Apple Patent Claim Threatens To Block Or Delay W3C 332
Kelson writes "The W3C Widget specification is running into a problem: Apple claims a patent on automatic updates and is unwilling to license it royalty-free in the event that it impacts the spec. The W3C is investigating to determine whether the spec includes anything covered by the patent, and decide what to do."
Oh, Apple (Score:5, Funny)
I hope this is a legitimate claim, or I'll have to start hating you, too.
Re:Oh, Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
it's a software patent.
start hating.
Re:Oh, Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't stand these kinds of patents, especially when they block progress and innovation.
without interruption of its primary function... (Score:5, Insightful)
... and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer.
In my book that means: no need for a restart. Completely different from what i.E. FireFox / Thunderbird and the like do - needing to ask the user to stop with his / her work in order to perform the update.
Not trivial.
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Not trivial to implement. Is the concept itself worth a patent?
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Patents don't cover concepts. They only cover implementations. So the question is moot.
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Re:without interruption of its primary function... (Score:5, Informative)
No, copyright covers expressions. Patent covers inventions. Nothing covers concepts.
A large part of the problem here is that in software, the line between concept and implementation is blurred. But let's make an analogy to mechanics:
If you have a sandwich making machine patented, somebody can't just make a sandwich machine out of a different material without your permission. But they can still make a sandwich machine, so long as it doesn't stomp on the specific claims of the patent. The concept "sandwich machine" isn't protected, only doing a sandwich machine via a certain method.
You're right that you don't have to implement an idea to patent it. But your patent still only covers such an implementation, even if it's never done.
software shouldn't be patentable. (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the nature of the problem.
You don't have inventions in software. You have ideas, and implementations. There is no in-between.
The idea of patenting a software algorithm is equivalent to patenting a mathematical expression.
Re:without interruption of its primary function... (Score:4, Insightful)
What you write in software is the expression of one idea in a certain language.
You don't "invent" software, software has been invented many eons ago when living beings got brains.
What software patents cover is the concept. If they covered a specific implementation, they would provide a worse legal environment than the copyright, in the point of view of the authors, for it would last many, many years less.
And as anyone who wrote software can tell you, ideas are a dime a dozen, the devil is in the details. It's the expression that counts in software, and not the concept.
Re:without interruption of its primary function... (Score:5, Informative)
Patents don't cover concepts. They only cover implementations. So the question is moot.
Close. Patents aren't supposed to cover concepts. Rampant abuse of the patent system has been a problem in this area for some time now.
Re:without interruption of its primary function... (Score:5, Informative)
And in a manner that Apple doesn't use. Software updates on OS X always ask the user. And depending on what it's updating, you may have to restart a program or reboot. The patent (from 1995) is pretty clear that it has to be completely transparent to the user which implies not only no reboot, but no notification. Anybody tries that on my machine gets the software booted off right quickly.
I can give a example from OS X (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone from Apple scene does use that concept. Intego Netupdate. It has a preference to automatically install and reboot after updates, without even asking to user. Thank God, it is disabled by default.
In fact, it performs exactly the way patent says. You may even be greeted by "Enter serial number you purchased while you upgrade your software" message.
Apple being victim of their stupid lawyers as usual, not even surprised. They should separate RIAA/MPAA iTunes types from the Technical types.
What if MS ste
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According to krischik, you just described how to implement the impossible. And to the user, even if they do notice, it shouldn't be any worst than a simple memory swapping delay.
Almost Unimplementable (Score:2)
Starting and Stopping Word as fast as a memory swap?
Ok for very small applications it works. And this is the problem: W3C want's to use it for Widget.
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Yes, starting and stopping Word as fast as a memory swap.
You start the new one, then you copy the state from the old to the new, pass control to the new, stop the old one.
The user keeps working while the new one loads, like if you were working in Word and then started Excel. It doesn't prevent you from working in Word (at least in theory, I have no idea as I don't use Microsoft Office).
