Microsoft Wins HTML App Patent 404
crataegus writes "'Microsoft on Tuesday won a patent for launching a certain kind of HTML application within Windows. The patent, "Method and apparatus for writing a Windows application in HTML" (Hypertext Markup Language), describes Microsoft's way of opening up HTML applications in a window free of navigation and other interface elements, known as "chrome," and browser security restrictions.' Why does this sound vaguely familiar?"
Re:XHTML (Score:1, Informative)
Spoken like someone who doesn't really know what XHTML is.
XHTML(TM) 1.0 The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second Edition) [w3.org]
The Mozilla thing is completely different (Score:4, Informative)
The patent (I presume) is on this method, where a browser control is pointed at a DLL rather than a web server speaking HTTP. This is completely different than skinning, as it is a way of running a dynamic, HTML-based application locally without a web server.
Re:Well.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well.. (Score:2, Informative)
Please. RTFP.
Re:Your confusion (Score:5, Informative)
Remember Netcaster [netscape.com]?. Netcaster might have been a heinous abomination but it was still an app written in HTML, JS etc. as the link makes pretty clear.
Or perhaps MS thinks that the patent only covers Win32-only HTML apps. In other words cripple your HTML based app so it only runs on their platform and infringe on their patent. It makes sense to someone I'm sure.
XUL, JavaScript, etc. (Score:5, Informative)
The whole thing gets packaged up in
It's quite cool. And the technology is old, so I don't see Microsoft's ability to defend its position as strong.
(I believe this is MOSTLY accurate. Someone please correct me who is more familiar with Moz)
No similarities here (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know. If you knew anything about Windows HTAs, you'd know that they have no discernible similarity to the Mozilla technologies you reference. That technology allows (for example) skinning. The point about HTAs is that they get rid of the browser chrome, at the same time as being nothing to do with the use of web browser-originated technology for browsing.
The point about HTAs is that they consist of (X)HTML, JavaScript and COM (ActiveX) objects. When installed on your system, they run as applications in the Windows environment, meaning no sandboxing: file system access, etc.
As somebody is going to sneer "Why would I let a web site do that", let me point out that this isn't anything to do with websites. If you download and install an HTA, you have to follow the same procedures as for any other software you download. Anybody distributing an HTA would probably have to package it using an installer of some kind. You can't just have one appear when you go to a site; any HTA that does anything useful needs a bunch of COM components installed in addition.
And for those who ask "What's the point of it": one good use is for creating test harnesses for COM components. You can code up a UI with a quick bit of HTML, stick some JavaScript in there and run your test cases against the component. It's even easier than using VB to create such utility apps. It's also useful for rapid prototyping of ideas; it only takes a few minutes to explore a concept (if you're any good at JavaScript programming). But I can't imagine many people actually shipping HTAs.
Why grant them a patent? I assume it's because they were the first to think of taking the technology out of the web browser, rearranging it in this novel way, and thereby providing a facility that wasn't there before.
I wouldn't worry about it affecting your lives in any great way; it's specifically a Microsoft technology.
But I still wonder why somebody would take the words 'a window free of navigation and other interface elements, known as "chrome,"' and think it was similar to a technology for adding chrome.
Sounds Similar (Score:3, Informative)
2 modified dates (Score:3, Informative)
The April 1999 change was the last change of the content
Uh.... Different thing... (Score:3, Informative)
I think the whole idea went out of favor at MS a long time ago - I haven't seen an HTA article there for a while. They apparently weren't too memorable, the comments I've read thusfar betray no understanding of what they are/were.
Re:What's next? (Score:4, Informative)
Really?
Their "Chrome" stuff predates Mozilla. Although they're not using the word in that context.
1998 references to Chrome from Microsoft [web3d.org]
Re:It doesn't bother me! (Score:2, Informative)
Add Remove Programs.hta and mshta.exe (Score:5, Informative)
Now kill it, and your page dies too
in win2k and newer try this"
open control Panel and run Add/Remove Programs
You are looking at hta in action.
kill mshta.exe again, Add/Remove Programs dies as well.
