows. There are some things the mind is not meant to understand.
Merely by reading something "documented in a published document" (your words), you are no more likely to be guilty of willful infringement than you would be if you obtained the information some other way.
Well, you know, I'd really like to believe that the race goes to the honest and the case goes to the preponderance of evidence, but the way to bet is that the race goes to the deep pockets and the case goes to the guy who can force you to defend the most points in court until you run out of money or lawyers (or if you're Eric Raymond, money, guns, or lawyers) and you settle.
if Microsoft tries to hide the fact that they have patents on some technologies they are trying to get others to adopt
Where do you get this "... they are trying to get others to adopt"? The whole lawsuit was about them hiding the details of implementing these technologies and being forced to document them. They're not trying to get anyone to adopt them, they're trying to discourage people from using any implementations of them that aren't coming from Redmond, Washington.
I know HFS+ has come a long long way, but I didn't realize it had any way to implement internal branching (snapshots) because it doesn't have any mechanisms for copy-on-write.
I guess you missed some of the words in the sentence that starts: "Modern versions of UFS support snapshots,...".
UFS is the Berkeley Fast File System, which Apple refreshed to the latest version from FreeBSD in Panther. It supports snapshots, as well as being about two to the power of infinity times as reliable as HFS+, and with the emulation code in the vnode layer that Apple applies to network file shares they could get the same capabilities over UFS locally... if they chose to do so. They did not choose to do so, and so you can't currently use UFS on your system disk without more pain than even I care to put up with.
The point I was making is that Apple's got this habit of being overly attached to technology that's holding them back, like the one button mouse and HFS+. Apple has *chosen* HFS+ over UFS, so don't hold your breath for them to *choose* ZFS over HFS+.
The more companies and organizations use Microsoft's published interfaces, the less freedom they have to change them.
Only if they actually want them to use those interfaces. If they want to make people avoid the products that use these interfaces that aren't by Microsoft (and it's not like they've never deliberately broken applications) the opposite is true.
That issue only matters with trade secrets, not patents.
"It does not matter for liability purposes that a patented infringer was unaware of the patented technology when infringement occurred. However, willful or intentional infringement may carry a higher monetary penalty than innocent infringement." (Chilling Effects).
In the current environment, maybe. The thing is, you asked "what would I do instead of the menu bar", then got ironic[*] at me when I suggested the dock menu, so that's what I'm talking about:
* All menus available under the mouse at all times. * Either all menus available from the dock menu when there are no windows open, or the global menu selection be based on the current focus rather than the object under the mouse.
The global menu selection could be an additional element in the contextual menu, or a new button, or a mouse gesture, something that doesn't involve my dragging the pointer up to two feet across to the main screen and then a foot up to the menu bar.
While I'm about it, some other things that I've been able to get using hacks (not all of which I currently use) or that used to be available:
* Services in the contextual menu. Maybe instead of the Services menu, maybe make the contextual menu and the services menu equivalent. It's really daft to have two completely different ways to get context-sensitive operations. * Recent folders - in the Apple menu. * An expanding directory tree in the Apple menu or the dock. I don't think Stacks quite do this, they only seem to be one level deep. This could also handle the recent folders bit with a smart folder. * Eliminate the backdrop for the dock completely. * A shelf at the edge of the screen, or make the dock work like the shelf, and make it work on multiple sides. Stacks might make up for this. * Move the disk icons off the desktop into the dock, maybe next to the trash can. Maybe I can make/Volumes a stack.
And a single global input manager preference pane that lets me link up input events (right click, control click, command-F9, control-alt-pause, corner click) with global actions and actions exported by applications (contextual menu, global menu, expose, start screen-saver, switch screen). With some standard "reset to default for this session" combo (command-option-help, say) that you can't override, so you can't actually get stuck.
This would require some application changes to take full advantage of it, but it would beat the whole business of apps having to make their own "set my hotkeys" preference panes hollow.
[*] Might have been sarcastic, or even sardonic, that stuff doesn't come through well in text.:)
The "right button" does not allow chording, and it doesn't register as a right click at all for many people (including you and me, and a number of reviewers). The buttons on the side prevent you from lifting the mouse while holding the button depressed (an operation that was iffy but at least not impossible in the previous model). The way it forces you to hold the mouse is extremely bad for people suffering from some kinds of RSI, and the usual workarounds do not work because of the shape of the mouse and the way the right "button" operates.