And do it fast enough for the user not to notice (Score:2)
Right - but the user must not notice. So it will only work for very small applications which load very fast.
Re:And do it fast enough for the user not to notic (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Unimplementable (Score:5, Informative)
# cat
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
completely transparent. No verifications or reboot requests. new version is put in place. I keep working with old version until I'm done and the new version takes over whenever I naturally quit and restart.
Um, no (Score:3, Informative)
Programs often get borked when they're upgraded on the fly. Firefox certainly does this if you upgrade it while it's running, as do various pieces of server software which HAVE to undergo a restart to update the data and config files.
You have to restart everything that was affected to be sure (including the OS if you upgrade the kernel).
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... and then wonder why you can't save any of the Openoffice.org documents you have open due to mismatching libraries.
(note: I use apt and yum myself daily on Debian and Fedora boxen, but never recommend doing them non-interactively)
Re:without interruption of its primary function... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I'm a grumpy old man...what of it...
Software patents are rubbish (Score:4, Insightful)
I know. I have not seen a valid software patent. This one is almost impossible to implement. Apart from Web-2 applications. And this is probably why it popped up.
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I know. I have not seen a valid software patent.
RSA seems worthy. That's the only one I've ever come across.
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I know. I have not seen a valid software patent.
RSA seems worthy. That's the only one I've ever come across.
RSA may be worthy, but of a copyright not a patent. No software should be patented.
Falcon
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They learned from the US banking system that you can make lots of money from nothing( or maybe they learned from Microsoft ) and if you get out before it all collapses, you walk away filthy rich.
They learned they can purchase patents, pay some lawyers to write up threats, tie them up in the court system and eventually milk a steady stream of income from those they attack. Easy money while it lasts and these people have no concept of what's right or wrong. It's what they can get away with and how much they c
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Wait, what? Reading the patent excerpt suggests that this is no different than doing <script src="http://some.external.site/latest.js"</script>. Or just visiting ANY web app, for that matter - except when dealing with Flash Player, I'm automatically using the latest version of the site without any need to update things at my end.
It would be one thing if any Apple software actually DID this sort of automatic, transparent updating - including their own Dashboard Widgets. If anyone can point me to an
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Wait, what? Reading the patent excerpt suggests that this is no different than doing <script src="http://some.external.site/latest.js"</script>. Or just visiting ANY web app, for that matter - except when dealing with Flash Player, I'm automatically using the latest version of the site without any need to update things at my end.
Did you read the claims? Cause that's all that matters. The abstract and spec do not define the invention (with a couple minor exceptions). (Disclaimer: I haven't read the patent)
I call shenanigans! (Score:5, Insightful)
this patent is total BS!
the patent description makes it sound like we're talking about a system for automatically updating any program while its running without any interruption (which would be quite a feat if accomplished, but still not worthy of a process patent because its an obvious goal).
However the operation the patent actually describes is as follows:
1) I click on an icon to launch an application,
2) a process starts that checks to see if I have the latest version of the application
2a) if I have the latest, it launches the application
2b) if I don't have the latest, it replaces my copy with the latest and the launches the application
this stuff about "transparently running" and "no need for restart" is a red herring. of course there's no need for restart, the program isn't running yet!
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What you describe is reminescent of what Java Webstart has been able to do for quite a few years, though the granularity is a bit finer. Instead of "latest version of application" as a monolithic whole, you get transparent updates to component libraries (in the form of jar files). Of course since the old + new libraries act as an integrated whole, the update does represent the "latest version of the application". If the patent consists of this it's entirely unremarkable.
Re:I call shenanigans! (Score:4, Interesting)
What's funny is that the steps that you've outlined seem to describe exactly how Microsoft's ClickOnce [wikipedia.org] works when it comes to updates. So if Apple threatens to sue, it would seem that there is at least one large player interested in opposing them on this.
