What else is new from M$

[MoonRise]

This is just infuriating! When will this ever stop!


http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/28/m...-licenses-htc/

[Fintan]

Re: What else is new from M$

This is just infuriating! When will this ever stop!

In a word, when the senators and reps. start thinking with the head on their shoulder and not with the one between.... and the one in their back pocket.

And when companies like HTC start saying: "I don't need you or your product (especially windows mobile)".

And when MS finally unpacks its "goods" and we can get this cleared up once and for all.

That won't happen so quick.
- They make too much money on FUD
- There is probably no "goods" to unpack.

It is time someone called their bluff.

[dibl]

Re: What else is new from M$

- There is probably no "goods" to unpack.

It is time someone called their bluff.

Right!

"The emperor has no clothes ...."

[MoonRise]

Re: What else is new from M$

- There is probably no "goods" to unpack.

It is time someone called their bluff.

Right!

"The emperor has no clothes ...."

Isn't that the truth!!

[kjjjjshab]

Re: What else is new from M$

- There is probably no "goods" to unpack.

It is time someone called their bluff.

Right!

"The emperor has no clothes ...."

Isn't that the truth!!

Isn't a big part of the problem though that the federal government allows for patenting vague concepts and ideas that are independent from the actual code that produces the effect? If MS can patent "you hit a button and the screen lights up" (stupid example) then this sort of thing is always going to happen. I can hardly blame MS for being this evil when the feds give them the right to...

[toad]

Re: What else is new from M$

Well, I hope you are aware that every time you use your mouse you infringe a patent. Time to go CLI only

And yes, I can blame M$ for being what they are regardless of whether they have the "right" to do so or not. Now this is one company that has GREED written all over it. Christ, they make Goldman-Sachs look like amateurs and that is saying something!

[GreyGeek]

Re: What else is new from M$

Well, I hope you are aware that every time you use your mouse you infringe a patent. Time to go CLI only
...

I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that Microsoft will claim to own the CLI patent. By now it probably has a lot more than the mysterious "235" patents it claimed that Linux was violating. They've patented the "PageUp" and "PageDown" key functions (jumping proportionally from page to page), and several programming functions common to programming languages since I started writing Fortran code in 1968. The examples of prior art no longer bothers or impresses the USTPO. Their attitude is to take the $10,000 + filing fee and let the contestants fight it out in court. That situation was not arrived at by accident. It is now the SOP because Congress took their money ("campaign contributions") and ran from the issue, letting those with money overpower those without, with the courts and the law now acting as enforcer goons. Al Capone would be proud.

MIT professor Heckel wrote, in the June, 1992, issue of "Communications of the ACM" (In support of his own software patents, which many called ridiculous):

This patent illustrates that it is usually easy to design around a patent one accidentally infringes. If this patent, a hardware patent, is a "bad" patent as some claim, it only demonstrates that the electronics industry tolerates "bad" patents because it finds patents beneficial on balance. Software should be able to tolerate "bad" patents similarly. To discard the patent system because some bad patents exist would be the same as suppressing free speech to stamp out lies.

Microsoft and other big corporations, and many smaller ones as well, have turned his logic on its head ... they are using lies in patents to suppress Free Software.

[MoonRise]

Re: What else is new from M$

.... letting those with money overpower those without....

Oh how so true!