Eolas COO Says IE Changes A Shame 235
capt turnpike writes "Hot on the heels of Microsoft's announcement of a 60-day period in which Web developers will have to change their pages' architecture, the COO of Eolas, the company whose suit forced these changes, gives an interview to eWEEK.com in which he says these changes are a disappointment. Confused? From the article: 'There is no court order forcing Microsoft to do anything. Anything that is being done is of Microsoft's own choosing,' His position is that publicizing these forced changes strengthens MS's case."
Very disappointing (Score:5, Insightful)
Not forced... (Score:1, Insightful)
No, What's A Shame Is (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this a bad thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Asks why change? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would they change? They should just pay us and our layers instead. If they don't pay, we may actually have to take a risk and develop something based on our patent or we will go broke. So yes America, and all that is reading our press release, Microsoft is bad, not us. Repeat that 10 times to as many people as you know and it will eventually become the truth.
Interesting comments, so far. (Score:2, Insightful)
Did they say "shame"... (Score:1, Insightful)
Fools (Score:5, Insightful)
You sued them, and apparently won, resulting in two paths of action for Microsoft. Stop the infringing activity, or pay you to be allowed to continue.
They indeed made a choice. Too bad it wasn't the one you wanted.
Re:Interesting comments, so far. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is this a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it is. Forcing users to manually approve every control just reinforces the reactive "Click OK" mentality that enables other bad shit to happen.
Don't Cheer for MS (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course that makes total sense, giving the MS is patenting software techniques left and right, and has reserved the right to sue Free Software distributors over it. If they can get e.g. RedHat to devote person-hours to removing patented algorithms from their distribution, then that's time and money that they're essentially forcing RedHat to throw out the window.
This far, and no farther. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that corporations like Microsoft typically have a short-term mentality that tells them, "If we litigate, it will cost X. If we pay them off, it will cost Y." They then pay off the con artists if X > Y. Unfortunately this doesn't take into consideration the fact that this rewards bad behavior and leads to the paying of infinite more Ys in the future.
I applaud Microsoft's decision and I hope Eolas goes down in flames.
Worsening the user experience? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, that's right, these changes that "worsen the user experience" are almost identical to the functionality of a rather popular Firefox extension.
I consider requiring user input to run ActiveX controls to be a Good Thing. Thank you Eolas for finally forcing MS to make drive-by malware autoinstallation more difficult.
Re:Patent scum (Score:2, Insightful)
Not only Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Since IE is (unfortunately) the defacto standard browser, others (if they infringe at all) will follow the lead, and Microsoft will take all the pain of getting web developers to change to cope with the changes.
The Eolas guy is annoyed because MS routed around his toll bridge, and now everyone else will see the way to go round too, and all his future revenues just evaporated.
Re:Useful for firefox? (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't recommend jumping on that. You're going to be seen as forcing users to change. That strategy never works and always backfires. It will turn into, 'Eolas is forcing me to use Firefox because they are greedy'.
Eventually, this will erode any goodwill Firefox may gain. The webmasters will change their pages to work with IE, and the users will return to IE with a dislike for 'those greedy bastards who work with Firefox'.
Re:Interesting comments, so far. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't Cheer for MS (Score:1, Insightful)
What else could they do? The judge already said the patent was valid. Only a fool argues with a judge.
And Microsoft is doing with Eolas exactly what Linux will do if Microsoft claims a patent on something - engineer around the patent. See, that's the thing with computer programs, there are as many ways to write a program as there are programmers.
And this is pretty much how business operates in America. A friend of mine worked at a plant that made doodads and geegaws (physical, non-electrical gizmos). He said the boss would give him a competitor's product and ask "can you make one of these?" It didn't matter whether there was a patent or not, that's why they had lawyers. If a judge told them to stop, sometimes they could make the same gizmo out of, say aluminum instead of steel and no longer be infringing the patent.
What do you call 200 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
Microsoft is being smart (Score:4, Insightful)
Quick question: what's more important ease of use or openess of code? (Watch people talk about how you can have both and how their pet project will bring this about.)
Simply put, the web is the biggest threat to Microsoft and they're continuing to neutralize it. This is the same type of smart move they made when they stopped shipping Java because "they were forced to". Consistent ubiquitous client-side technologies that aren't controlled by Microsoft are dangerous to them. This move is all about neutralizing Flash by stacking on some FUD.
"We don't need Flash!", I hear you all scream "We have Ajax!" --- think about it, what's the difference between Flash and a browser? Microsoft controls the browser. (And it's very very unlikely that that will change as long as Windows is the dominant OS.) They're going to continue to make enchancements and include bugs in their browser that will make it less productive to do cross-browser development and then provide tools and features for Windows only use that will sidetrack people doing standards based development.
The web development community is falling into the same trap that Microsoft used to win the first browser war.