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Maybe. But that doesn't mean it was not obvious.
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Re:Oh, Apple (Score:5, Informative)
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Actually "do no evil" was Google shtick, not Apples. Apple has never claimed not to be evil, they're just very stylish about it.
I was in a Target store yesterday and I noticed they had posters all over that said "5% good."
I couldn't help but think that meant they were 95% evil.
Re:Oh, Apple (Score:5, Funny)
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Apple: We do Evil with Style*
*: Available in high gloss black, white and limited edition brushed aluminum.
Re:Oh, Apple (Score:4, Funny)
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Patent trolling as usual. Nothing new...
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Don't worry, the W3C takes over a decade to get a spec into a Recommendation ... by that time all the grey beards will have died off and this will have been surpassed by The Next Great Thing.
and in a manner that is completely transparent (Score:5, Informative)
FTFP:
A software program running on a computer automatically replaces itself with a newer version in a completely automated fashion, without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer.
As long as the user is notified or must explicitly grant permission, the update process is not transparent to the user.
Apple claims a patent on a stealth method.
Re:and in a manner that is completely transparent (Score:4, Funny)
"Apple claims a patent on a stealth method."
Microsoft already own the portfolio on this nonsense!
Re:and in a manner that is completely transparent (Score:4, Insightful)
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Apparently you missed 'without interruption of its primary function' in the description.
Most Windows updates only fulfill the 1st and 3rd criteria.
Re:and in a manner that is completely transparent (Score:4, Funny)
I though Reboots were part of Windows Primary Function.
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Touché
Re:and in a manner that is completely transparent (Score:5, Funny)
I think whoever wrote the first computer worm should sue apple
How apt that a worm would ruin an apple. :)
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Windows reboots my laptop in the middle of the night, making my battery charge go bye-bye. Now I have a laptop with a drained battery at work, and a charger at home.
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My work machine does this, much to my anguish.
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Actually, it does notify you by placing a "rebooting in x seconds" warning on the screen. Its also clearly interrupting the program in question. Even the basic updates that don't require a reboot sometimes reset the desktop, close windows, or at the very least, notify the user. Not a single MS update is completely transparent to the user.
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Like he said, "during the middle of the night." Yes it was oh so helpful to show a dialog for 5 minutes at 4am. Better hope you saved everything because you'll walk in the next day to your login screen. "Your computer was rebooted to install updates." Gee, thanks Windows!
Although to be fair, you can change it so it downloads updates and lets you know they're ready to install manually. But they pressure you to use the automatic do-it-whenever-Windows-feels-like-it method.
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I think you're reading too much into that sentence. This is the flip side of the point that you don't patent "doing X", you patent "a method of doing X".
Normally people miss that a patent doesn't cover "a differnt method of doing X".
But in this case, you're suggesting that you can use the patented method, as long as you don't end up "doing X". IANAL, but I'll bet you're mistaken. If I write an update mechanism that follows Apple's design, and then somewhere along the way interrupt the user experience, I'
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Here's a clue: "in a manner that is completely transparent" is NOT part of the claims. It is verbiage in the abstract and written description. Read the CLAIMS if you want a handle on what the patent actually covers.
I posted to the wrong story. (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article [nytimes.com] "It probably helped that in those days we avoided patents and other restrictions; without any financial incentive to control the protocols, it was much easier to reach agreement." Exactly why patents don't work in their current form.
Now it seems more appropriate for this story.
Prior art, obvious (Score:5, Informative)
*sigh* Patent 5155847 [uspto.gov], referenced in Apple's patent, covers everything Apple's does. The only differences are obvious minor adaptions based on the different communications channels in use, things any network programmer does automatically every day.
You missed the transparent part. (Score:2)
Let me quote the important and not at all minor difference:
without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer
Updating a running program without interruption is everything but trivial.
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Updating a running program without interruption is everything but trivial.