I also am not impressed by the scroll ball. It's too hard to middle-click without nudging it, or scroll without clicking it, but that might just be me. Besides, I count 4 strikes against it without including that one... it's already far out it couldn't find the plate with radar.
But while these are not big victories, they slowly erode Microsoft's power
Microsoft's power doesn't reside in hiding information or obtaining judgements, it resides in changing interfaces faster than people can keep up with them, and fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Neither of these are eroded.
The EU deal makes that slightly harder, however,
Except that it gives them the ability to say "the EU court acknowledged the validity of our patents".
Remember, they don't HAVE software patents in Europe. Still don't, in statute law. But now they do in case law.
Oops.
And it gives them the ability to say "they're using XYZ patented technique, as documented in this published document".
And "Joe Smith worked for Noncommercial SA who bought our document back in 2008, and went to work for Red Hat in 2011..."
The dock menu is an additional way to access things you might want to access while not currently in the application, not the only way.
Hey! That's choice! How about that! That's just what I just suggested, an additional way, along with (say) a pop up menu for the foreground application.
Possibly, but they aren't going away, so debating it is somewhat pointless.
So why do it? Why defend them? You're right, they're not going away, we're stuck with them, but they were a bad choice. We'd be better off with pop up menus, so why not bring them back as an additional way to access things? I'm using ControllerMate+USB Overdrive+DejaMenu to get pop-up menus on the middle button on my mouse. It doesn't always work so well, and I have to go WAY out of my way to get that choice, but I'd I left it up to Steve "UI Designer" Jobs I wouldn't get it at all.
This just isn't one of these cases.
It sure is. I've proved it by bringing that choice back, for me. I had to use three additional applications, two of which I paid money for, to get this choice back. It took me a couple of years to find all these pieces. I have to reprogram ControllerMate every time I get a new Bluetooth mouse. It's a pain, it's a hassle, but the difference between using two displays with this frankenstein combo and Apple's bad UI design is incredible. I can't imagine how people put up with dual-head Macs without it.
If that [dock menus] is your solution, I can rest my case.
(Don't tell me... you've written one of those applications where the only options in the dock menus are Keep in Dock, Show at Login, Open in Finder, Hide, and Quit?)
I'm not a UI design god so I don't have to come up with one overarching solution that solves everything for everyone. I'm allowed to actually suggest more than one possibility and I don't have to buckle on brass balls and stand up for it when people take a whack at my nuts.
I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's oddball variant on menu bars either. I think menu bars were a mistake from the start. There's a menu button on the mouse, now, put it to work. You can have it open up the application menu if the foreground app doesn't have any windows. You can drag icons to the dock icon. You can even (and I realize this might be scary) allow all of these alternatives, at the same time, without even having to add an option checkbox!
You only find this surprising because you're not used to it because not a lot of people who are responsible for UI on Windows and Linux actually take care of their responsibility.
I don't use Linux at all, I only use Windows as a last resort, and I just gave away my first Mac, the original Mac, a couple of years ago. I won't take the assumption that I'm not used to good user interface design personally, but you're completely wrong about why I think Apple's decision was a daft one. I think it was a daft one because it was a daft one.
UI designers should be ashamed of themselves if they don't have the cojones to stand up for their applications and implement the best solution.
I can't think of how many applications I don't use because the designer had the brass balls stand up for their vision no matter how mistaken it was, but it's not because there aren't many of them that's for damn sure. Apple's vision has not been uniformly the best, and they've made some really awful mistakes... and even corrected some, albeit in some cases only after they almost destroyed the company with their hubris.
UI designers should be ashamed of themselves if they don't have the cojones to look into themselves and admit that sometimes, just maybe, they're humans and not gods and it's even possible for them to be mistaken.
see Fitt's law
That dog don't hunt. Fitts Law doesn't fit what Apple's doing... they're not putting the menu bar in any of the five easiest places to get to, and the easiest place... they're not using at all.
