[SOLVED] All your smileys are belong to MS

[Knome_fan]

Just in case anybody was wondering why many people think of the current software patent situation as, ehm, something less than ideal, it's patents like this that make a good case for patent reform.

MS is trying to patent custom emoticons.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39210396,00.htm
](*,) :-? :roll: :-# :shock: :evil: :-(

Hard to tell if one should laugh or cry...

[KrisDwyer]

Just in case anybody was wondering why many people think of the current software patent situation as, ehm, something less than ideal, it's patents like this that make a good case for patent reform.

MS is trying to patent custom emoticons.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39210396,00.htm
](*,) :-? :roll: :-# :shock: :evil: :-(

Hard to tell if one should laugh or cry...
OMG... bill gates is trying to rule the internet one bit at a time...

[Jason-X]

I heard somewhere (lugradio I think?) that Microsoft are buying the patent for "Saving files as .xml"

Where will it end? :roll:

[newbie2]

Microsoft's New Monopoly
Wednesday June 29, 2005

"Leaked internal documents in 1998 said that Microsoft considered the free software GNU/Linux operating system (referred to therein as "Linux") as the principal competitor to Windows, and spoke of using patents and secret file formats to hold us back."

"Now Microsoft is planning to try something similar for Word files.

Several years ago, Microsoft abandoned its documented format for saving documents, and switched to a new format which was secret. However, the developers of free software word processors such as AbiWord and OpenOffice.org experimented assiduously for years to figure out the format, and now those programs can read most Word files. But Microsoft isn't licked yet.

The next version of Microsoft Word will use formats that involve a technique that Microsoft claims to a patent on. Microsoft offers a royalty-free patent license for certain limited purposes, but it is so limited that it does not allow free software. You can see the license here. "
http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/06/29/1418213.shtml?tid=150&tid=147&ti
](*,) :roll: :-x

[newbie2]

"The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent to Microsoft Corp. for a "time based hardware button for application launch" in which a click of a button can start different programs if it is clicked once, twice or held down for several seconds. The patent, number 6,727,830, was granted on April 27."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/02/1086058889577.html?oneclick=true
](*,) :roll: :-x

[newbie2]

" But some observers see an opportunity arising in which Microsoft may press for royalties from the distributors or even users of open-source programs including Linux, the Wall Street Journal said Friday.

There are fears Microsoft could resort to patent-infringement suits if distributors don't agree to licensing deals."

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040604-105534-7558r.htm
](*,) :roll: :-x

[newbie2]

" The memo -- its full text is provided later in the story, along with HP's response -- briefly explains a patent cross-licensing deal between HP and Microsoft. By itself, that's not a big deal, especially since it was sent two years ago. But the memo asserts that "Microsoft will soon be launching a patent-based legal offensive against Linux and other free software projects."
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/07/19/2315200
](*,) :roll: :-x

[newbie2]

"Much to the shock of Firefox and Mozarella users everywhere, it seems that Vole owns the patent for tab based browsing."
"We are interested at how Vole managed to pull this one on the Patent Office as Delphi was using tabs in the mid 1990s, so did Lotus Organiser."
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18336
](*,) :-x

[TravisNewman]

OK. I don't think Microsoft is evil. I don't think Charles Manson was evil. I don't think evil exists. But to quote my wife as I was telling her all these things, "this is Mafia ****." It's extortion, and entrapment. MS is obviously a monopoly (and wasn't something supposed to happen to them for that anyway?) and their business practices are some of the most unethical I've ever seen. I won't personify it to Bill Gates as many do. I doubt he even knows some of this is going on. But something's gotta give, or we US citizens may soon be living in "The United States of America: A subsidiary of Microsoft"

[Lowe]

This is just plain sick, "if" microsoft get their way in ten years time everyone will be forced to use windows. That's how they work, if people don't like their products and they're losing customers they will just find more ways to force you to go back to windows. Microsoft isn't evil they're just too powerful.

[Kyral]

Can I move to Europe yet.....

MS doesn't have a stranglehold there \\:D/

Ooops, I violated the patent.

MS can, in the immortal words of Bender, BITE MY SHINY METAL ASS!!!

Man alive, that topic I made about the Empire and the Rebellion is coming true!!

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=48240

[qalimas]

All the more reason to move to Europe when I'm of age ;)

[poofyhairguy]

Sounds good to me. This isn't one of those small things that make Windows harder to network with, or makes it harder to open word files or something.