It can be pretty easy. I helped write a database app where every time the menu form was invoked, it would check the back-end database to see what the "current" version of the front-end should be. If it wasn't the same, it would launch the new version and quietly kill itself.
The user only experiences a slight delay that can not be differentiated from network congestion or heavy database load.
The key here is that the app does the work
You got it (Score:2)
I think so too. This is what it is all about.
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My Debian box's cron job that does "apt-get update;apt-get upgrade" every day has been this way for at least 8 years updates all my running programs transparent to me. I don't even notice they've changed until the next time I restart them.
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Extremely non-trivial, yes, but not non-obvious. Once you understand how the OS in question handles program linking and loading, the process needed to replace a portion of a running executable is usually blatantly obvious. It's also pretty obvious what the one portion of the program that can't be updated without interruption is, and how to handle it. It took me all of 2 minutes to work out how to do it on Linux using the dlopen() function, and another couple of minutes to work out how to arrange the program
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That is not one of the claims of the patent. That is part of the abstract, which has no direct bearing on what the patent actually applies to.
If you read the claims, it amounts to "checking for an update at runtime, and updating without asking the users, then restarting the program".
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Whatever tiny tweak they've made (looks like it being "transparent to the user" from posts above) seems to have been enough to get the patent approved and now results in yet another patent troll scenario.
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*sigh* Patent 5155847 [uspto.gov], referenced in Apple's patent, covers everything Apple's does. The only differences are obvious minor adaptions based on the different communications channels in use, things any network programmer does automatically every day.
You fail patent law 101.
The reasons those references are there are to point out that yes, the filer knew about those inventions and yes, the filer believes that the new invention is sufficiently different to be patentable, and yes, Mr. Trammel, examiner of record, and Mr. Corcoran, assistant examiner, please do look over these other patents, because we are damned sure that our invention is sufficiently different from them that it is patentable, and we are not afraid to tell you about them.
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The impression I get is more "We claim our patent's sufficiently different, so please don't bother looking over these other ones that we mention only to avoid getting nailed later for willful deception when one of our targets brings them up.". Having read the two patents, I fail to find any claims in Apple's that aren't covered in essentially the same form in the earlier patent, which I believe in patent law is exactly the definition of prior art.
Use of this patent against web browsers? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you read this claim, it seems that any webpage loaded through a caching web-browser *could* fall under it.
1. A method for automatically updating software programs on a computer, comprising the steps, of:
storing an updated version of a program at a designated location in a remote memory that is accessible to the computer;
Being that most browsers will check a cache to see if it already has your content, the act of overwriting the cache before loading the asset for your page seems to run afoul of this auto-update process.
Re:Use of this patent against web browsers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that web pages are not programs.
The line's blurring. Ever use Google Documents?
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Exactly...
javascript is merely another form of html as is ajax, flex, and other advanced html rendered web pages.
Not programs at all- move along- nothing to see here.
Web 2 (Score:2)
As much as I hate to say: JavaScript is a programming language and there are quite a few very nifty JavaScript applications out there. If you cache the JavaScript applications then you might violate the patent.
Bunch of hypocrites (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bunch of hypocrites (Score:5, Funny)
No kidding: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.apple.com/about/w3c/ [w3.org]
Re:Bunch of hypocrites (Score:5, Informative)
Geez, did you even read that page?
To accomplish this, a W3C member would be required to disclose and license to any practitioner all essential patents of a W3C standard. To exclude a patent from this royalty-free license, a W3C member could, on a case-by-case basis, notify a particular working group that it has patent rights that it believes are essential to that working group's recommendation, and that it is unwilling to license on a royalty-free basis.
Which is exactly what they're doing. You can accuse them of being patent-trolls, and using vaguely-worded, over-generalized patents, but you can't say they're being hypocritical. They're behaving exactly as they promised they would.
