You might also note that Novell does not sue competitors over patents, they only use them for defensive purposes. And lest you forget, Novell also donates patents to OIN to PROTECT Linux and FOSS.

True. Novell deserves credit for that.

Are you truly arguing that Novell and other FLOSS companies (like Red Hat and Canonical, for example) should willingly make themselves vulnerable to patent suits?

Canonical is very small. Red Hat filed amicus brief in Bilski IIRC.

If that is your argument, then I seriously question your support of FLOSS. Sounds more likely that you want to badmouth FLOSS companies and demand that they bend over so that more aggressive proprietary software companies like Apple can sue FLOSS companies out of existence.

I often compare this to the biggest threat that Earth is facing: nuclear strikes. This threat has immediate impact, unlike environmental catastrophe that is gradual.

In order to redeem, one must dismantle now, not later. Any act of hypocrisy — which in this case includes or equates to IBM, Sun and Novell — will be perceived as similar to US possession of nuclear warheads and active refinement of uranium for hydrogen bombs. To say “do as I say but not as I do” (or “it’s all right for me, but not for you”) is the reason we have arms races. The Bush regime even further increased focus on armament while increasing resentment from the ‘trolls’ (again, you hopefully see the parables).

The reason I bring up political analogies is to show you that Novell’s motives will be better served by behaving according to the goals. You can’t establish freedom (e.g. software) by endlessly making compromises and hope that freedom will be an endowment. Change comes through struggles from below, rarely as a gift from up above.

It’s time for Novell to play ball for change.

Oh, btw, Novell /does/ fight patents by helping EFF.

You might also note that Novell does not sue competitors over patents, they only use them for defensive purposes. And lest you forget, Novell also donates patents to OIN to PROTECT Linux and FOSS.

You might also note that Apple and some other software companies /do/ sue over patents and if Novell did not have patents itself, it would not be able to protect itself. Are you truly arguing that Novell and other FLOSS companies (like Red Hat and Canonical, for example) should willingly make themselves vulnerable to patent suits?

If that is your argument, then I seriously question your support of FLOSS. Sounds more likely that you want to badmouth FLOSS companies and demand that they bend over so that more aggressive proprietary software companies like Apple can sue FLOSS companies out of existence.

Note: this comment was posted from Novell’s headquarters.

Have you considered battling patents (properly) rather than legitimising them while at the same time choosing patents-encumbered technologies you don’t even need?

Someone could just as easily spread patent FUD about ANY OTHER FOSS project with your “theoretical patents”. That doesn’t make the FUD true.

You like to talk about how morally righteous you guys are, but clearly you have a lower moral standing than Novell if you stoop to spreading this kind of FUD and insisting that it’s true without any real evidence to back it up.

If companies had morals as poor as you guys clearly have, they’d be spreading the same lies you guys spread about all FLOSS projects insisting that they infringe on these theoretical patents you guys love so much.

Think about that.

Note: this comment was posted from Novell’s headquarters.

http://boycottnovell.com/2008/02/28/patent-pill-is-in-openness-pledge/

If you can’t prove that, then all you are doing is spreading FUD.

D’oh, the link should have been http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-01-20-015-35-NW-SW-0010 .

>> In short, stay away from “safe” mono, it’s very possibly a trap that will get you when you are far into development. The reason is that basic uses of the core may be allowed…

I should have recapped as well that the API-patent trick/deception is fool-proof to the extent the patent and API were created carefully. There need be no real huge innovation here. The violations cannot be worked around if you use such an API, so hope you have a patent grant if you are using the API.. but, even with license to the base API, the extension patents will likely get you once you go beyond simple applications. Double whammy: (a) violations you can’t work around if you merely use such an API, and (b) violations you can’t work around when you want to do anything interesting beyond the base API even if you avoid the extension API… [..assuming Company X did their homework well.]

In short, stay away from “safe” mono, it’s very possibly a trap that will get you when you are far into development. The reason is that basic uses of the core may be allowed, but interesting things will not be even if you invent your own API/functions/classes and avoid the official MS extension API. Once you are using the core, avoiding the official extension API might become an academic exercise that will do little to protect your more interesting apps from violations of generalized extension patents.

Roy, probably these two “simplification” comments (the above and http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-01-19-003-35-RV-DT-SW-0000 ) are what I wanted to communicate. I’ll wait a few days to see if I want to change or add.

I very much would appreciate comments on the two links (sendhello core patent example and the extensions discussion follow-up). Do these make sense? Sound reasonable? Are they written clearly?

Building desktop applications without C or C#

“Both of these are useful measures against C#, and potentially good ways of doing things JavaScript is the best dynamic scripting language, with a sweet spot between familiar syntax and power, and Vala’s idea of translation to C worked well for the old d2c Dylan compiler.”

“RAND-z” is also nasty in that it reinforces the notion that a “RAND” may exist that is not “zero-payment”.

On the discussion about patenting interfaces, I think it’s wrong to assume there’s a deterministic way to tell if something is patentable or not, because the patent offices are full of shit in first place. I wouldn’t be surprised if a patent covers all possible ways to implement a given API.