This patent will effect the lowest denominator on the Internet. Its the kind of thing that will turn future generations away from Microsoft.

Tell my sister that MS just made my Linux box harder to use and she doesn't care. Tell her the next version of AIM won't have simileys because of MS and she'll want to fire bomb Redmond herself.

Actually, she is starting to dislike MS before this.....I'm typing on her new powerbook now.

[Omnios]

Darn now Linux is going to have to develop GNU codecs, smiley, word formats and a bunch of other stuff and of course protect them from microsoft lol. Can they put in a anti microsoft developement clause in it lol. That brings me back to a long long time ago when Microsoft was accused of ripping off someones codec and copyrighting it but it was different but obviosly developed from it so they got away with it. From the bits of peices of Microsofts history seems there are a lot of accusations of things getting ripped off. Now Im reading that there going after Linux and others. That just sits wrong, something is very very wrong. For years I was strictly Windows and after one bad after another I decided to migrate to linux but it just keeps getting worse. They must consider Linux a very serios long term threat or a threat that might cause a drop in the price of there os.

I dont hate Microsoft but they need to get a grip!

[bgstratt]

I gotta say, Bill Gates does know about it, he's the one who started it. He started with this stuff when he nabbed ideas from Apple and everybody else he stole from way back when, you don't go to jail for nothing. He's a sneaky little bastard, gotta give him credit for that, but there will always be an underground, even here in the good ol' USA, they can't throw everybody in jail and somebody will wise up to it sooner or later and change the laws, at least here's to hopin'.

[poofyhairguy]

He's a sneaky little bastard, gotta give him credit for that, but there will always be an underground, even here in the good ol' USA, they can't throw everybody in jail and somebody will wise up to it sooner or later and change the laws, at least here's to hopin'.

Bill Gates is a man who has given billions to charity and made Windows the dominant platform back in the 90s (which made computers cheap for us nerds). He hasn't been the CEO of MS since 2000....if fact he is only on the board now.

If anyone is to blame for MS its Balmer who is currently the CEO. Gates is just a figure head...even if he has done bad things I think giving more to charity than any other man every by a factor of like 40 makes up partially for his sins.

I never understood the obsession with ole Billy G.

[WildTangent]

I never understood the obsession with ole Billy G.
like you said, hes a figure head. thats why

-Wild

[Kvark]

omg! :mad:
...oops, I used a smily, so sue me. :-P
...oops, I did it again, so sue me twice, or trice... :wink:

[poptones]

The specific example here of the chat clients is exactly ths sort of thing I've been talking about with TCPA and "the community" attitude of trying to hide or just plain ignoring certain technology. In corporate circles this is commonly referred to as "not invented here syndrome" but the open source community has its share of the same thing.

Back in 95, right after the IE upgrade came out for the then new windows desktop, I began spending a good deal of time in the comic chat support forum. I'm not the type who normally goes in for chatting online, but the comic chat program MS shipped with their new browser was, I thought, extremely cool. It was a series of cartoon panels and the people in the room would all appear as comic characters. If you typed LOUD IN CAPS your character would appear to shout and look angry. If you typed LOL or :) your character would smile or laugh or wink if you typed ;)

None of that was particularly "novel" as emoticons were already commonplace. But the comic chat client itself wasn't even welcome in most IRC rooms. If you so much as entered an IRC server with comic chat you were likely to find yourself flooded or banned or worse. The "leet" looked down their noses at this "dumbed down" chat client and did all they could to kill it.

But the fact is it wasn't "dumb" at all - and part of the reason I found myself working on it so much was because I had met some people who were working with disabled kids and the comic chat client had proven very useful in drawing them out of the shell their disability had built around them. There was one girl in particular I remember who was living in an iron lung, unable to move at all because she had been born with a severe form of scoliosis that had twisted her body so severely the only way she could live was to have her back broken in several places and pinned with steel bars before her ribcage would crush her internal organs. This 12 year old girl typed with a straw and spent her entire life laying on her back. Yet it was a choice SHE had made because she wanted so desperately to live that she would sacrifice what little mobility she had left...

Anyway, the thing is this chat client WAS novel. In fact there hasn't been one since that combined all the features of this client. Yet even MS killed it because it was so wildly unpopular - mostly just because it was Microsoft software.

This patent is basically a patent on that client. How ironic that, had anyone in the OSS community not been such uptight jackasses about the holy IRC and developed something similar - if not outright compatible - this patent wouldn't have a chance.