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Yes, exactly. Apple had this patent already. The W3C royalty free licence includes the NEW, currenlty unpatented technologies being rolled into the standard. Any company that has an existing patent that W3C tries to leverge a technology protected by has the right to notify the W3C and let them know they're infringing, and then decide wether or not to licence that technology to the group.
Apple may very well want this technology to be a part of W3C, but if they don't want it to also become available royalt
Consider the patent... (Score:5, Informative)
The broadest claim the patent makes (bullet points mine):
1. A method for automatically updating software programs on a computer, comprising the steps, of:
Could one not simply have the client software send a request to the server software saying "send me the stored version, if it is modified since version 12.34"
Hence it would not be the current version carrying out the action of determining whether a the newest version of the program is more recent than the current version of the program; rather it would be being performed at the server.
Indeed, HTTP already includes an "If-Modified-Since" header the client can send to the server, though the HTTP header uses a date rather than a version number.
Will W3C strike back? (Score:5, Funny)
I assume Apple doesn't get to sit in? (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the Patent Advisory Group [w3.org] they've formed to deal with this hurdle, the PAG membership includes "Advisory Committee Representatives of each Member participating in the Web Applications Working Group".
Of course, the Web Applications Working Group [w3.org] includes: "Apple, Inc. (4 representatives)".
Isn't it kind of a conflict of interest for Apple to be sitting on the committee that has the purview to:
?
Irony - or perhaps Brassy (Score:2)
What's ironic, is this getting posted just after the story on the first RFC turning 40.
What's "brassy" is the balls of the legal wingnuts at Apple fucking about with the advance of open standards.
W3C should not be having to waste people's time picking through this patent and designing around it. The idea might have been mildly innovative in 1998, but now it's sorta "well-duh!" and I am sure has been implemented in a number of independent cases where there was no reliance on Apple's patent.
P.S. Apple -
To advanced to implement (Score:2)
This is the third time I quote this:
without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer
I don't know of any application which can do that. With current operating systems almost impossible. But browser based applications are a different matter. Here it could work.
This is why we need generification for patents (Score:2)
It shouldn't be possible to hold a patent on anything in a public standard.
A bit early to get all excited (Score:5, Informative)
That email doesn't say in any way that Apple is doing anything inappropriate or is threatening anyone or refusing to give anyone a license. What is happening is a very simple process that W3C is prepared for: Apple was kind enough to inform them that there is a patent, so they will now look at the patent, which will or will not turn out to be relevant, and if it is relevant, something will be sorted out.
Now that fine article (or whatever the f in RTFA stands for) calls Apple "patent-lawsuit happy". So who exactly is Apple suing right now? Maybe the manufacturer of a new phone that is vastly outselling the iPhone, except that it doesn't do that quite yet, because it is not for sale right now, so not a single Palm Pre has been sold, and Apple hasn't sued them, because as long as Palm doesn't sell its phone there is nothing to sue them for?
Apple says: "OK, we're evil" (Score:4, Funny)
After bricking unlocked iPhones, kicking applications off the iPhone store that might even slightly compete with iTunes in the far future, and filing a wave of patents on basic well-known computer science, Apple Inc. today filed a 10-Q with the Securities Exchange Commission declaring that it was openly adopting Evil(tm) [today.com] as a corporate policy.
"Fuck it," said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, "we're evil. But our stuff is sooo good. You'll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you worm. Because our stuff is great. It's shiny and it works. It's not like you'll go back to a Windows Mobile phone. Ha! Ha!Ã
Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was incensed at the news. "Our evil is better than anyone's evil! No-one sweats the details of evil like Microsoft! Where's your antitrust trial, you polo-necked bozo? We've worked hard on our evil! Our Zune's as evil as an iPod any day! I won't let my kids use a lesser evil! We're going to do an ad about that! I'll be in it! With Jerry Seinfeld! Beat that! Asshole."
