W3C Requests Eolas Patent Re-Examination 342
x0n writes "Verbatim from W3: Acting on the advice of the W3C HTML Patent Advisory Group, W3C has presented the United States Patent and Trademark Office with prior art establishing that US Patent No. 5,838,906 (the '906 patent) is invalid. W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee has written an unprecedented request to U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property James E. Rogan to take action to remove the patent to allow operation of the Web. Read the briefing." techsoldaten adds a link to this New York Times story on the move, and
bgalbs points out the W3C's detailed filing describing prior art provided to the USPTO Director's office, "along with a letter from Tim Berners-Lee asking that the so-called Eolas patent be revoked," writing "Here's hoping it does some good; between this and the Lotus Notes prior art, perhaps there's hope this will all go away."
When You think Microsoft is Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
How is Eolas evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that said infringer is huge and has decided to unilaterally shaft the Web in order to avoid paying licensing fees has nothing to do with the inherent goodness or evilness of Eolas.
BTW, Eolas is privately owned with only one employee. MS can't buy it unless Eolas agrees to being bought. Also, if MS were to buy Eolas you think they'd just suddenly go and license that patent to everyone out of the goodness of their heart?
Re:How is Eolas evil? (Score:2, Insightful)
What? a patent is valid unless it's claimed technology experiences widespread adoption?
That patent is ok because no-one infringes it but this patent is evil because every one uses it so that they might have to readjust or pay licenses.
This other patent was good until everyone implemented the technology, now its bad.
You would think that anyone with two last names would be smart enough to realize this simple concept:
The PTO by law is not supposed to give rats deewiddle a
Re:How is Eolas evil? (Score:2)
No, I know what I'm talking about (Score:2)
MS has already shown its willingness to use one product to drive adoption of another (Windows for IE), what would stop them from refusing to license this patent to any other browser and then "tweaking" IE so it will only talk to IIS?
Re:No, I know what I'm talking about (Score:2)
That's not exactly true.
They are no longer developing IE6 for OSX, but you will still be able to get IE5 for OSX 10.2.X (haven't checked panther yet). According the MS FAQ [microsoft.com] it will continue to be supported for a while at least.
As much as I dislike Microsoft, I appreciate this gesture, because as cool as Safari, Mozilla, etc are, I find that some sites (Bank of America) just work better with IE, no matter how many emails I send them requesti
Re:No, I know what I'm talking about (Score:2)
Re:How is Eolas evil? (Score:3, Interesting)
To use IE, you have to use Windows. Windows costs money. Ergo, IE costs money (since it's part of the OS, and you cannot get the two seperately). The cost of it is hidden, just like the cost of the free lunch is hidden within the cost of the beers you buy to assuage your sudden thirst, brought on by the extra salt in your free sandwiche and free chips.
Re:How is Eolas evil? (Score:2, Informative)
As I see it, "as in beer" and "as in money" are the same thing. After all, money can be exchanged for beer, so "as in beer, but not as in money" doesn't make sense to me.
The two types of "free" are generally refered to as 1) free as in beer (gratis - free of charge, freebie) and 2) free as in speech (libre - liberty, freedom). As far as software goes, free-as-in-beer refers to the purchase price and free-as-in-speech refers to what you can (legally) do with it afte
Re:When You think Microsoft is Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
When you think Microsoft is evil and there is nobody lower, you look at Eols to find that they even sunk below Microsoft. Can't Microsoft just buy Eols and fire all their employees and have this nightmare be over with.
Also, Eolas has only one employee, the president and CEO who's leading the suit. It's a one man operation.
Plus: The worst case scenario would be Eolas being bought by Microsoft because the patent would live on in the hands of Microsoft. The best thing can happen is the small fish biting the big one, even if we think is unfair, but for once the big corporations need to be hit by these stupid patents for the system (read: the people that makes the decisions) to move.
This is a Good Thing, a big player is being threatened by the stupid patent system, so there's hope now for changes to be made.
The sad part is all those small players that have been fscked by the system; the decision makers only listen to the big fish.
Re:When You think Microsoft is Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
How is this a worst-case scenario?
When's the last time Microsoft proactively enforced a broad-ranging patent to the detriment of an entire industry?