Fitts' Law says that the easiest place to get to is where the mouse already is. Xerox got it right, with a menu button on the mouse that popped up the menu right where the mouse was. Apple had this wacky scheme for a single button mouse and they couldn't do that... but on the 9" screen of the original Mac the menu bar worked pretty well. On the Xerox Star office system, with its full page display, they would have seen their mistake immediately... but Jobs' famous visit to Xerox had been years before and the Dorado and Dolphin machines Xerox developed the Star software on the screen was a lot smaller.
Twenty years later they've finally given up on the single button mouse, in a kind of horrible passive-aggressive way, but we're still stuck with the damned menu bar.
And when the Mac way is wrong, it takes Apple 20 years to admit it, in a kind of passive-aggressive way, and we get appalling pseudo-compromises like the ghastly "mighty mouse" as a result.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't recall any case "around here" where Windows got slammed because some third party application caused OS upgrade problems.
If you start with that assumption, then why worry about whether Microsoft does or does not publish anything? They can sue you anyway.
There's no damages without willful infringement.
And if Microsoft publishes something that says "here is our technique, you need it for interoperability" without telling you that it's patented, then their claims of damages are arguably weaker. Either way, open source wins.
Microsoft's not doing that. They're saying "This is an internal document that we are being forced to publish by the court. We don't want you to use anything in here, so to discourage you we're making you pay us $14k to see it. If you're a non-commercial open source developer we won't sue you if you use anything in it, but that's not going to stop us from using your package to beat up on any distros that use it, and you better not make any money from it yourself."
I use haxies to remove Apple's bling.
And I sure wasn't planning on upgrading to Leopard until I knew APE was supported on it.
Oh, and they don't go anywhere near the OS. That's why they're Application enhancers, not kernel enhancers. I've got a few of those, too... they're called "drivers" and "kernel extensions".
Windows doesn't have this problem because people don't do straight in-place upgrades on Windows.
I think it points out a larger problem that apple has, for the most part, addressed - why can't the OS come bundled with "all the little utilities and applications" you've come to depend on?
How has Apple addressed this when two of the Haxies I use, as well as two kernel modules I've installed, are there to work around problems Apple themselves are responsible for?
Gee, what are the odds that changing the underlying application would cause such a module to *not* wreak havoc on a system?
Pretty good, actually, given that only a fraction of users have problems. It's when you're binary-patching the kernel at runtime that you really have to start worrying... I've done that, on occasion, once I was still up to my elbows in debuggers five minutes before a demo for the CEO because two drivers decided to give completely different entry points the same name. It's a shame that Apple makes it necessary to do this kind of shenanigans... and I wasn't planning on upgrading until after Unsanity had gotten their stuff working reliably under Leopard anyway.
But if it is APE then well then that's kinda understandable its the singlemost invasive kernel mod of all.
APE is not a kernel mod. It runs entirely in user mode.
If you're using a lot of OS extensions, then don't be a pioneer. Let other people install early.
There are similar Windows applications that modify the OS. They have been known to not work on new versions of the OS. Even the most extreme Microsoft skeptic wouldn't say it was Microsoft's fault if Windowblinds had to be upgraded to work with Vista.
If you're doing an upgrade to the OS, and you're using any third party system extensions, you remove them before you upgrade. That's pretty basic.
It's "this 3rd party application which adds absolutely essential enhancements to my system isn't compatible with he new OS".
It's easy to point fingers, and the upgrade process should in truth be discontinued altogether (imco) and rather provide utilities that will help a user migrate personal settings and preferences to a new build via a back-up utility of some type.
Archive and install.
I was just trying to point out that the Dock menu is a bad place to put stuff, because it's non-obvious.
... and all are supposed to get you a contextual menu, except that Apple provides absolutely no support at the application level for making that happen: if you're extending a widget or writing your own you have to explicitly test for all three cases.
That's another issue, of course... the dock menu should be easier to hit, and the whole passive-aggressive right-mouse-button deal needs to be resolved. Right now you can control-click, click-and-hold, and right-click
That should be handled at the OS level, by the input manager. The application should only ever see the separate events if it explicitly looks at raw events instead of symbolic ones.