Sergey Brin of Google said, "Of course, we're still not evil. You can trust us on this. Every bit of data about you, your life and the house you live in is strictly a secret between you and our marketing department. But, hypothetically, if we were evil, it's not like you're going to use Windows Live Search. Ha! Ha! I'm sorry, that's my 'spreading good cheer' laugh. Really."
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Um, the patent was filed in 1995, I believe that anything after the patent was file wouldn't count for prior art. I'm not sure how anything could be patented if that were the case.
And you certainly wouldn't see any items appearing until the patent was granted.
completely transparent to the user (Score:2)
I don't know of any update system which fulfils:
without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer
Do you?
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Funny)
But a stylish, tasteful inferiority complex. You don't see Steve Jobs with sweaty underarms, do you?
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Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why he always wears black: there's not enough contrast to see it;-) Apple certainly has a far better marketing department, and they've gone to great lengths to not only play up their image, but to tie their products to that image; but once you're beyond that they are every bit as deceptive and secretive as Microsoft. They've essentially convinced an entire class of consumers to think that they are "different" from everyone else when they really just aren't. The inferiority comes from reacting vehemently over any thing that is said along those lines, which is why, like my initial post, this will be modded down to -1 TROLL in no time.
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You don't see Steve Jobs with sweaty underarms, do you?
Don't know, can't see through his fancy white plastic shirt.
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"We are think for ourselves," eh?
My point, since you missed it, was that we often don't, based on the story posted. Nobody will remember this when the next iPhone comes out.
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We are think for ourselves,. you apparently are looking for am excuse to not think. I suggest you find a religious site.
I wonder how many people with relatively low UIDs find this statement rather amusing.
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First of all, I'm not entirely sold on the source of this story, since it does come from Opera's website.
Then don't believe opera and go straight to the W3C page that is the third link the summary: http://www.w3.org/2009/03/widgets-pag-charter [w3.org]
The Widgets Updates Patent Advisory Group is a Patent Advisory Group (PAG) as defined by the W3C Patent Policy (PP).
The mission of this Patent Advisory Group is to study issues and propose solutions related to a patent disclosure from Apple, Inc., concerning the Widgets 1.0: Updates Working Draft.
This PAG is triggered by Section 7.1 (PAG Formation) of the Patent Policy, which states that a PAG is triggered in the event "a patent has been disclosed that may be essential, but is not available under W3C Royalty-Free licensing requirements". The specific patent is 5,764,992 (U.S.), held by Apple, Inc. Apple Inc. has excluded all claims of patent 5,764,992 (U.S.)
I know this summary is a whopping 2 sentences long but you could have made yourself look like less of a dumbass by reading it.
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The Opera link is only one of three. Another links to a page about the recently formed Patent Advisory Group for this problem at the W3C site.
They have to. (Score:2)
If everybody is stockpiling software patents then you have to as well. Or you are at the mercy of those have. A bit like the nuclear arms race - evil but once you started there is no stopping.
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There's nothing wrong with stockpiling patents. The alleged problem is that Apple refuses to grant them royalty free to the W3C, undermining the open standards that Apple professes to protect.
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I'm not against the general principle of patents on certain things but it seems logical to have provisos like:
1 - You must be the inventor of something to apply
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If it were all about money, Apple products would suck. Exhibit A: Microsoft Windows--makes a lot of money AND they don't care about users. Exhibit B: Mac OSX--makes a lot of money but has to care about users, otherwise they render themselves obsolete.
You don't have to outrun the wolf, just the slowest member of your party.
Re:See! (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple "cares" about its users the same way a gold-digging wife "cares" about her husband, or a manufactured pop music group "cares" about its fans.
Apple cares about keeping its users blinded with shiny distractions, sure. It does not care about providing quality products or services, or about the long-term well-being of its customers.
Apple has been a bunch of lawsuit trolls since the infamous "look and feel" lawsuits of the late 1980s. There are every bit as evil as Microsoft, just smaller and wrapper in a prettier box.
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Shiny and Quality are not mutually exclusive.