Re:When You think Microsoft is Evil (Score:3, Interesting)
And before you fault me for suggesting Microsoft would do this without any evidence; I am just using the same type of argument as the Microsoft apologists who say that any company would act like Microsoft, so any legal sanctions against Microsoft just rewards loser companies that couldn't compete. Ei
Re:When You think Microsoft is Evil (Score:2)
Re:When You think Microsoft is Evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, THAT eolas patent (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a little background reading [slashdot.org].
--
Re:Oh, THAT eolas patent (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh, THAT eolas patent (Score:3, Informative)
'Eolas' is the Irish word for 'Knowledge'.
http://www.funet.fi/~magi/opinnot/gaelic/irish-di
Re:Oh, THAT eolas patent (Score:2)
This is absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
There should be no need for prior art. The very idea that you can patent the idea of putting something that used to appear in a new window embedded in the original window instead is just absurd beyond belief. A wonderful example of what nonsense the entire idea of 'intellectual property' is.
Re:This is absurd (Score:3, Funny)
One bad idea doesn't mean all ideas are bad.
Re:This is absurd (Score:3, Informative)
You're right -- that notion is absurd -- but if you'd actually bother to read the patent [uspto.gov], you'd notice that your gross oversimplification isn't anywhere close to what Eolas actually claims.
Valid roof of prior art is the only way to defeat this patent.
Re:This is absurd (Score:4, Insightful)
I've read it. I stand by my characterisation. I encourage anyone that's wondering to read it themselves, and preserved the link in the quoted text above to encourage just that. It covers what I said, along with a few extremely general and obvious ideas such as letting the client and the server talk to each other as the content is displayed. If you think there is something more there please feel free to quote the part in question.
Re:This is absurd (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This is absurd (Score:2)
And I didn't say anything of the sort. I said it's a wonderful example. Do you know what an example is? It's a single datapoint that can be used to illustrate a broader point. It's not a syllogism or any other sort of proof, it's an example.
Re:This is absurd (Score:2)
Re:This is absurd (Score:2)
Re:This is absurd (Score:2)
Re:This is absurd (Score:2)
I don't think that's clear at all. It could be that they copied him, it could be that he copied them, it could be that EMBED is a pretty obvious keyword for this sort of thing, and using a tag in that way in the context of HTML to indicate plugin content is a pretty obvio
Re:This is absurd (Score:2)
[embed type="application/eqn"]2 pi int sin (omega t)dt [/embed] [w3.org] (original used the angle brackets instead of [] correctly,
Looks to me like BOTH Nescape AND Eolas copied from that earlier source - gee where have we heard that *cough*SCO,Linux*cough* before?
Re:This is absurd (Score:2)
Yes, they can. That's stupid too. It's not quite as bad, however, because the patents in those cases are very narrow, covering only a very specific implementation of the idea - someone else can come along and do the same thing in a slightly different way and be legally alright. The equivalent in a software patent might be to allow patenting a particular section of code, but that would
Re:Effect/affect (Score:2)
Correct. Thanks.
Re:This is absurd (Score:5, Interesting)
This patent is the equivalent of everyone using a device to hold the screw, but up until now it has only been used on wood.
Now Eolas comes along and patents the idea of using the screw holding device for use on metal materials.
Same tool, different media, obvious implementation.
Enjoy,
Re:Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. 'Intellectual property' is a very, very recent invention. It was a radical new idea in the 1700s, ignored by most nations, including many of the more prosperous ones, and where it did exist it had a much milder form than today. What we call 'IP' today really hasn't existed until just a few years ago. I suppose we were all cave dwellers before that? Bull.
Re:What else happened in the 1700's? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're assuming that technological progress would have stopped at that point, all over the world, just because the handful of countries that introduced relatively mild copyright and patent laws at this time did otherwise? That's a huge an unwarranted assumption, and/or a a circular argument.
If anything, the bulk affect of these laws is to stifle progress, not to help it. Particularly with the current 'modern' implementations of these ideas.
No, you need to back up and figure out where you got lost. The notion that human inventiveness would suddenly cease if people couldn't lay legal claim to ideas is absolutely absurd.
Re:What else happened in the 1700's? (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, there is a corelation between the invention of patents and the industrial revolution. Whether that corelation is causitive or not I don't know. The original poster seems to believe that it is. And you seem to be arguing that it isn't. But your argument against the causitive nature is pretty weak:
Try "Day the Universe Changed" (Score:5, Informative)
History shows us exactly what happens when patent law (and presumably trademark and copyright law) serves the "owner" alone, not society as a whole. You clearly don't know that Britain had 100-year patents for a while... and she made no significant contribution to chemistry or industrial processes during that time. Like copyright today a person could not extend on a process developed on the day of their birth - they and their children (and even many of their grandchildren) would be dead long before the patent expired.
