Microsoft responds to court's ban on selling Word...
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Microsoft responds to court's ban on selling Word...
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...by suggesting that allowing the ruling to stand threatens the economy, the tech sector, life itself and will cause the end of the world as we know it.
Article on Corporate Bully whining here. -- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak. 
*Whistles in glee that he uses OpenOffice instead.*
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.'' -- James Nicoll 
Yeah, I'm gonna join the bandwagon.
AHAHAHAHAHA! SSCHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAADDEEEEEENNNNNFFFFRRRRUUUEEEEEEEDDEE! =========== =============================================== "V, did you do something foolish?" "Yes, and it was glorious."  Quote: *Whistles in glee that he uses OpenOffice instead.*On the off-chance that somebody out there still doesn't have OpenOffice, the website is http://www.openoffice.org/]over here... -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012 
... I got a free copy of the official MS Office when I got the HD re-imaged by the University support folks. It was a lot cleaner than the provided backup on a
different partition. I might get that on the ever-delayed new Desktop though (if I need it), cause I aint paying good money for Office when I've already got a copy. --- The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself." >Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
I'm sorry, you guys can sit here and spout your anti-MS rhetoric all you like, but as someone who has actually looked into the suit, as well as actually
USED the product that was supposedly infringed on (x4o), I'm backing MS on this. This suit was assinine, the judge was a moron, and I'll applaud the appeals court when they overturn that bullshit. And seriously guys, enough with the anti-MS crap on here, it's boring, tiresome, and pointless.  Quote: jpub wrote:I'm neither here nor there on this situation, but an explanation of what exactly the suit entailed and why it's asinine would go a long way for me to take the claim seriously. The article cited doesn't even describe what the case was about besides infringing on a "XML patent", which means all of dirt to me since I wasn't aware of the suit to begin with. Mostly because I'm sure I, like most everyone else here, isn't quite up to date on the particulars, and Microsoft's protests, viewed without context, do seem rather childish if they were actually in the wrong. If they were in the right, however, that's another story, but, as noted, I have no evidence to weigh in on either end of the spectrum in that case. --- "Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay waste."
Not bashing MS myself, per se; just promoting FLOSS (Free Legal Open-Source Software)...
-- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Okay, I've redone this post.
This lawsuit is over custom XML - I never saw it in our use, because we never used custom XML. Basically, MS and i4i did custom XML is a similar, but fundamentally different way. i4i claims MS's method infinges on i4i's patent. My legal department (aka, my manager, who spends *WAY* too much time on the net looking this shit up) sent me these links: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/08/mi ... -pate.html http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/08/mi ... l-pat.html Reading those, I have to agree with Jeliffe - something's odd about all this - there doesn't seem to be infringement, and it's all so damn confusing I strongly suspect that the Texas courts (which are *known* for being a soft touch on these issues if you're the plaintiff) were trigger happy.
Just to set the record straight, I'm not really 'against' MS. I'm just saying I'm not buying a superfluous copy of office when I already
have one working fine. --- The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself." >Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
I wouldn't want to buy a copy of Office, period. That said, it is useful, so I'm very happy to have been given Office 07 by a friend.
I also have OpenOffice, which I used to like. The compatibility isn't very good, even on the newest versions, so it royally screws up any M$ Office document I open in it. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit.
And honestly, I'm not horribly anti-Microsoft. I distrust it, but then, it's earned it through its past antics and arrogance. I was mostly annoyed by
the corporate pout it's put on when someone finally nailed them in the way they'd nailed so many competitors over the years. Oh, and I'm annoyed by those Texas courts, too, because of how dimwitted they historically seem to be on these issues. -- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak.
In my case, I'm all for the lower-cost stuff. Is it functional? Does it do what I need it to do? IF the answer is yes, and it's cheap, then *rude
gesture* to the Big Guns. ''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.'' -- James Nicoll 
As a software developer myself...
This sort of shit is what gives me ulcers. I despise and loathe the state of the patent system. It makes my skin crawl. And from the links provided, the thing of it is, Microsoft might well be completely innocent here. You can't tell, in this day and age, if the method you just figured out through your own blood, sweat, and tears for solving a class of problem X is, in fact, patented by someone else. You can do a patent search, sure -- and believe me, we do -- but that does no good in situations like this where it appears the patent holder is trying to apply it as broadly as possible, and the judges (through no fault of their own) aren't educated enough in the field to make a fair judgement. And it's not just little-guy vs. Evil Big Corporation, okay? Let's clear that up. This affects everybody. Most of us just don't have the cash or the visibility for it to become known. The US Patent Office is broken, ladies and gentlemen. This is just a symptom of that. --sofaspud --"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
Seconded, Spud. You're right, this is just a symptom.
-- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak.
On the subject of MS Office vs. Open Office...
Really, I've tried Open Office (and Abiword, too) and I can honestly say that, for me, both leave out that certain something the MS Word has. What can I say? I like Word because it functions smoothly and efficiently. Best of all, it doesn't mangle up my font faces when I save the file in a different format so I can open it on another machine with a simpler word processor. Open Office, on the other hand, seems to have some trouble doing this simple task right the right way and I find random posrtions of text blown up to twice its original size in some system-standard font. I don't know if it's just me, but it's been giving me hell with my recent work. Hell enough that whenever I want to work on it, I just boot into Windows 7 and be done with it. On the subject of patents... Yeah, the shit is simply messed up. I'm pretty sure that it's also somehow linked to other forms of copyrights, too.
As in the suits who aren't lawyers are telling the lawyers to treat patents, copyright, and trademarks as interchangeable?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.'' -- James Nicoll
Oh, you mean they're not? *Wink-wink, nudge-nudge*
regardless of weather this judgement is justified or not I'm chearing it. Microsoft has been supporting software patents even though plenty of evidence
exists that courts don't make good decisions on patents in general and especially not software patents. Now they must pay for it, I hope this keeps happening until they change their mind about software patents, and I don't care one whit on weather the rulings are justified or not. On a related note about patents, yes the system is horribly broken, much like most intellectual property law. For patets it's the fault of the patent office which decided a few decades ago that if a few patents are good then more are better. It helps that the patent office is a moneymaker for the government. E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?" B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
See, Catty, the problem with your attitude on this is that it's fundamentally flawed. You basically seem to be saying "Yes, I know it's possibly
not their fault this time, but they're big and evil and should be punished, so it's okay, even if they didn't do anything wrong! Soak them for everything you can!" Which is inherently unfair and unjust. I suspect if the positions were reversed, you'd be up in arms because the little guy was getting picked on by the corporate giant. --sofaspud --"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs |
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