In the meantime it means that the dock menu comes up if you wait too long before moving the mouse when reorganizing objects in the dock.
But back to the point here. First, Apple's already making the dock menu more prominent in Leopard. Second, there are other options... that was just one possibility. Third, you can always make the foreground application in the dock prominent. Fourth, if pop-up menus are the normal way of doing things then using pop-up menus in the Dock would be natural and consistent.
I've used window systems that work this way, including both of Xerox's window systems (the one that was used by Smalltalk and in a slightly different way in Interlisp-D, and the Xerox Star). Smalltalk's had a different menu or behavior for just about every combination of mouse clicks, which was a bad idea and one that probably led to Apple's ovveraction to mouse buttons in the first place, but on the Star Office System it was completely consistent and worked very very well.
on the other hand, it introduces a new choice before accessing a menu
Perhaps. It could also be an exclusive choice... you select in preferences whether the menu bar or the global popup menu is available.
Jobs already came up with another approach in NeXTstep, which was a "pop-up menu" style menu attached to the active window's title bar, that went away when you selected another window. The only problem was that you couldn't get rid of it. Making it a contextual click on the title bar might be a possibility.
the first leads to big Dock menus
An average of five or six extra top level menu items is not a big deal... but there wouldn't even be that many. Most of the menu items in any application only make sense when a window is up, and so you would usually only have the main menu for the application (which is already partially there) plus (depending on the application) File and Window. The few applications that need more already tend to have more than that in their Dock menu.
the second makes the menu that appears dependent on a non-obvious mode
Indeed. That's why I suggested that the Dock icon could be used. However, the behavior of the contextual menu in OS X is already non-obvious... depending on which combination you use to activate it it may or may not work for a non-focussed window.
A common scheme is that every application has at least one component (a window or an icon) on the screen at all times, and that component is the target for that applications default contextual menu. On OSX that would be the Dock icon.
the context menu is only a shortcut to begin with; it should never be the main way to access things.
As originally designed, it was the ONLY way to access things, and it still is in all user interfaces based on the original Xerox model rather than Apple's variant. And it works well.
The Services menu is incredibly dumb
It made a lot more sense when the menu was right there next to the window you were working on, rather than up at the top of the screen out of the way. The fact that it becomes "dumb" when menus are a long way from the mouse is really an indication of why the menu bar was only a reasonable design when the scre
Damn, for a second there I thought that you were referring to Acidachrome Promanganate.
But it'd be nice if there were a way to codify that irony into law.
I think Lord Vetinari did that.
I'm using my mind to access the Internet right now, and I don't even have anything implanted.
In fact, I can't think of many substantial uses of the Internet that don't require you to use your mind, even the ones that are specifically targeted at your gonads.
Personally, I'd be more worried about implanting something in my brain that allowed my mind to directly access Microsoft Windows. There are some things the mind is not meant to understand.
Merely by reading something "documented in a published document" (your words), you are no more likely to be guilty of willful infringement than you would be if you obtained the information some other way.
Well, you know, I'd really like to believe that the race goes to the honest and the case goes to the preponderance of evidence, but the way to bet is that the race goes to the deep pockets and the case goes to the guy who can force you to defend the most points in court until you run out of money or lawyers (or if you're Eric Raymond, money, guns, or lawyers) and you settle.
if Microsoft tries to hide the fact that they have patents on some technologies they are trying to get others to adopt
Where do you get this "... they are trying to get others to adopt"? The whole lawsuit was about them hiding the details of implementing these technologies and being forced to document them. They're not trying to get anyone to adopt them, they're trying to discourage people from using any implementations of them that aren't coming from Redmond, Washington.
I know HFS+ has come a long long way, but I didn't realize it had any way to implement internal branching (snapshots) because it doesn't have any mechanisms for copy-on-write.
...".
I guess you missed some of the words in the sentence that starts: "Modern versions of UFS support snapshots,
UFS is the Berkeley Fast File System, which Apple refreshed to the latest version from FreeBSD in Panther. It supports snapshots, as well as being about two to the power of infinity times as reliable as HFS+, and with the emulation code in the vnode layer that Apple applies to network file shares they could get the same capabilities over UFS locally... if they chose to do so. They did not choose to do so, and so you can't currently use UFS on your system disk without more pain than even I care to put up with.