Meanwhile other countries, notably Germany, refused to respect the terms of British patents and had short patent durations themselves. If something was developed on the day you became an apprentice, you could probably use it as a journeyman and could certainly extend it as a master.
Germany industry flourished, and a backwards agrarian society became an industrial powerhouse that far exceeded the capabilities of the British industry they 'stole' from within a working lifetime. The US followed a similar path, although it's not quite as striking here since we didn't break a centuries-old pattern.
History is unambiguous on this question. Terms short enough to fit several consecutive patents into a working lifetime promote progress and innovation. Terms longer than a working lifetime stop innovation in its tracks and serve no useful purpose to society. They do, however, allow lazy CEOs to freeze the marketplace with them on top, and since the marketplace is frozen you see prices jacked up with none of the money "wasted" on research or innovation.
Re:What else happened in the 1700's? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and the internet was developed using US tax payers money, just the way that most early work on computers was done by researchers using public money or working on their own WITHOUT APPLYING FOR PATENTS or otherwise retaining restrictive IP rights. It's quite interesting that you bring up the internet, considering that a large part in the success of the internet is that all specifications for the basic infrastructure are available in the open, and NOT covered by any IP rights that restricts reuse.
Try to guarantee all you want that Intel and Apple wouldn't do years of R&D if their competitors could steal it once they go to market, but the idea is ludicrous. Companies DO steal their ideas as soon as they go to market - patents doesn't stop that. It stops the blanket copying. However who would copy Intels chip designs when they lack the technical capability to manufacture the chips, and when reverse engineering the designs would take them so long the next generation chips would already be out?
And further back in the field what you will see is that sharing of information unecumbered by patents and copyright was what advanced the computing field.
Some IP rights might be warranted - authors of non-bestseller books don't usually make lots of money (unless they're one hell of a negotiator when dealing with their publisher), and many of them might never have gotten written or published if they could have been copied by another publisher right away. In that case not having any IP rights would have been a loss to the public.
But most major scientific advances have not been protected by patents or copyright.
You point to the Polio vaccine, but the "invention" of the vaccine by Salk was often heavily criticized by other researchers as containing nothing new of substance, but being just a result of combining research already in the public domain. And in fact Albert Sabin soon developed a new vaccine that more or less superceded the Salk vaccine. Add to that that the research wasn't done by a private company, but a university and the idea that lack of IP rights would have prevented it gets ridiculous.
TV is perhaps the only area you mentioned where patents had much of an impact, but even there there is little doubt from looking at the history of it that the research would have happened regardless of patent rights - perhaps slower, perhaps faster.
Re:What else happened in the 1700's? (Score:5, Informative)
Lowell, Massachusetts is famous (well, was famous) as being a very important and large milling city in America. But before it could become a large milling city, the industrial era mills needed to be invented. They were orginally invented in England, where they were patented [nps.gov]. From the Lowell National Historical Park Handbook [nps.gov], specifically, Early American Manufactoring [nps.gov]:
The United States as an industrial power was basically established through patent infringement. The patent system was designed based on the idea of convincing people to share their ideas. Protecting them is a means to an end. However, when you have patents protecting frivolous inventions (once you have dynamically linked libraries, plugins are a fairly obvious next step), the system becomes abused. It no longer promotes the sharing of ideas and the development of new ones, it instead restricts innovation.
Who knows if patents as they currently exist really do spur on invention? But patents as they existed during the Industrial Revolution almost kept America out of the game until someone "stole" the designs for mills, at which point the flood gates opened and America became industrialized.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? I think the term "intellectual property" was not even coined until looong after humans left the caves. Unless you mean, not the term itself but the concept of "intellectual property"? On that too I would dispute you; even in modern law there is no such overall concept, and in my experience (I am a postdoctorial research fellow in theoretical physics) the whole notion of "intellectual property" is
Baloney (Score:3, Interesting)
With all due respect, there is no such thing as "intellectual property", there are trademarks, patents, and copyrights.
And for the most part, none of them existed more than a few hundred years ago, with the concept of "IP" existing less than 40 years.
As to the USPTO: Do we need to throw it out? No. Do we need to roll it back by 100 years. Probably.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Hmm. (Score:3, Insightful)
What, you think that MS just wrote out a check for half a billion dollars as they walked out of the court room?