Re:Don't Cheer for MS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not only Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
The only problem with this is that Eolas has freely admitted that they are not going to go after any other browser, only IE. As Mozilla, et. al gain popularity and market share, the possibility exists that we'll have a further fracturing of an already splintered HTML/Javascript implementation across browsers.
One question I have is whether Microsoft has any sort of case against Eolas for discriminatory behavior or extortion, since Eolas has admittedly singled them out. Obviously, IANAL.
Then again, there's always the wishful thinking that Eolas will realize that they're never gonna get a penny out of their predatory patent, give up, and release it to the public domain. Yeah, wishful thinking.
More lawsuits on the way! (Score:2, Insightful)
(and no, I'm not going to link to it; it's obvious and it will prevent them from blocking referrals from Slashot)
what did they release? (Score:3, Insightful)
it got little attention outside the browser development world (Netscape 1.0 was out by then, and stealing the whole show), but it was demoed to Netscape and Sun in the lead-up to Java embedding in Netscape 2.0, so it is prior art to Java in the browser (and thus, flash, shockwave, and the whole ActiveX concept, much less Mozilla's plug-in architecture).
Licensing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's Not the Innovation That's Being Stifled (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not only Microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
I BLOWS ME AWAY that Microsoft gets hammered on a stupid patent and then who has to pay? Not Microsoft, not Eolas, but ME! How can they justify taking features away that we bought fully funtioning a long time ago? They have also buried this patch in a Cumulative Internet Explorer Security Update, which to me, amounts to puting a "rider" on a bill that you know won't pass on its own.
Microsoft's smug spin on it is even more infuriating, their tech docs mention "we will give you time to test this patch out, then after your code is fixed..blah blah". WHAT? My code was fine until you broke it...arrrg...
Mod Parent Up (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what did they release? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is complete BS. There is prior art, but it did not originate from them! A plugin is nothing but a shared library or a DLL which implements a specifc API set. For them to have pior art means computers didn't exist until after they release their browser...which creates a chicken and egg situation; whereby, how could they of developed this if computers and the entire world of software developmnet didn't exist? Hell, ask ay X user how long they've been able to place an window inside a window...that's how a lot of older desktop environments worked. The people that validated this patent need to be taken out to a field and shot as they are too stupid to breath the same aid as the rest of us...in my opinion...
These guys are complete scum bags...in my opinion! So, please, stop with the implications, in any way, shape, or form, that they have prior art because them most certainly DO NOT. The only thing once can walk away from this experience is, the courts are badly, badly broken. Heck...look at the SCO case....it's STILL going on. Our courts systems are completely fucked up...possibly beyond repair! Our patent system is even more screwed up than our general legal system.
Re:Of *course* it's a shame, for Eolas (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, as an act of aggression against the tyrant, it has some Robin-Hood like nobility, even if it's not given to the poor. No, this is a common brigand that simply shakes down anyone with a shilling only because the ones without aren't worth the effort.
This is not a bad thing? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why isn't this made clear in any of the stories on this? It would certainly reduce the amount of hyperventilating.
Re:what did they release? (Score:3, Insightful)
throughout the 90s, anybody who transfered a non-web app to the web got "the patent" on it. anybody who applied an existing pattern to a browser got "the patent". anybody who took an existing webapp, say "shopping for records on the web" (remember, someone got that patent too even though i'd been buying online through cduniverse's telnet interface since 1990) and used the same technology to create "shopping for pizzas on the web" got the patent (yes i'm exaggerating the examples, but its the kind of thing that happened).
the patent sucks and never should have been granted, the PTO sucks, the jerks who actually attack people with such patents suck, they all suck.
but the question was what was the specific patent for (embedding an app in a web browser) for which nobody knew anybody was doing it until eolas presented their example to Netsacpe and Sun in 1994. i answered the question factually. it doesn't matter that i think they're full of shit because the question didn't ask my opinion.
i once wrote how, after Bezos survived that helicopter crash, that he should get the pilot to patent helicopter crash survival in amazon's name so that anytime anybody survived a helicopter crash, they would owe Bezos money.
Re:Don't Cheer for MS (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see that. If Microsoft is admitting anything, it's that the courts decided against them and now they have to abide by the law. While that is unusual for Microsoft, it's not really something you can complain about. The patent is valid because the courts decided it is. You can argue that the patent laws are stupid, or that the presiding judge was a dunderhead, and though I will be the last to contradict you, that's just how the legal system works.
To be fair to the companies that are actually producing something, I don't think any of them are thrilled with the unintended consequences of the patent system as it is applied to software, and they are becoming less thrilled with each new suit from patent farms like Eolas. However, they have effectively painted themselves into a corner, so don't expect the system to change until it becomes so onerous for ordinary consumers that there's political consensus to change the law. I think that day will come, but I wouldn't hold my breath.