What we _can_ tell is that certain areas are more heavily patented than others, and the non-Ecma extensions to .NET are likely to be heavily encumbered.

http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-01-20-015-35-NW-SW-0010

For the record, if we read over the portions of the MS patent recently quoted (claim 1), we find that their invention is:

“A computerized method in a distributed computing system comprising: handling, by an application, requests … and presenting, by an application program interface….”

And from claim 12:

“A computerized system comprising: means for handling requests … and means for presenting functions ….”

And from this other patent http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2003/0028685.html :

“A software architecture for a distributed computing system comprising: an application configured to handle requests … and an application program interface to present functions….”

Thus, it appears to me Microsoft was not shy about their intentions to patent machines (“computerized system”), processes (“computerized method”), and even “a software architecture” which includes “an application” and “an application program interface [API].”

It’s a laughable patent I know.. but Microsoft has some pretty big muscles. If the USPTO arm of the US gov yielded to them, many smaller users and developers surely will as well, and I don’t blame them, especially when there is a simple remedy: avoid dotnet and other Monopolysoft protocols/platforms/etc.

That’s what I am doing, prevention, because I don’t want to have to stand in front of a judge and say that “despite Microsoft warning me of its intention to defend its patents and despite me clearly knowing I was using Microsoft created technology surrounded by controversy, I stand here now having taken the action they swore to defend against, but I don’t want to fight the legitimacy of the patent, rather, I want your honor to throw out the case because I look good.”

No, the main theme of this thread is about what I am calling API-patent attacks. I picked up on your mp3 example a number of times in order to create analogies and better communicate the theme of the thread.

Read the “music.play()” reply that I wrote not long ago again to get an idea of where that hypothetical patent claim comes from.

>> If you think that simple function calls can be entirely subject to patent claims then there isn’t really much hope at all for you.

Here is an MS patent.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7013469.html

Go tell the judge the gov made a mistake in granting the patent.

I’ll quote some:

>> 2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the set of types support an event model including an event delegate that connects an event with a handler of the event, the set of base classes and types further comprising: one or more classes that hold event data; and one or more delegates that identify a method to provide a response to an event.

>> 1. A computerized method in a distributed computing system comprising: handling, by an application, requests submitted by applications executing on remote devices over a network; and presenting, by an application program interface, functions used by the applications to access network and computing resources of the distributed computing system, wherein the application program interface comprises a set of base classes and types that are used in substantially all applications executing on the remote devices submitting requests, wherein the set of base classes and types comprises: an AsyncCallback delegate supplied to an application, wherein the AsyncCallback delegate references a callback method to be called when a corresponding asynchronous operation is completed; and an IAsyncResult interface that enables determination of the status of an asynchronous operation, wherein the IAsyncResult interface includes: an AsyncState property that returns the object that was provided as the last parameter as part of a Begin call corresponding to the asynchronous operation; an AsyncWaitHandle property that returns a WaitHandle that can be used to allow the application to wait for a call to be completed without needing to poll; a CompletedSynchronously property that is set to true if the Begin call corresponding to the asynchronous operation completed synchronously; and an IsCompleted property that is set to true after processing of the asynchronous operation is completed.

Tell the judge how all of these actions being described in this patent can be effected by writing simple function calls into an ordinary text editor holding the rest of the application source code, then building the app from such source code, and then running it.

Tell the judge how all of these abstract nouns can be build through function calls and class declarations in a suitable programming environment.

Report back if you do get in touch with a relevant judge and have a positive message for us.

The app (the binary) is very much constructed.. from the translated source.

We’re playing with the meaning of words though. Not very relevant. Use a different word if you want (but let me know your definitions — like I explained “patent API” to you).

The final product could be a computer or computers with the application running on its/their hardware (eg, mem, registers, io port state, storage disks, etc). I think that is the theory behind patenting software (ie, the approach used to fool the judge and scare the defendants).

“Static” vs anything else is a detail of how the machine is running that application. It doesn’t change the fact that a patent, that would be violated if music plays, is being violated because music is playing.

The details you mention (eg, static) can be relevant. It depends on the patent. On how it was worded. Ex: did it imply a single computer or did it leave that variable, for example?

I do hope patents on re-programmable hardware running software are never enforced. That wouldn’t rescue us completely, but it’s probably good enough for me; however, I don’t think patent law is quite there yet. I assume the patents will be upheld for the purposes of pointing things like this out. Lot’s of people, regardless of personal views on sw patents, will still play it safe, so I factor that in. I’m playing it safe, today, before I have a real headache on my hands.

Also:

music.play()

It doesn’t matter how you get the music to play. Perhaps you violate the mp3 patent or not, but you do violate a different patent claim, one in which all other reqs are met along with playing the music.

We were talking in the context of the MP3 patent. The IKVM example I gave doesn’t violate that patent, and I don’t understand at all where you get this “different patent claim” from.

If you think that simple function calls can be entirely subject to patent claims then there isn’t really much hope at all for you. Thankfully, the world isn’t like that – software patents are bad enough as they exist now, they would be impossible to deal with in this hypothetical world of patented function calls.

Technically, the source code doesn’t implement it in most use cases. The app (binary) implements it leveraging the library (binaries). The source are the instructions so that the build system can put the application together as intended. Source is blueprint not actual final product.

There is your mistake. Nothing in the library is put into the final product (that’s known as “static linking”). The source is translated, not “constructed” somehow.

The application is emphatically not implementing the patented code.