The ruling has been appealed. If the patent was revoked then the appellate court would simply reverse the ruling on the basis of the patent being invalid and MS wouldn't have to cough up a nickel (except to their lawyers).
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
Most large firms have a few lawyers on staff that are paid a flat amount in exactly the same way as a staff programmer or assembly line worker is paid. When legal matters get too complex for staff lawyers, the amount of work is greater than they can handle, or additional expertise is needed outside lawyers will be obtained.
Each company is different. In general [large enough] a company can expect at any given time to have several lawsuits underway, as such it is to their advantage to have a few laywers on staff to handle those cases, in addition to those providing legal advice for other matters (contract review, policy, tax issues, copyrights, patent filing, and so on). However since each lawsuit is different, and the company will often pick up extra lawyers who know one particular area of law that is unneeded for most cases, to handle specific cases.
Re:Hmm. (Score:2)
That nitpick aside, good post.
Re:Hmm. (Score:2)
they claim prior art from MS! (Score:5, Interesting)
It is incredible that MS would forget to use prior art of their own in their own lawsuit!
Re:they claim prior art from MS! (Score:3, Interesting)
That is assuming MS wanted to win the case. They could have easily won the case if they wanted. However, by loosing the case, they simply pave the way for more MS insurance on the browser market. Suddenly, commercial vendors releasing browsers must comply. This means that when a user switches, they will blame the browser rather than MS, which will provide a MS-only solution to the problem.
The other issue is that the next iteration of Windows wouldn't use plugins but wou
Re:they claim prior art from MS! (Score:3, Interesting)
Prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's an example [berkeley.edu] of the chess app being used in Viola in 1991, which questions Eolas patent.
This may be *the* art (Score:2)
Re:Eolas doesn't mind other software (Score:2, Insightful)
For now... What happens when a few years down the road, the guy running Eolas decides he wants a new jet or yacht? Maybe he just wants to see how much he can get his net worth up to. Who knows what he's planning or thinking.
He's already shown his stance on IP patents, I have no doubts that suing other browser companies is not that far off, regardless of what he says.
Lets show our support for this (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, the mozilla foundation in its official statement [mozilla.org] on the issue says nothing to condemn the Eolas patent, but instead has some content free statements like "The Eolas matter highlights the degree to which web browser software is critical to the user experience of the web.". I don't think this is the right thing to do. Getting all up in arms about say the gif patent and pretending you didn't notice when MS is hit is not good. So let us speak with one voice, and show our support for W3C.
Re:Lets show our support for this (Score:3, Informative)
It's funny how... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft bad.
Software patents bad.
Poetic Justice?!?
Remember, it could just as easily have been the Mozilla or Konquerer developers being sued, (legally speaking), in which case the folks in this forum would be all up in arms about it and supporting the W3C.
Re:It's funny how... (Score:2)
Software patents bad - that's a mixed bag, but yes, the people who think they're bad speak up much more. Pretty much everyone agrees that the US Patent Office issues way too many software patents that it shouldn't - either because they're obvious, or because there's prior art. A lot of people here seem to think that automatically makes all patents bad. There's also the crowd that thinks that because something is obvious now, of course
Re:It's funny how... (Score:2)
I'd much prefer means that are reasonable, and don't hurt everyone else, as well. For example, nuking Redmond to get rid of Microsoft is a bad way to solve the problem. Similarly a patent that makes every web browser much less useful just to hurt Microsoft loses.
Personally, I think having handed out patents for arbitrarily programmable computing devices, handing out more patents for using those devices with a particular set of programming is silly. It's just lik
Re:It's funny how... (Score:2)
Finally some good patent news! (Score:2)
I almost never click the "Patent Pending" Slashdot links, because they are almost always depressing. Nice to see a change of pace!
I really hope this wins. I get so sick and tired of people filing abusive patents to strangle the whole world just so they can make a quick buck. My company is currently fighting something similar, so it's a pet peeve of mine.
If W3C wins this, they should keep the momentum going and go after Jeff Bezos. He's a prime example of this kind of abuse.
Weaselmancer
Patent thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)
Supposedly, the underlying justification for patents is to encourage investment in research by protecting inventions from direct competition for a limited time. In that context, there should be a requirement for a strong correlation between the time required to create an "invention", and the time frame of the protection. If something takes 5 years of R&D to create, 7 years of patent protection seems reasonable. If it takes 5 minutes, that time frame certainly is not.