The point I was making is that Apple's got this habit of being overly attached to technology that's holding them back, like the one button mouse and HFS+. Apple has *chosen* HFS+ over UFS, so don't hold your breath for them to *choose* ZFS over HFS+.
The more companies and organizations use Microsoft's published interfaces, the less freedom they have to change them.
Only if they actually want them to use those interfaces. If they want to make people avoid the products that use these interfaces that aren't by Microsoft (and it's not like they've never deliberately broken applications) the opposite is true.
That issue only matters with trade secrets, not patents.
"It does not matter for liability purposes that a patented infringer was unaware of the patented technology when infringement occurred. However, willful or intentional infringement may carry a higher monetary penalty than innocent infringement." (Chilling Effects).
No, it's not choice, it's a different mode.
/Volumes a stack.
:)
In the current environment, maybe. The thing is, you asked "what would I do instead of the menu bar", then got ironic[*] at me when I suggested the dock menu, so that's what I'm talking about:
* All menus available under the mouse at all times.
* Either all menus available from the dock menu when there are no windows open, or the global menu selection be based on the current focus rather than the object under the mouse.
The global menu selection could be an additional element in the contextual menu, or a new button, or a mouse gesture, something that doesn't involve my dragging the pointer up to two feet across to the main screen and then a foot up to the menu bar.
While I'm about it, some other things that I've been able to get using hacks (not all of which I currently use) or that used to be available:
* Services in the contextual menu. Maybe instead of the Services menu, maybe make the contextual menu and the services menu equivalent. It's really daft to have two completely different ways to get context-sensitive operations.
* Recent folders - in the Apple menu.
* An expanding directory tree in the Apple menu or the dock. I don't think Stacks quite do this, they only seem to be one level deep. This could also handle the recent folders bit with a smart folder.
* Eliminate the backdrop for the dock completely.
* A shelf at the edge of the screen, or make the dock work like the shelf, and make it work on multiple sides. Stacks might make up for this.
* Move the disk icons off the desktop into the dock, maybe next to the trash can. Maybe I can make
And a single global input manager preference pane that lets me link up input events (right click, control click, command-F9, control-alt-pause, corner click) with global actions and actions exported by applications (contextual menu, global menu, expose, start screen-saver, switch screen). With some standard "reset to default for this session" combo (command-option-help, say) that you can't override, so you can't actually get stuck.
This would require some application changes to take full advantage of it, but it would beat the whole business of apps having to make their own "set my hotkeys" preference panes hollow.
[*] Might have been sarcastic, or even sardonic, that stuff doesn't come through well in text.
Well, it works well for some people, but not all. It is hardly ghastly.
If you had my wrist you'd use terms like that.
Trust me.
ridiculous accelerations
That's another hot button. I can't handle mouse acceleration at all. Some people love it though.
Care to ellaborate on the "ghastly" mighty mouse?
The "right button" does not allow chording, and it doesn't register as a right click at all for many people (including you and me, and a number of reviewers). The buttons on the side prevent you from lifting the mouse while holding the button depressed (an operation that was iffy but at least not impossible in the previous model). The way it forces you to hold the mouse is extremely bad for people suffering from some kinds of RSI, and the usual workarounds do not work because of the shape of the mouse and the way the right "button" operates.
I also am not impressed by the scroll ball. It's too hard to middle-click without nudging it, or scroll without clicking it, but that might just be me. Besides, I count 4 strikes against it without including that one... it's already far out it couldn't find the plate with radar.
But while these are not big victories, they slowly erode Microsoft's power
Microsoft's power doesn't reside in hiding information or obtaining judgements, it resides in changing interfaces faster than people can keep up with them, and fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Neither of these are eroded.
The EU deal makes that slightly harder, however,
Except that it gives them the ability to say "the EU court acknowledged the validity of our patents".
Remember, they don't HAVE software patents in Europe. Still don't, in statute law. But now they do in case law.
Oops.
And it gives them the ability to say "they're using XYZ patented technique, as documented in this published document".
