Microsoft permanently barred from selling Word

[Matthew DeCarlo]

@strategic: I'm not entirely sure how you perceive the above story to portray a "disaster-like" situation. Whether or not the story is small will vary with opinion - of which you are entitled. I happen to think it's absolutely news worthy, and I know many agree.

Anyhow, let's not take this off-topic. Carry on .

 

[strategic]

I happen to think it's absolutely news worthy

Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely news worthy, and it's also very interesting. Only, in my opinion, the media exagerates, as they always do...

 

[Darkshadoe]

Can any of you anti-piracy supporters explain to me how this is any different than Illegal downloading? No one wants to hear Microsofts lame excuses for doing it. Stealing is stealing..isnt that what you guys say? They should get fines that are proportional to those handed down to Jamie Thomas.100 billion dollars for each infraction should be fair. Hmm..if I remember correctly, Miss Thomas was also court ordered not to use P2P anymore. So I guess the next logical step would not allow Microsoft to develop anymore software and sell it.

Also please explain how these laughable court judgements are a deterrant for Microsoft not to steal other people's work. They have been fined over and over again and yet still do it.

 

[snowchick7669]

Well clearly Microsoft have shot themselves in the foot somewhere?

Interesting

 

[tengeta]

Right before schools go back into session... this could be fun to watch. Especially when Microsoft counter-sues and claims losses because people can't find the legitimate Office and pirate it instead. Don't act like this is going to get people to switch to OpenOffice, there are morons convinced they NEED Microsoft Office to open XML laced files and will just download it to get work done.

Its funny, Microsoft doesn't even need to bend anyone's opinion, users just assume then blame Microsoft later for the fact they were clueless.

 

[snowchick7669]

Well, upon reading the article and various others it seems as though Microsoft will win this one.

The patent in 1998 by the company is rather generic and Microsoft themselves issued another patent recently with using XML in word processing.

Shall be interesting

 

[captaincranky]

God I'm so sick of all these patents and copyrights and intellectual property bullsh1t! It just hampers progress. OK, I'm no Microsoft fan as such, but Office 2007 is a first class product and all this continual legal bollocks is just nonsense!

Anyone who thinks this is good news because it hurts Microsoft is just being retarded, plain and simple. This sort of thing hurts technology, hurts progress. Some of these patents are so unbelievably vague its not true. I wish this rubbish would stop.

Well OK, let's just take it as a given that Word 2007 is a good product.

There aren't enough legal pitfalls that could happen to M$ to garner one iota of my sympathy.

These are the same creepy *** freaks that brought us "WGA" (That's legal malware) , and product activation. So, I say if it can be proved that M$ is ripping off the intellectual property, then fine them until blood runs down Bill Gates' legs.

You live by the sword, you die by the sword. That's the way they say it should be.

Now, there certainly are frivolous lawsuits being filed with respect to patent infringment, and intellectual property rights. But guess what, thank God the courts still get to decide which are valid and which are not, and not the Microsoft Corporation.

 

[9Nails]

phantasm66 said:
God I'm so sick of all these patents and copyrights and intellectual property bullsh1t! It just hampers progress. < snip > This sort of thing hurts technology, hurts progress. Some of these patents are so unbelievably vague its not true. I wish this rubbish would stop.

Here here! I'm right there with you. I would like to see companies patent code to prohibit reverse engineering. (Assuming that they didn't first steal the code from Open Source/GPL projects!) It takes a lot of time and research to hit the mark in software. But I don't think that they should be allowed to patent ideas like this. And I definitely don't think that their patent should be so vague that just by opening a file you're infringing their patent. The US PTO needs to be closed, revamped, and brought back leaner without this BS.

 

[JudaZ]

Wendig0 said:

pjamme said:
I wouldn't expect anything less from a company that got it's start from stealing MS DOS. We must never forget that!

Don't forget that Windows itself was also a direct ripoff of Apple's OS back in 1990.

And dont forget that this technology Apple stole fron Xerox.

 

[Phantasm66]

Wendig0 said:

pjamme said:
I wouldn't expect anything less from a company that got it's start from stealing MS DOS. We must never forget that!

Don't forget that Windows itself was also a direct ripoff of Apple's OS back in 1990.

Everything is a rip off of something. Things build on each other. Certainly technologies and ideas become patterns - become standards. I'm all for GPL v3 and forgetting the idea of patents altogether - and I am someone working on my own software who might well wind up having a good, and hence rip-off-able, idea.

Spring is a rip off of J2ee. The PC was a rip off of of the Mac and the BBC Master Compact. Progress comes about because someone has an idea, goes with it, takes it as far as they can, and then someone else comes along and builds on that.

 

[Guest]

That is easy for ms. Build new Word without xml support or create patch to remove xml from word 2003 & 2007.

 

[Badfinger]

People still buy word processors? Really? No, Really?

Seems pretty silly to still need one to me.

I use a freeware Notepad replacement and hardly even need that, I currently don't even own a printer.

As for M$, duh....

 

[DelJo63]

And dont forget that this technology Apple stole fron Xerox.

Sorry, not true. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were both invited to Xerox PARC and shown the R&D work. Only Jobs saw the import of the work and created the Lisa machine. When the follow-on product was made available, Gates had to run to catch-up.

Neither company STOLE anything!

IMO, this thread has gone way off topic! Would some moderator lock this please?