Why not, as part of the patent process, have a peer review of the application, with a best-guess among the reviewers as to how long it would take to create the invention or (more approximately) generate the underlying insight, given a person working in that field? Multiply that time by a generosity factor of X, and limit the patent's applicability to that duration, assuming it passes all other prior art tests. It would seem that this would much more closely represent the intent of patent law, as well as eliminating irrational impediments to technological progress.
Who said MS wanted to Win the case? (Score:3, Interesting)
What should be understood is the advantages MS would gain in losing.
Teh fact that prior art itself that was not presented by MS but of MS products, should be plenty reason to suspect MS didn't want to win the case, but only create the illusion.
Perhpas the question to ask now is how is MS using other companies to do their bidding, like SCO..
There is no conspiracy here. (Score:2)
IBM via OS/2 did this years ago (Score:2)
There is zero difference between doing this and a web browser or any other program simply assigning a range of pixels to hold an image created by an external program.
It is totally absurd that the USPTO should assign a patent for perfectly obvious technology that was in wide spread use by the patent officer himself!
So WTF is going on in the USPTO?
Bloody idjo
Re:IBM via OS/2 did this years ago (Score:2)
Re:IBM via OS/2 did this years ago (Score:2)
According to the USPTO website [uspto.gov]:
Re:IBM via OS/2 did this years ago (Score:2)
This patent was filed years ago.
There were plenty of stupid (1-click purchasing) patents granted in the previous administration too.
Are you suggesting that they too had a political agenda for granting THOSE patents?
I didn't think so.
The Patent Office should have to Pay (Score:3, Insightful)
If the Patent Office had to Pay For Their Mistakes, they might be less likely to make the same mistakes over and over again.
Doubtful. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the Patent Office had to Pay For Their Mistakes, they might be less likely to make the same mistakes over and over again.
That presumes the Patent Office would feel a greater sense of accountability for your money than they do for their work. Since they obviously don't give half a damn about their work, why would they care about how they spend your money?
What is the benefit of keeping the patent system versus the benefit of getting rid of it? Maybe we need to wipe our hands clean of the whole conc
Just curious ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Just curious ... (Score:2, Informative)
Somebody please explain... (Score:2)
I thought most "work done for hire" belonged to the employer, not the employee. How much of this $521 million went to the University of California?
(Yes, I know that a lot of universities allow researchers & faculty to retain some rights to "inventions" & such, but the university is gonna skim a thick layer of cream o
Global database? (Score:2)
May be... (Score:2)
FTC floats patent changes 10/28/2003 (Score:2)
Released yesterday from the the FTC [ftc.gov]
Comments from law.com [law.com]
Check this quote out:
"There is a little underappreciation by the FTC for the applications that don't get allowed," he said, adding that more than 80 percent of business method patents are rejected.
Sounds great but 20% do make it..
My enemy's.. (Score:4, Funny)
"Ordinary skill in the art" (Score:3, Interesting)
Raggett I and II specifically teach those of ordinary skill in the art to modify a prior art browser, such as the Mosaic browser, to incorporate the allegedly new features of claims 1-3 and 6-8, rendering those claims obvious.
Then it says this about 'ordinary skill in the art':
The person of ordinary skill in the relevant art to the claimed invention is a software programmer with at least a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and five years of programming experience in Internet, Web and browser technology, including specific experience with programming in HTML.
I can't help but think that if the "new" prior art is dated July 1993 and the first NCSA Mosaic is February 1993 (?), there wasn't anybody around with the requisite "5 years' experience" for the invention to have been obvious to, not even by the time the application gets filed in 1994.
Anyway, I just thought it was strange that they'd make such an effort on this stuff but make that kind of apparent mistake.
Eolas is trying to use an evil weapon for good (Score:2)
He already stated that they would licence the technology to Mozilla for free, and that he didn't want to see a browser monoculture.
The fact that this is being done shows how much clout MS really has - even if you are legally in the right in taking them on, (whether he is morally right is certainly a matter of debate) they can simply get the law changed in their favour. Scary, isn't it?
I'll show them attitude (Score:2)
Kinda funny since a bunch of patent examiners go on to be patent lawyers...
rules 102b and 103 (Score:2)
Rule 101, basically says that the prior art show is exactly what is in the patent in question.