[Knome_fan]

Jesus, yes, those 1337 HaX0r are to blame for this patent as they didn't like the MS Comic Chat client, what a profound and convincing analysis..

The real problem is that trivial patents like this do have a chance to get through, not how some jerks acted on IRC.
So here are some questions:
Why should a patent like this be granted at all?
If you think it should be granted, what do you think the purpose of the patent system is?
Are you aware that there are probably lots or things that could be seen as prior art (because prior art seems to be what you are referring to), for example ICQ and AIM?
What do these example of prior art and the fact that despite them MS seems to think they have a chance of getting this patent tell you about the state of the current patent system?
And though it's totally off topic, you are aware that linux is one of the first, if not the first OS that can offer full support for TCPA?

[newbie2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticon#History_2
:rolleyes: :twisted:

[darkmatter]

:wink: :wink:- patent infringement- :wink: :wink:

[poptones]

To quote /., RTFA. The patent is pretty specific and it concerns mostly the ability to transport "emotion information" and to allow for the automatic exchange of panels conveying this info - like if you and I become involved in a chat, your client tells mine where to find your panels and asks mine for the same. The chat stream contain "emotion information" that is translated into choosing the appropriate panel, etc.

Is all this "unique?" Only in implimentation. So, if granted, MS will be able to define their "standard" for this sort of exchange and no one else will be able to use their "standard" without their permission. The same thing goes for those XML sheets mentioned in another link on the last page: this "patent" covers one specific implimentation of carrying information via XML. It doesn't mean you can't use XML in your own system to carry info in office docs, it means they are building an ivory tower that will prevent others from being "compatible" with their standard for exchange. The only thing they are building a wall around is their users... so, let them. And when the users realize that it's a prison, they'll finally have incentive to try an escape.

This is not a new phenomenon. The world is full of standard methodlogies and many of them are exclusive and licensed. this doesn't stop others from competing. If you don't want to license the tech, make your own. If you don't want to see a particular tech gain a foothold, refuse to support it. Stop taking the copout approach of "dual booting" and trying for "backward compatability" - migrate your documents and refuse to accept word, excel or whatever other documents you don't want to see succeed. If things get bad enough both sides will declare a truce and an open standard both sides can agree upon will have to evolve.

[Knome_fan]

Nope, the fun part about patents is that you can't make your own competing technology and implementation, because doing what is described in the patent application is patented, not some specific method.

[bgstratt]

<QUOTE> This is not a new phenomenon. The world is full of standard methodlogies and many of them are exclusive and licensed. this doesn't stop others from competing. If you don't want to license the tech, make your own. If you don't want to see a particular tech gain a foothold, refuse to support it. Stop taking the copout approach of "dual booting" and trying for "backward compatability" - migrate your documents and refuse to accept word, excel or whatever other documents you don't want to see succeed. If things get bad enough both sides will declare a truce and an open standard both sides can agree upon will have to evolve.</QUOTE>

I have to agree with you, but it more often than not seems as if one small pebble thrown into the pond would never ripple all the way to the edges, especially if the pond is hundreds of millions of people. I guess it just takes time, more time than some of us are willing to wait, that's why you see so many extremists. But don't get me wrong, I am by no means an extremist, I do have patience, but some action must take place as well.

As for an obsession with ol' Billy Gates, that is pretty funny, and you do see it more often than you should. I don't think it's that anybody truly hates him, although some may, it's more the idea of stolen ideas and not giving credit where it is due. He made billions off of other people, I'm not one of them, so I don't take it personally, although as a human, the desire to make things right for all far outweighs the apathy of not being involved. He also revolutionized the computer industry, bringing the power of computing to almost everybody, gotta respect that, don't have to like it, but you gotta respect it.

All my rambling just leads to this, say you sell your soul to the devil for, I dunno, a billion dollars, just because you give half to a charity, should you still be received in Heaven, I don't think so. It might make you sleep better at night, but in the end, you still sold your soul. I'm NOT saying that Bill Gates sold his soul to the devil, just an analogy, but hopefully you get the point, even if you do something wrong and then afterward do half a right, you still did something wrong and it should be atoned.