I find HTA handy when I dont want to load visual studio for a quick app that I would rather run as a web page, but I can't because I need more system level access. A quick VBScript or JScript with a html frontend in notepad works wonders.
FYI: Little help is actualy written for HTA, but realize it is a mix of Script and HTML working together named *.hta
Kiosk mode (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, the basic idea was to be able to run a Web browser on a machine (kiosk) without letting anybody muck around with the settings and such. Generally used with touchscreen input and the like.
Considering that it's a technique that's been in use for years and years, it doesn't really sound like something you could patent. The Mozilla stuff just sounds like a generalization for Mozilla of the technique already used in existing browsers.
Re:Well.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It doesn't bother me! (Score:3, Informative)
That is the standard categorization used, but you are right that there are other distinctions, such as line-based vs. structured. Similarly along these lines we have lexical vs. dynamic scoping, strong vs. weak typing, explicit vs. implicit typing, and sequential vs. implicit vs. explicit concurrency. There's also a general sense of "how much you have to type" to write or modify a program, i.e. how compact the notation is. Note that Visual Basic (and Quick Basic before it) are actually structured languages, unlike the line-number-oriented BASICs before them.
I think one of the most useful combinations of language features is something compact, between imperative and functional with structured, lexically scoped, implicit static typing with built-in support for (including fine-grain) explicit concurrency (explicit concurrency is required for on-line I/O, which conflicts with a pure functional language's simple input-compute-output-stop program model). Unfortunately, there aren't any popular languages like this (especially for good concurrency & I/O support).
Re:Is there some wayt o hold the USPTO liable? (Score:2, Informative)
The guy who registered the wheel was rightly pointing out the ridulous nature of the new patents.
http://www.ipmenu.com/archive/AUI_20011
Re:Well.. (Score:3, Informative)
HTAs are basically web pages that have no security model and can bind with local COM objects. They are deployed by copying them to your hard drive rather than pulling them from the network. As the article mentions, Windows now uses these heavily for things like control panels.
As a side-note, the HTA "feature" is of the main causes of IE security problems. Apparently the browser can be easily confused as to what 'zone' it is in, which can allow malicious code to bypass security checks.
Re:Well.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It doesn't bother me! (Score:3, Informative)
1. Spurious characters due to electrical noise in a communications link, especially an EIA-232 serial connection. Line noise may be induced by poor connections, interference or crosstalk from other circuits, electrical storms, cosmic rays, or (notionally) birds crapping on the phone wires.
2. Any chunk of data in a file or elsewhere that looks like the results of electrical line noise.
3. Text that is theoretically a readable text or program source but employs syntax so bizarre that it looks like line noise. Yes, there are languages this ugly. The canonical example is TECO, whose input syntax is often said to be indistinguishable from line noise. Other non-WYSIWYG editors, such as Multics "qed" and Unix "ed", in the hands of a real hacker, also qualify easily, as do deliberately obfuscated languages such as INTERCAL.
(I'll point out that VB is nothing like those languages. But if you type gibberish, it will autocorrect until you've got a running program. Almost.)
Re:ALL patents are bad (Score:3, Informative)
A lot of those billions are spent on marketing not research. In addition a lot of the fundamental research is done by public institutions, because for profit companies are more reclutant to spend money that may produce some return in 10 years time.
See this article [salon.com] in Salon...for instance.
Re:XHTML (Score:2, Informative)
Use <object>. There's always a way to cheat to make it work for Mozilla, and usually it is something like..
<object ...IE properties...> ...Mozilla properties...>
<!--[if !IE]> -->
<object
</object>
<!-- <![endif]-->
</object>
That's valid even by XHTML 1.1, should work on both browsers (I use it all the time for Java applets), and doesn't use any Javascript.
Re:W3C or GPL? (Score:3, Informative)
ahhhggg ... (Score:3, Informative)
It's very instructive to read a /. story about something I actually know. Is the pack always this boneheaded? I know, I know "you must be new here" ;)
Newfound respect for IBM (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.asp
I was fully expecting to find donations from IBM employees/officers. I was utterly surprised to find none.