Rule 102b, basically says that given A and given B it is obvious to combine A and B for reason C. In this case I think they are saying that given the fact that people were talking about the EMBED tag and given the fact that the Mosaic browser was around 'it would be obvious to one skilling the art' to use the EMBED tag in a web browser.
Rule 103, basical
Wait! (Score:2)
Re:so ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful? Another fine example of slashdot moderating...
The patent has implications for ALL browsers. If Eolas thought they could extract money from the Mozilla foundation, you can be sure their lawyers would advising them to take such action.
Re:so ? (Score:5, Funny)
It helps if you stop and realize that /. isn't a single, monolithic block of identically programmed robots.
In reality, it is a collection of pehaps a half-dozen different monolithic blocks of identically programmed robots. The "punish MS" group is Block 1. The "patents bad" group is Block 4.
Re:so ? (Score:2)
Re:so ? (Score:2)
nah, I think that would also fall under Block 4 - "patents/copyrights bad"
Re:so ? (Score:5, Funny)
Patents and copyrights aren't bad, the abuses of them are.
Oh, wait. That's Block 0: the rational individual block.
Re:so ? (Score:4, Funny)
Block 0 - "Rational Individual"
Block 1 - "MS bad"
Block 2 - "Linux/OSS rulez!"
Block 3 - "Capitalist/government Conspiracy!"
Block 4 - "Patents/copyrights bad"
Block 5 - "redundant jokes" (soviet russia, beowulf cluster, etc)
Block 6 - "contrarians" (they automatically believe the opposite of the other 5 blocks)
It seems that the blocks are numbered by their exponential order. Block 6 obviously has the highest population on
Mathematical proof! I knew it!
Re:so ? (Score:2)
Two people do not a block make.
Re:so ? (Score:5, Funny)
I hadn't really thought about it, but off the top of my head:
Block 1 - "MS bad"
Block 2 - "Linux/OSS rulez!"
Block 3 - "Capitalist/government Conspiracy!"
Block 4 - "Patents/copyrights bad"
Block 5 - "redundant jokes" (soviet russia, beowulf cluster, etc)
Block 6 - "contrarians" (they automatically believe the opposite of the other 5 blocks)
I suppose there are more, but those are the ones the occur to me as I write...
Re:so ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:so ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:so ? (Score:3, Funny)
You're a Moron (Score:2)
Re:so ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is wrong to use its monopoly position in desktop OSs to further its market share in other areas.
Microsoft is wrong to fire someone for posting an innocent picture on an obscure weblog.
Eolas is wrong to try to enforce an invalid patent.
In soviet Russia, Natalie Portman is wrong to have a Beowulf cluster of grits for profit!
SCO is wrong to keep smoking that stuff and not sharing...
Re:YRO getting out of hand? (Score:2)
Re:YRO getting out of hand? (Score:2)
Maybe it's because the personal computing industry is maturing. There just aren't as many significant new non-rehash developments coming out with games, hardware, etc. as there were in the past.
Just like in the old West, once the exploring and prospecting wound down, the focus shifted to building barbed wire fences around the patches of land that people had laid stake to. The
Re:YRO getting out of hand? (Score:2)
michael: Omigod, the feds are using voice-activated PDA handheld bluetooth microspasm processor masheens to brainwash the general population into walking, corporate zombie consumers! Fire up Frontpage, boys, it's time for a (cue outrageous action music) YRO story!
Taco: (Cue soft and cuddly Celine Dion song, bubblebath, candles, Richard Simmons) Settle down, Lois, we already did a few YRO stories today. Here, post this family p
Re:Clippy has some FUCKING advice for you... (Score:2)
Re:Divine Justice (Score:2)
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Martin Niemoller(1892-1984)
Re:Divine Justice (Score:2)
Ahhh, but you conveniently forget that alternative browsers are infringing too. The issue here isn't about browser A versus browser B, but some interloper patenting something that is obvious and holding all users of browser A and browser B hostage.
Are you still rooting for Eolas when they start litigation against mozilla.org for supposed infringement in Mozilla, Ga
Missing TBL's point (Score:2)
Your "inherently stupid lazy average PC user" doesn't know anything about switching to an alternative browser. They probably don't even think they're affected, IF they hear anything about the problem, because "I use AOL, not Internet Explorer". They will expect the websites to change to stay compatible with IE... and guess what?
The websites will change, i
Re:Hey - institutions need to catch up with cultur (Score:2)