Posted by Dave on 8/13/2009, 12:04 am
207.119.15.199
OK, is this weird, or is it weird??? Starting about October 12, Microsoft is banned from selling Word or Office in the US. Seems that Word writes its documents in XML, and a little company somewhere owns a big wide patent on reading XML, and Microsoft has infringed. Hoorah!
Me, I think this patent thing has got clear out of hand. Pretty soon somebody will take out a patent on using oxygen in metabolic processes and we all will have to pay to breathe. But, on this one, I have to laugh a little bit, remembering the chicanery MS went through last year trying to make their proprietary XML be the world-wide standard for word processing, and remembering that Microsoft has been threatening Linux with lawsuits over patents on Linux that they won't reveal, and that they supported SCO in their spurious attempts to assert ownership of Linux. So: 
But the action might help settle things. It's an interesting article!
In faith, Dave
Viva Texas
dave@christos.cjb.net, dpeirce@christian.net
Windows: It could be worse but it'll take time.
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