Hummm..... Another option to get around the patent would be to use ODF. THAT would be easy, and free to boot!

The problem seems to be though that the courts and the USPTO are stuck in a game of passing the buck.

The USPTO says, "We don't have the resources of domain knowledge to figure out if all patents are valid, so we'll just approve anything that looks reasonable, and then let the courts haggle it out."

For the most part (unless the lawyers specifically steer the case in a different direction), the Courts say, "Well, we're experts in the LAW, not in patents, so if the USPTO granted the patent, then we'll just assume they are valid, and then determine if the person or company infringed them."

They certainly don't care, or don't think they are responsible for determining who is a "Troll" and who is legitimate. So, we're stuck with a system that's easy for people to get in to, but hard to throw the abusers out of....

Good point, especially since it is claimed that even servers which are not configured to accept dynamic updates are still vulnerable.

It's unlikely that, if you're running a DNS server inside of your private network, someone on the outside is going to be able to hit it. But then, like all other vulnerabilities, you combine this one with a couple of other attacks (such as a non-privileged login), and all of the sudden you've got something really dangerous. :-(

BTW - Wine is pretty hit-and-miss with games, but when it works, it's beautiful. If you haven't tried wine recently, you should go back and look at it again. Unfortunately, Ubuntu still insists on using the "stable" 1.1.x release, which is a couple of years old now I think! You may even need to download the sources and rebuild, or just try it under a Fedora release.

That being said, I'm going to be interested in seeing how the 3D works in VirtualBox.....

Cool! After the umpteenth million time of not being able to build VMware Server under the latest kernel version, and this time NOT being able to find yet-another-vmware-any patch to fix it, I finally abandoned VMware (at least for personal use) and switched back to VirtualBox. Looks like I made the right decision right, just in time.

I'm still using VMware for server virtualization at work, but for running one of Uncle Bill's products on my desktop, it looks like VirtualBox is a better solution.

I will be interested in seeing how it works with USB. That's always been a bug-a-boo for me--getting USB devices to talk to the VM. This release sounds like they've cleaned up some things. I will be really interested in how it performs with some of my games that require 3D. (I'm talking like Guild Wars, not the latest releases.)

> Finally, there is a very simple solution. Don't install software that does things you don't want it to do.

The problem is that people aren't "installing" software, at least not in their minds. They are following what security experts have been screaming about for years -- namely keeping up to date on their MS security updates. They don't know that this is a feature upgrade. It's just something that tags along with all the other security updates they are dutifully downloading and applying.

What are you going to do? Tell grandma to install only those MS updates which she understands? Yea, like that's going to help.

Haven't read the PA yet, but I think the point is that the *attorneys* themselves shouldn't be blogging. Someone like you or me, or PJ, should be able to read about a case and state our own opinions (Freedom of Speech and all that), but if you are directly involved in a case, you have to be very careful what you say, and to whom.

OK, OK, now I'll go and read the article....

Patents are hideously complicated, and very difficult to search, since the wording is intentionally vague. This is one of the reasons why patents are so bad for Open Source. Unless you're fabulously rich and can afford a gaggle of IP lawyers, there is no way you can check the THOUSANDS of existing patents to see if the concept you're actually implementing is something that some other person had a vague idea about some years ago, and then had enough $$$$ to actually apply for a patent on

Not sure if you're serious, or if this is the new type of, "Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of those [fill in the blank]?" ... but seriously, PJ is taking a well deserved rest, after finally coming to the conclusion that the SCO train-wreck has pretty much come to an end. (They lost, but are now trying to appeal. Go figure...)

Groklaw has covered IP issues in the past, but I don't think this one has hit their radar yet (mostly because the radar is sort of turned off.)