[thelist] IE update

bruce bedouglas at earthlink.net
Fri Oct 10 11:30:17 CDT 2003


hi...

i've been following the issue of patents (software/internet related) for
awhile. the governing body(s) of the internet W3C/ICANN/Etc.. have been wary
about "any" technology getting into the net which contains IP that can be
"owned" by a given group.. Hence their "obsessiveness" with standards....

this is a situation that has been waiting to occur. the fact that a small
company has successfully sued for patent infringement is part of the game..
the issue msoft has is that they got nailed... the issue the larger
community has, is that this effects a huge number of people, both as
developers, and consumers....

the hastily created conference is an indication that a number of people are
scared... this combined with the accacia (sp?) patent issue is simply an
indication that there are still rules/structure to be created for dealing
with technology on the internet...

as for now.. there is no really 100% solid way to ensure that a piece of
technology is not infringing upon someone else's patent. the solutions
proposed by msoft may/may not stand up upon examination... things may indeed
have to be rewritten to work...

or.. msoft/sun/ibm/etc... may get together.. throw in a bunch of cash... and
buy up relevant patents, and place them in the public domain.. or the US gov
might step in and start to revise the process for issuing patents..

trust me, the last two suggestions are not going to occur!!! because as much
as msoft screams right now, they would rather cease to live than stop the
patent process.. msoft plays this game as hard as anyone... they just got
smacked this time, and developers are feeling the pain...

peace...

-bruce


-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org]On Behalf Of Jeff Howden
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 4:39 PM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: RE: [thelist] IE update


ppk,

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> From: Peter-Paul Koch
>
> > The patent says that the executing plug-in shall be
> > started via embedded elements in a hypertext document.
> > If you use document.write from an external script to
> > print the needed tags you get around the patent since
> > the tags aren't embedded in the hypertext document any
> > more.
>
> OK, I'm prepared to believe that.
>
> However, the solution needs two script tags, which are
> embedded in the document. They don't count? (Could be,
> of course, but it sounds kind of silly)
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

technically, the scripting *must* be in an external js file.  this is immune
from the patent claim as the plug-in isn't being "embedded" into the same
documents that contains the tags for that purpose.

.jeff

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Jeff Howden - Web Application Specialist
Résumé - http://jeffhowden.com/about/resume/
Code Library - http://evolt.jeffhowden.com/jeff/code/

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