 

[SNGX1275]

The short title and the word "permanently" make it a bit misleading on what is really happening. Kinda like what strategic said above about media exaggeration. TS news is a part of the media.

 

[Julio Franco]

SNGX you bring a valid point but so does Matt with his title which is a catchy one, perhaps not 100% accurate or comprehensive, but not inaccurate either.

My take on this kind of thing is that a catchy headline works as long as it doesn't become a permanent trend. Then you become sensationalistic which is not the case with us (IMO) .

 

[strategic]

Alright, at first I wasn't going to say anything because this post is starting to get a little lengthy...

Kinda like what strategic said above about media exaggeration. TS news is a part of the media..

My comment about media exaggeration is correct, they do it all the time in regards to everything, we all know that. I don't consider TS to be a part of it. All TS is doing is post news that is already out there, which is 1 of 2 sources I look at to stay up to date.

Matt with his title which is a catchy one, perhaps not 100% accurate or comprehensive

It wasn't really (at least I don't think so) Matt's title, that was the title from the original news source. Search it on the internet, every headline is more or less the same.

I apologize if I put something in my comment earlier that was in bad taste, again, TS is 1 of 2 sources I look to for news and updates, and Matt (along with others) are doing an excellent job at it.

 

[Guest]

Gates purchased QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) from Sperry/Rand for use with an 8 bit and 16 bit processor. It was originally written as a basic OS for some signaling systems that SR had in the field. They didn't pay much for it but they didn't steal it, either.

As for Apple, Jobs got that for free from Xerox's PARC after taking a tour of the facility and watching how a GUI based computer could work.

Now for the bad reality: Microsoft, the evil giant, employs about 100,000 people world wide. They pay hundreds of millions in payroll and taxes every year and they contribute 10's of millions to charities every year as well. (I don't know the financials of Apple, Inc but they're probably similar, proportionately).

They compete with everyone else and they worked their a$$es off to get where they are. I'm not a big bell ringer for MS but I am a small businessman that knows what it takes to make it in an economy and it's not easy. Someday I might be lucky enough to be in the same position as one of these big players (i'm not holding my breath on that, though). I've seen plenty of companies make out pretty good being purchased by a big machine like MS (and AT&T and IBM, etc)

 

[Leafgreen]

Guest said:
This is the company that will come after user who have a illegal copy of there OS and make it impossible to use there software with out paying outrageous cost for it? Now they have been caught stealing software and not only using it but make a profit from what they ripoff. I wonder what they would do if it was there software that was taken and used to make a profit?

Well put. Oh the irony.

 

[ravisunny2]

So, will Microsoft buy i4i ?

 

[Guest]

Good.... Microsoft's constant ripping off has finally caught up with them.
Too bad Apple can't sue em for ripping off their operating system.

 

[Guest]

I bet the disctrict court judge uses Microsoft Word....lol...

 

[Tedster]

how about using opeendocument format with openpoffice?

 

[KBerger]

phantasm66 said:
God I'm so sick of all these patents and copyrights and intellectual property bullsh1t! It just hampers progress. OK, I'm no Microsoft fan as such, but Office 2007 is a first class product and all this continual legal bollocks is just nonsense!

Anyone who thinks this is good news because it hurts Microsoft is just being retarded, plain and simple. This sort of thing hurts technology, hurts progress. Some of these patents are so unbelievably vague its not true. I wish this rubbish would stop.

You don't mean to say MS itself IS a progress accelerator and open source supporter, do you?

If .doc and such formats were opened to the world, then OpenOffice would be higher class product, than the "first class MS Office", supporting also all those beloved MS documents format seamlessly. My, would you be then even calling MS Office a "first class product" and cling to it so much?...

So, it is this very "patents and copyrights and intellectual property b... etc" you are referring to , which puts Microsoft products where they are.

And then, all those suits against MS are, in fact, attempts to recover from the giant what it has gained so far by means of its copyright protected products and policies on the market. Just another marketing step, much like those Microsoft itself uses.

 

[SNGX1275]

My comment about media exaggeration is correct, they do it all the time in regards to everything, we all know that. I don't consider TS to be a part of it. All TS is doing is post news that is already out there, which is 1 of 2 sources I look at to stay up to date.

I didn't intend my statement to sound malicious. TS is part of the media though, even if it is just repeating things from elsewhere, almost all the media repeats someone CNN, FoxNews, ABC, CBS, NBC almost all report based on an article pushed out by Reuters or AP. And they get their information from a press release by someone...

This headline, independent of where it came from was just one that caused you, and subsequently myself to comment on.

 

[Guest]

there seems to be a kind of glee for MS getting spanked by judges and juries. C'mon, they have paid more tahn a quarter of a BILLION US Dollars for this alleged patent infringement. I am certain that should i4i were to be acquired 2-3 ago, it wouldn't come near this figure-patents, lock, stock and barrel!!
I am not connected to Microsoft in any way nor I like their marketing methods. However, patent disputes are very common and it is not fair for MS to get treated worse exactly because they are who they are. What would be fair would be for the court to award reasonable damages, e.g. 20% more than the royalty income i4i would be expected to receive under normal commercial circumstances. This would achieve three things : (a) punish MS for the infringement (the 20%) (b) compensate i4i and (c) prevent i4i from raising unreasonable demands for licencing the technology to MS, which would only serve to raise the product cost for the consumer.
Anyway, XML formats are not essential for word processing and the lack whereof did not prevent us from writing great prose in the past;-)