And "Joe Smith worked for Noncommercial SA who bought our document back in 2008, and went to work for Red Hat in 2011..."
Oops.
The dock menu is an additional way to access things you might want to access while not currently in the application, not the only way.
Hey! That's choice! How about that! That's just what I just suggested, an additional way, along with (say) a pop up menu for the foreground application.
Possibly, but they aren't going away, so debating it is somewhat pointless.
So why do it? Why defend them? You're right, they're not going away, we're stuck with them, but they were a bad choice. We'd be better off with pop up menus, so why not bring them back as an additional way to access things? I'm using ControllerMate+USB Overdrive+DejaMenu to get pop-up menus on the middle button on my mouse. It doesn't always work so well, and I have to go WAY out of my way to get that choice, but I'd I left it up to Steve "UI Designer" Jobs I wouldn't get it at all.
This just isn't one of these cases.
It sure is. I've proved it by bringing that choice back, for me. I had to use three additional applications, two of which I paid money for, to get this choice back. It took me a couple of years to find all these pieces. I have to reprogram ControllerMate every time I get a new Bluetooth mouse. It's a pain, it's a hassle, but the difference between using two displays with this frankenstein combo and Apple's bad UI design is incredible. I can't imagine how people put up with dual-head Macs without it.
So, yes, this is exactly one of these cases.
If that [dock menus] is your solution, I can rest my case.
(Don't tell me... you've written one of those applications where the only options in the dock menus are Keep in Dock, Show at Login, Open in Finder, Hide, and Quit?)
I'm not a UI design god so I don't have to come up with one overarching solution that solves everything for everyone. I'm allowed to actually suggest more than one possibility and I don't have to buckle on brass balls and stand up for it when people take a whack at my nuts.
I'm not a big fan of Microsoft's oddball variant on menu bars either. I think menu bars were a mistake from the start. There's a menu button on the mouse, now, put it to work. You can have it open up the application menu if the foreground app doesn't have any windows. You can drag icons to the dock icon. You can even (and I realize this might be scary) allow all of these alternatives, at the same time, without even having to add an option checkbox!
You only find this surprising because you're not used to it because not a lot of people who are responsible for UI on Windows and Linux actually take care of their responsibility.
I don't use Linux at all, I only use Windows as a last resort, and I just gave away my first Mac, the original Mac, a couple of years ago. I won't take the assumption that I'm not used to good user interface design personally, but you're completely wrong about why I think Apple's decision was a daft one. I think it was a daft one because it was a daft one.
UI designers should be ashamed of themselves if they don't have the cojones to stand up for their applications and implement the best solution.
I can't think of how many applications I don't use because the designer had the brass balls stand up for their vision no matter how mistaken it was, but it's not because there aren't many of them that's for damn sure. Apple's vision has not been uniformly the best, and they've made some really awful mistakes... and even corrected some, albeit in some cases only after they almost destroyed the company with their hubris.
UI designers should be ashamed of themselves if they don't have the cojones to look into themselves and admit that sometimes, just maybe, they're humans and not gods and it's even possible for them to be mistaken.
see Fitt's law
That dog don't hunt. Fitts Law doesn't fit what Apple's doing... they're not putting the menu bar in any of the five easiest places to get to, and the easiest place... they're not using at all.
Fitts' Law says that the easiest place to get to is where the mouse already is. Xerox got it right, with a menu button on the mouse that popped up the menu right where the mouse was. Apple had this wacky scheme for a single button mouse and they couldn't do that... but on the 9" screen of the original Mac the menu bar worked pretty well. On the Xerox Star office system, with its full page display, they would have seen their mistake immediately... but Jobs' famous visit to Xerox had been years before and the Dorado and Dolphin machines Xerox developed the Star software on the screen was a lot smaller.
Twenty years later they've finally given up on the single button mouse, in a kind of horrible passive-aggressive way, but we're still stuck with the damned menu bar.
Using a Mac is done the Mac way.
And when the Mac way is wrong, it takes Apple 20 years to admit it, in a kind of passive-aggressive way, and we get appalling pseudo-compromises like the ghastly "mighty mouse" as a result.
Sometimes Apple just plain does the wrong thing.