So the patent works like this: Instead of storing markup within a document, you instead store the markup separately from the raw data and then map each markup element to a character position in the raw data, like this:<br><br>

--Original document--
<foo>This is a foo</foo><foo><bar>This is a foo bar</bar></foo>

--i4i patented storage--
Raw document:
This is a foo This is a foo bar

Metadata Map:
1 <foo> 0
2 </foo> 13
3 <foo> 14
4 <bar> 14
5 </foo> 31
6 </bar> 31

The idea is that you should be able to edit the raw data, or the markup, independently of one another. The patent outlines three core scenarios: 1) Taking an existing document with inline markup and separating the text and the markup, 2) Generating a "separate data and markup" document from scratch, and 3) Combining the markup and raw data of a doc generated from scenario 1 or 2 back together to produce a document with the markup inline.

So why is this neat? The patent claims that you can edit both the content and the markup independently of one another. Except that you would require a specialized editor that manipulates both components to be able to do this and still maintain the "mapping" of markup to raw data. Hate to say it, but I can already do this on normal, inline-markup documents using notepad, or any WYSIWYG HTML editor.

The other claim is that you could apply any map to any raw data. Except that, unless the character positions of semantic elements in the raw data were exactly where the "Metadata Map" expected them to be, the result would be a huge mess. Practically speaking, the application of a metadata map to multiple documents (since the map is based on character position) would most likely require additional inline tags to align the separate metadata to the content, thus defeating the whole purpose of the patent. Or maybe you could establish a "standard sentence length" in order to allow one map to be applied to different documents - that would be great. :P

I'm having a hard time understanding how the technology described in this patent is actually useful at all, let alone how Microsoft has infringed on it.

How is that "hidden"?

Using your logic, *no* application is ever actually removed then since the dlls that handle tasks common to other similar applications remain. Office isn't really uninstalled, it's just "hidden" because text-rendering components remain. Games aren't really uninstalled because graphics rendering dlls remain.

Oh where is a True Internet Lawyer when we need one?

And before the deluge of, "OMG, Cutler stole IP," or whatever, consider that the bulk of Cutler's career has been... Designing and implementing OSes. How many people in the world do that? It'd be like New Line Cinemas suing, say, Paramount if Peter Jackson went to make movies for them claiming, "These are too much like our epic movies."

GP is talking about the fact that Dave Cutler, the dude who architected VMS at DEC later went to work for Microsoft and ended up architecting Windows NT. Either GP is ignorant of this fact, or they were being intentionally misleading and trying to imply that someone at Microsoft stole something from VMS. Which isn't true. (unless you count Cutler's freely choosing to change jobs "stealing" somehow.)

If one bothered to do, say, 30 seconds of research, one might see that the US and the EU have vastly different concepts of anti-monopoly regulation. One might also understand that the standards by which Microsoft is being punished by the EU Commission are, when compared to US anti-trust law, actually quite fickle and arbitrary.

Retroactive fines link Choice quote from that:

Multi-billion euro fines link Choice quote from that:

Seriously, just Google the stuff.

I wouldn't call it "aggression." How much money has the EU fined MS in the past few years? Billions of euro? The fines have been retroactive in some cases, and in the case of the protocol documentation debacle European Commission officials have threatened fines based on "insufficient documentation" that they hadn't even actually bothered to review.

Even huge companies like MS aren't bottomless moneypits, especially when faced with potential multi-billion Euro fines levied by a historically capricious and arbitrary international authority. No, I would call this justifiably defensive behavior.

Probably. Desktop search is something kind of universally "cool" nowadays. Linux has at least a few desktop search apps, too (Beagle, Tracker, etc.).

My point wasn't that MS is the only one doing this - it's that search is probably one of the next big user interface shifts in personal computing. If you think about it, the file/directory concept (i.e. hierarchically organizing your documents in a directory tree) is just one variety of search indexing - albeit a manual kind, that you do yourself. You manually index, you manually search.

Next step I think would be automating that process, which is something that all the major OSes provide nowadays.

No, it's actually even worse than that! With newer versions of Windows, people install things, with no desktop shortcuts at all, and then they just type stuff into the search bar in the Start menu and expect it to somehow show up and...

Oh wait.

Seriously though, you make a good point - given that most people want their computer to work just like how you said (install programs, don't care how they're stored, and kind of hope that somehow they'll be accessible), doesn't the windows search feature fulfill that desire? I mean, I get that most technically-inclined users (including me) like to be able to interact with the file system directly to access programs and data. But non-technical users just don't care.

When it comes down to it, a file system is just another level of abstraction built on top of the low-level OS kernel-implemented secondary storage interface (which is, of course, built on the abstraction of the physical disk's interface). Maybe we're witnessing the next level of abstraction being built as we speak - the ability to completely ignore the filesystem, and pay attention to what really matters to users - the functionality provided by the applications they install.

Heh. Good little Socialists. Suck on the teat of productive free enterprise until it shrivels up. But the EU isn't the only game in town anymore, now that we've got Obama and friends lining up to get their share.

I think there's actually an advantage in being a bit older than the average crowd. I'm not responsible for hiring, but I have to believe that experience and maturity play a huge part in whether or not you get a particular job. After all, once you've passed the minimal hiring criteria (i.e., BS in cs or whatever), the deciding factors will be your skill (however that gets tested in the interview process), and how well you fit in with the team/group/company. Just based on the assumption that people become more agreeable as they age, I'd say you'll be at a distinct advantage over younger, similarly-educated candidates.

... or a flying rubber wang

Um no. If they were actually trying to legislate a limit on workers' salaries, while fighting legislation to limit executive salaries, that'd be hypocrisy. But they're not.

I'm not sure where you get this FUD, but yes, you can uninstall it. I think the "entanglement" you're referring to is the fact that there are several DLLs that provide the Windows HTML rendering engine that don't disappear when you uninstall IE. They don't go away because other applications use them. ... *grumble*

I mean, you're just talking about the small potatoes, here! What about all the other crap that IE leaves laying around? What about that pesky TCP/IP implementation!? You wouldn't believe the pain in the ass it was for me to get rid of that when I uninstalled IE! I mean, heck, IE uses scrollbars, right? So why doesn't uninstalling IE remove the scrollbar GUI component from Windows? No More Bloat!