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Why I was wrong about Microsoft (by Glyn Moody)

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Edvard:
My only regret is that Alan Turing isn't alive today as he proved mathematically that all computers (however large and complex) are all functionally equivalent to a "Turing Machine". If he had patented it and sued MS and Apple tactics he would now wipe the flaw with all computer manufacturers.
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Holy christmas, Carol...
That war positivitably Joycean!
 :Thmbsup:

mwb1100:
My only regret is that Alan Turing isn't alive today as he proved mathematically that all computers (however large and complex) are all functionally equivalent to a "Turing Machine". If he had patented it and sued MS and Apple tactics he would now wipe the flaw with all computer manufacturers.
--- End quote ---

Holy christmas, Carol...
That war positivitably Joycean!
 :Thmbsup:
-Edvard (April 08, 2011, 11:56 AM)
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Wait... I'm a bit Chris-crossed.

zridling:
My only regret is that Alan Turing isn't alive today as he proved mathematically that all computers (however large and complex) are all functionally equivalent to a "Turing Machine". If he had patented it and sued MS and Apple tactics he would now wipe the flaw with all computer manufacturers.-Carol Haynes (April 08, 2011, 05:07 AM)
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You go girl!  :Thmbsup:
________________________
This sounds to me like it might be a good thing as far as being able to help overturn unworthy patents (and therefore would be something that most software-patent-haters would like), or am I misreading this?  I know that when it comes to legal stuff, the devil is in the details, and the initial appearance of a ruling or law doesn't necessarily indicate the actual effect.-mwb1100 (April 08, 2011, 11:30 AM)
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Close. Microsoft's response brief attempts to rebut i4i’s (a small Toronto company) claims that Microsoft should be held to the “clear and convincing” standard. Microsoft wants the court to apply the lower preponderance of the evidence standard, which would make it easier to invalidate i4i’s claims. (i4i filed a suit in 2007 claiming that Microsoft violated one of its patents covering the way Microsoft used XML in Word.) Meanwhile, Microsoft keeps losing and filing for more appeals.

Realizing that the ruling will set a precedent under which tech companies will have to live for years, Microsoft rivals and partners, such as Google, Apple, Intel, HP, and Facebook among others, filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Microsoft. Their fear is that a ruling against Microsoft will encourage more small companies to come out of the woodwork, pushing patent claims against large companies.

The irony is that if you go back and read the original Glyn Moody article, Microsoft itself is suing open source companies left and right over the most ridiculous patents, such as SELECTING TEXT and a SUPERIMPOSED DOWNLOAD BAR. Microsoft can't have it both ways.

 

40hz:
DOS was a rip off (literally ripped off and tweaked for a rush job for IBM)
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Actually, wasn't DOS Based on QDOS by Seattle Software Products?

IIRC Microsoft purchased perpetual legal rights to that OS in 1980 to serve as the basis for the OS that IBM had contracted Microsoft to provide for its PC. For this, Microsoft paid a one-time fee of $50k to Seattle Software, but didn't tell them ('ostensibly because Microsoft was under an NDA and therefor barred from discussing it) what they wanted it for. Tim Paterson, the founder of Seattle Software and author of QDOS, went to work for Microsoft the following year.

In retrospect, that became one of the shrewdest business deals ever made. But hardly a financial ripoff. $50k was a fairly substantial amount of money back then. Especially in an industry that catered largely to the hobbyist market prior to IBM releasing their PC.

So what about it being a technology ripoff?

Gary Kildall of Digital Research (originally: Intergalactic Digital Research) often claimed that QDOS was "largely lifted" from his operating system CP/M.

Paterson acknowledged he had extensively based QDOS on CP/M, but argued the coding was all his and therefor was a legal functional equivalent of CP/M rather than a copy.  Some preliminary and largely unsuccessful legal skirmishes early on led Kildall to believe Digital Research didn't have a leg to stand on if they went to court. So the widely hinted, and eventually threatened, lawsuit never materialized. No software patent trolling or look&feel nonsense back in those days!

In the 80s, the rule of thumb used to be something like if 80% (or more) of your source code was original, your work was considered original. That was because there was a general consensus that software was developed in an "evolutionary fashion, and therefor (of necessity) tended to "incorporate" elements  (i.e. algorithms,code snippets, standard routines, etc.) which had been previously written by others.

In the 80s, nobody seriously considered software as being copyrightable because it was regarded as a set of instructions rather than a 'creative' or 'literary' work. Instruction sets are not usually eligible for copyright protection.

And software was not considered patentable for the same reason since it was viewed more as an 'idea' than it was the 'expression' of one. Ideas, by themselves, are not patentable.

There was also a very different 'business view' of software back then.

Most PC system software (particularly the OS) had yet to be considered as separate products. It was usually just thought of as an accessory. If you looked at the PC invoices of the time, you'd often see system software and utility disks all lumped together and called something like Accessory-Std. Software Pack with a line price that read: included.

In the 80s, an OS came bundled with the hardware you bought. Mainframes and minicomputers often had complex and expensive support and licensing schedules. But the big selling point for PC was that it came with an OS which was *SOLD* to the customer rather than licensed annually. That was a major paradigm shift for the computer industry. It wasn't till much later that the notion of licensing PC software became the norm. And it was a very hard sell convincing the public (and most courts) that a "shrink-wrap license" you didn't get to read, negotiate over, or personally sign, became legally binding if you unsealed a box. That alone constituted a major breakthrough getting the public to accept that.

Simpler times.  :)

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