Now to get back to the point of the thread, patents for software, they're not all bad, but the way they are being handed out for common knowledge items, or at least common knowledge to some groups of people is ridiculous. As an inventor or innovator, you should be able to protect your inventions. If I came up with something I'd be pretty pissed if other people used it without my permission, or sold it without cutting me in, but if somebody else can make something better or different that can do the same thing, more power to them, or if they want to make their "item" compatible with mine, I see no wrong with it, you can't lock something down, especially something like software, it needs to evolve, become faster, better, more secure so we can continue to enjoy it.

Hell, I guess that's why I'm not a billionaire, hehe, although I don't really envy them, I have quite enough. \\:D/

[poofyhairguy]

All my rambling just leads to this, say you sell your soul to the devil for, I dunno, a billion dollars, just because you give half to a charity, should you still be received in Heaven, I don't think so. It might make you sleep better at night, but in the end, you still sold your soul. I'm NOT saying that Bill Gates sold his soul to the devil, just an analogy, but hopefully you get the point, even if you do something wrong and then afterward do half a right, you still did something wrong and it should be atoned.

Agree. But its nice when the richest man in the world gives most of his riches away.

[Lowe]

Well if you had that much money i'm sure you would too, i know i would.

[newbie2]

Agree. But its nice when the richest man in the world gives most of his riches away.
"Microsoft should do two things:
# Close the Reno licensing office, give up the tax shelter and henceforth pay its fair share of taxes.
# Repay the tax money it owes to the state of Washington."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/221421_firstperson25.html

"According to the WTO, the US is not complying with a January 2002 ruling that outlawed tax breaks to exporters. The WTO found that the US is still in violation because companies such as Microsoft and Boeing continue to get breaks even after Congress passed new tax legislatin in October, they said."
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200507240305.htm
:roll: :roll:

[poptones]

If I came up with something I'd be pretty pissed if other people used it without my permission, or sold it without cutting me in, but if somebody else can make something better or different that can do the same thing, more power to them

Aha! And that is half the point of patents! "To further the progress of science and the useful arts" - and patents, by granting monopoly on an invention, do exactly this! If I come up with an invention and have a monopoly on the market for it, others are sure to want to compete for a share of that market. So they then have to come up with new ways to address the same market - and that is exactly the "furthering of science and the useful arts." If we could all just copy what the other guy had done, even if we built on it, we would still be contributing to only a single variation of that first implimentation.

The open source multimedia codecs are a fantastic example of this. Though they may not yet have a dominant place in the market, the improved quality they offer is pretty much without question. And because they are open and available to anyone who wants to make use of them, this is no beta/vhs battle.


...or if they want to make their "item" compatible with mine, I see no wrong with it, you can't lock something down, especially something like software, it needs to evolve, become faster, better, more secure so we can continue to enjoy it.

See "single implimentation" above. Windows is vulnerable, in large part, because it is simply parts piled upon parts all approaching the problem from a single point of view. BSD, OS X, linux - these all provide competition and provide alternative methods of solving roughly the same problem. In the most extreme example, linux wouldn't be anywhere near its place today if not for Microsoft and Apple - they provide a "common enemy" for a large diverse group to unite against and they provide the initial marketplace in which to compete for share.

[Dragonfly_X]

Bill Gates is an *******, a bloody big one 2! :-x

[newbie2]

Aha! And that is half the point of patents!

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/basics/webshop.html
:rolleyes:

[poptones]

Ooooh clever. You rolled your eyes. Well, you got me; I have no response to the eye roll. I'm stuck...

Seriously, do you have an argument to make or do you really expect me to pick apart these 20 examples and show you exactly how every single one of them illustrates my point?

I'll give you two right now:

JPEG: see PNG and previous comments of media formats.
MP3: ditto.

Patents are specific or they are invalid. In ten minutes I'm halfway through this list of examples and I see viable methods of doing things differently (or not at all) in every case - and in many cases, better methods.

Even Bill gates has pointed out the need for reform in these laws. But reform is not abolition. Patents provably provide incentive to create and foster competitive solutions to address a given market. Saying "ideas are free" and denying any patents at all on software methods (like MPEG and JPEG) denies us all a large incentive to create new methods. OGG, PNG and linux itself all exist today because of a desire to be free from existing monopolies. Were it not for this system of protections there would be no GPL and we would all be writing code for Microsoft and artists would all be performing for Sony and Warner.

[newbie2]

Seriously, do you have an argument to make ?
here is a few from so many others -->
http://users.aol.com/machcu/theft.html
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/notinvented.html
http://users.aol.com/machcu/theftquotes.html