Eolas - End of the Web as we know it?

[dilettante]

Has anyone read much on this yet?

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5063444.html

Basically MS lost a patent suit brought by this one-man company Eolas Technologies. If upheld upon appeal it looks like MS must pay damages and quit supporting ActiveX, Java, Flash, derned near any sort of "plug in."

Some hint that it covers client-side script as well.

For that matter it would impact Opera, Mozilla, and most other browsers whether free, pay, open source, or whatever.


Apologies in advance if this is a duplicate or stale item.

 

[jrbarnett]

Not knowing the exact wording of the patent, or the geographical area it covers, it is hard to determine the affect it will have on the browser market.
By geographical area I mean that if it was filed in the US, it may only be enforceable in the US - but outside there is was not

Software with plugins and scripting facilities have been around for a long time (witness Office VB/VBA routines/addins, Photoshop etc) and if not written in a secure enough way, would have far wider implications for such software packages, not just web browsers.
DOS batch files and Unix shell scripts could be considered as a scriptable components of software, so I think the date of the patent vs the earliest known scripting features is of the utmost consideration in determining the viability of this case.

John

 

[Grenage]

Interesting case, although I believe whatever MS wants MS gets - they have the influence and the money to find their way around such things.

That's not a critisism by the way

 

[jwenting]

I think the main reason the case was upheld in court was the fact that the defendant was Microsoft.
Many people have been conditioned by the media and politicians to consider Microsoft at fault by default in whatever they do.

Therefore the decision in this case is by default suspect.

 

[dilettante]

Well...

I'm not bashing Microsoft here either (not trying to anyway), but so far they seem to be acting pretty mildly about it. Maybe I'm reading to much into this, but could it be that Microsoft wants to lose the case as I have seen suggested elsewhere?

The possible motivations might range from seeing other "rich experience" browsers put out of business (Microsoft can afford to pay up, the competition can't) to moving away from web browsers as we know them to some new paradigm for mass use of the Internet. This might leave the Web in place, but using client software functioning more like pre-3.0 era browsers.

The direction might be toward something MS can claim is indeed integral to their OS offerings. Or maybe the push might be toward the Office suite becoming the new document-publish-and-view technology for the mass market.

I'm thinking of the way the Web is the Internet to Joe Consumer. So kill off the Web and move users to the "next big thing" (vendor defined). Maybe MS OneNote, maybe some sort of .Net WinForms thing?

Since the patent seems to cover distributed computing platforms based on hypertext that can use "plug ins" maybe we are looking at some more user-passive environment. Or maybe something structured more like a Word document or MS Reader text?

Since MS seems to be showing possible answers to W3C that wouldn't infringe on the patent, maybe this isn't as "dark" as I am making it sound. Hopefully it would be at least as open as HTML/DHTML over HTTP has been - possibly even something evolutionary rather than ditching the browser.

 

[jwenting]

the patent probably is broad enough to apply to the technologies you describe as being the Bad Thing (tm) that Microsoft is planning as well as to HTML.

If I had worded the patent I'd have made it that broad just to be sure to catch the biggest fish possible (in this case Microsoft) no matter what they try.

Effectively the patent indeed blocks ANY clientside executed modules loaded over the web in any environment if I understand it correctly.
Javascript might be excluded but applets, ActiveX controls and flash applications are hit (the flashing button applet probably isn't).

All those techs will be allowed only after and if Microsoft (or whoever) pays a license fee (probably being insanely high) to Eolas for their use.

Of course this does NOT affect products created outside the USA as long as the country where they were created has no offices inside the USA.
Unlike what Eolas claims, US patent law (and especially software patents) does NOT hold up in court in most other countries. At worst US citizens could be banned from using the software and distribution in the USA could be blocked.

 

[joshaurora]

On the other hand, perhaps Microsoft got caught stealing technology (others have surely claimed it). I impressed that Eolas won, given MS's resources. Perhaps he was actually telling the truth!

 

[dilettante]

Some details (finally) about how this is playing out with IE:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/ieupdate/default.asp

 

[greyted]

dilettante:
Some good reading on this subject here.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,8164602~root=security,1~mode=flat

Ted

"The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity."
Benjamin Disraeli.