Are those european goldfish or american goldfish?

So many animals play, looks like humour to me.

How can the cerebral dissection of humour in this research be applied to beings that don't have concepts? Absurd. Humourous even...

Why does it have such a long tail?

um, because they are?

ConcisionMan = {
      v > speeding bullet;
      F > locomotive;
      1 leap > tall building;
      ! bird;
      ! plane;
}

But nothing was proven either way - Tom Tom settled. A pity because the vfat patents are weak and will no doubt be ruled invalid, both through previous art and non-inventiveness. MS could have (and still could) sue anyone using FAT but they pick their victims carefully so there is less likelihood of an actual trial. Extortion works best behind closed doors.

Reminded me of IBM's siding with Oracle against Apache on the Java licensing dispute and backing OpenJDK. Then publicly lauding Oracle for putting Open Office under an Apache licence despite the disruption this would cause to the Document Foundation and Libre Office.

Fair enough, I'll take back the astroturf slur, not warranted.

Anyway it is extremely frustrating for me to see how corrupt US politicians have become over the years, with the likes of MPAA freely bribing them, getting paid-for legislation, in one case getting their own lobbyist appointed as a judge, even having the US vice pres mouthing their slogans.

Like the perpetrators of the banking collapse, they will hardly face any censure or sanction.

I just hope in Australia's case they continue to fail miserably.

The thread is bashing the MPAA, not because of your mischaracterisation that they "have no right to legal restitution", it is because of their abuse of the legal system. Of course they have legal restitution for copyright infringement, including in Australia. They just refuse to follow due process.

You sure you aren't astroturfing for them? This kind of sophistry reminds me of the Microsoft astroturfers.

Oh no, extradition is an exciting new method for suppression .. er.. enforcement!. Extradition for modifying legally purchased property was successful (Sony) and we are trialling dubious sex crimes which will flow on to publishing documents (Wikileaks). The coffers of large corporations and governments are the limit!

It's not only morally wrong, if proven it is a felony. Microsoft were found guilty of contravening the Sherman Antitrust Act in this way regarding Internet Explorer and Netscape.

It's saying, quite specifically, that Microsoft apps cannot use the API's if they don't let their competitors use them. Yes, it's killing a set of API's, but it's also saying "Our apps can't use them either".

They didn't use it because as Silverberg pointed out, they couldn't get away with that as those APIs were too public being part of the Chicago shell. So they came up with differrent, unpublished APIs that were separate to the shell that MS could use and others couldn't. This is what Gates was referring to when he wrote: "We should wait until we have a way to do a high level of integration that will be harder for the likes of Notes, Wordperfect to achieve, and which will give Office a real advantage." The integration being between the OS and Office.

This is the abuse of monopoly Novell is whinging about. As I said, hopefully Novell will pursue this so it and the other claims can be tested in court. Also the case would bring out what really happened so we wouldn't be here arguing over interpretations, we would have the full, or at least a fuller, story.

Of course I read the whole thing. For those of you who want to read it for yourselves: http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/PLEX_2151.pdf . It is perfectly obvious what Gates is doing - stepping in and killing an already advanced project because the competition would use it, whereas Microsoft had nothing in Word to counter them.

I called you on your opening tactic, no doubt straight out of the Microsoft Astroturfer's Manual, "Make unsubstantiated, plausible sounding claims in a confident, condescending tone". You then responded with the "create an excessively detailed diversion" tactic. I don't buy into that, you then respond with "if you had read the entire xxx, then bog the opponent down with interpretation".

What next? "Never let an opponent get in the last word"? Does it have a flowchart?

Seriously, why don't you people just go away and leave Slashdot alone?

Nice strawman you created. No, I was primarily referring to the Microsoft emails and document exhibits in the Comes vs Microsoft trial. Here's a quote from Mr Gates himself (exhibit 2151):

"I have decided that we should not publish these extensions. We should wait until we have a way to do a high level of integration that will be harder for the likes of Notes, Wordperfect to achieve, and which will give Office a real advantage. This means that Capone and Marvel can still live in the top level of the Explorer namespace, but will run separately. We can continue to use the iShellBrowser APIs for MS provided views such as control panel, and can use them for other MS-provided views that don't create a large compatibility or ISV issue."

While telling Novell (Gates' letter to Novell's Frankenburg in 1995 - http://www.groklaw.net/pdf2/NovvMS-104-21.pdf):

"In fact, Microsoft goes out of its way to make early copies of API and protocol specifications available, hold design reviews (that even our competitors attend), and run the largest beta test programs in the industry. Novell has been invited to participate in many of these "Open Process" events -- and all without requiring a tit-for-tat arrangement."

Unfortunately, Novell's claims and these exhibits have not been tested in court. And now with Attachmate in control, I can see a confidential settlement happening. But we can see Microsoft's unpalatable tactics in these exhibits for ourselves, and while Gates poo-poos Novell's anti-trust concerns in the above letter, they were vindicated by the federal monopoly abuse conviction, the adverse settlement with Caldera for Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviour with DR-DOS, and with the adverse browser ruling from the EU.

As we saw with the ISO OOXML "Standard" farce, the patent suit against TomTom and now another against Barnes and Noble, Microsoft certainly hasn't changed its ways. I just hope they shrink from the scene sooner than later.