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a-okWhile Microsoft putters around in the corral, IBM is riding Pegasus to Orion's prey where Rigel will scout the skies.
James Webb Space Telescope - 2013 The future belongs to the new technologies.
a-okFYI - Niro Scavone Haller & Niro is the lawfirm representing Vertical Computer Systems (VCSY) in a lawsuit against Microsoft for infringement of patent #6,826,744. Troll? No. More like Trawler. BIG net on dotNet and the fishes are scurrying to get out of reach of that big mouth. The net... that's what I'm talking about. Shouldn't be swimming in illegal waters.
From VCSY, A Laughing Place, Part 3
Great find from Benjy
Timothy J Haller and Sally Wiggins, Niro Scavone Haller & Niro
Trolls are mythological figures in folklore – so where do so-called ‘patent trolls’ come from? The term was first used in July 2001 when Brenda Sandburg wrote an article for American Lawyer publication The Recorder entitled “Trolling for dollars”. On page one of the article there was a picture of Intel’s then Assistant General Counsel Peter Detkin holding a troll doll. The second page showed attorney Raymond P Niro, of Chicago firm Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro, with the caption “Patent power”. The accompanying article began with the storybook ‘once upon a time’ claim that: “In the sleepy village of Santa Clara, there lived a very wealthy but very frightened giant named Intel. Intel was plagued by a fearsome band of evil trolls – patent trolls to be exact – who wanted a glittering pot of gold in exchange for doing absolutely nothing. They were very powerful because they said they owned the patent on some of the magic Intel used to become rich.”
hug me
Now that Microsoft has elected to ignore the cease and desist on patent 6,826,744 served February 7, 2007, I suppose they've decided to lure all the developers out there into further infringement against the patent and other property Vertical owns.
"The biggest Mix '07 announcement made on opening day of this week's show was one that Microsoft didn't call out in any of its own press releases: Microsoft is making a version of its Common Language Runtime (CLR) available cross-platform."
Uhhh... You'll need 7,076,521 also, Mister Oz, in order to pull off an arbitrary version of what you're doing. Are you saying you're infringing against this patent ALSO? tsk tsk tsk You would think smart people would act smarter by design.
I agree with my ZDNet blogging colleague Ryan Stewart. The biggest Mix '07 announcement made on opening day of this week's show was one that Microsoft didn't call out in any of its own press releases: Microsoft is making a version of its Common Language Runtime (CLR) available cross-platform.
The CLR is the heart of Microsoft's .Net Framework programming model. So, by association, the .Net Framework isn't just for Windows any more.
Silverlight 1.1, an alpha version of which Microsoft has made available for download, includes a very slimmed down version of the CLR, plus the newly announced Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR). Silverlight will plug into Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Safari browsers, meaning the slimmed-down CLR will run on these platforms, as well.
Microsoft calls the streamlined CLR the "Core CLR." (The Core CLR's codename was Tolesto, which happens to be one of the moons revolving around Saturn, according to the Softies.) The Core CLR will include the garbbage collection, type system, generics and many of the other key features that are part of the CLR on the desktop. It won't include COM interop support and other features "that you don't need inside a browser," the Microsoft execs say.
Microsoft is not opening up the source code to the Core CLR. It is opening the code to the DLR by posting it to the Microsoft CodePlex source-code repository under a Shared Source Permissive license.
Any non-Microsoft developers out there keen on seeing the CLR go cross-platform?
celebratorySome acronyms:
Blogs / Tim Ewald
Yeah, I'm alive. And I remember the password to my blog. I've been away for a bit, working on something very cool involving the TV. If all goes well, you'll hear about it in a big way. Anyway, I'm still having a ball out here in reality. Building something real has a way of focusing your decisions about technology.
...REMAINING BODY OF ARTICLE AT URL
Comments: (excerpted)
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intervening article with example further detailing Mr. Ewald's assertions not shown here.
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Ittay commented on my REST post:
the thing is, when you write software, you use an RPC model. what bothers me about REST is that it is not only an API. it enforces you to change your programming model.
that is not to say i don't like it. i do, for its simplicity and self documentation (e.g., provide all moves as links), but there is a price you pay.
When you write software, you use a programming model that works. And sometimes you have to change models. We changed them for the Web: we moved to the notion of pages. It wasn't RPC, it wasn't even objects (at least from most developers perspectives originally). But it was simple and did what it was supposed to do. I've done RPC, CORBA, DCOM, Remoting, RMI, and Web services. All of those technologies have their place. But they all struggle in a loosely-coupled, massively distributed world. I'll happily change my programming model to solve that.
I've gotten several comments saying that, at the end of the day, REST is just RPC. That's wrong, for at least 3 very (good) reasons:
A MUST read for anyone still struggling and afraid to drop the SOAP.
One reason this discussion is important is because a machine's 'state' determines whether the machine (at the one specific point in time and at the one particular selected entry in the record of all states experienced by the machine from start to present) is in a proper state or has gotten lost. Thus, 'state' is used to examine and determine whether a software/hardware operation is in synch with all its various members and methods against some measure (here be dragons) what reality as the computer designer says it should be.
Thus, 'determinism' decides whether a computer is an experimental toy or a robust framework. That is why determining, tracking and auditing system state is essential... especially in an application comprised of web elements as any networked applications must be able to recover nicely after a connection is interrupted. Thus, state on a multi-platform web-based computer is much more critical than on a single-platform operating system. Windows NT was Microsoft's first fully deterministic operating system as it was able to maintain state information across all threads.
Now. Take SiteFlash and Emily and you can build a deterministic finite state machine (aka computer) using web elements and virtualized proprietary elements.
That's what all the hoorah is about Vertical Computer Systems intellectual property.
Notice Brother Tim left off this nasty habit of blogging last year, Here was the last post he made until Thursday April 26, 2007:
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Fight the power
Are Excel Services the way to bring developers and business people together?
I heard about Excel Services a while ago, but hadn't had any time to look at them even briefly until now. Basically, it's a server-side system that lets you access data and calculations in Excel spreadsheets via Web services. Think about how much business data and calculation is done with Excel. Now imagine being able to leverage the directly. Want to change the algorithm you use to compute some key financial data? Let the analyst modify the spreadsheet and copy the update to your server and you're done. Now *this* is the way to align technology and business. Of course, that assumes it all actually works well - I haven't done anything yet. But still, it has *tons* of potential. Very cool idea, definitely something to spend more time with.
..........
Coincidentally, THIS happened June 14, 2006 (the date of Tim Ewald's last blog entry before he left for his REST hiatus):
The W3C XML Query and XSL Working Groups have updated the Candidate Recommendations for XQuery, XSLT 2 and XPath 2. The major change in these drafts is that several data types have migrated from the xdt, http://www.w3.org/2005/xpath-datatypes namespace to the W3C XML Schema xs, http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema namespace. There are numerous small bug fixes and clarifications as well. Updated drafts include:
........
Here's an interesting historical background (updated link 13Feb2010 - I find it troubling the archives for 2002 thru 2007 are missing) on Google and Amazon to name a few and their XML approaches back in April 2002. All the while VCSY was under seige by Ross Systems/Arglen. They seemed hella confident. All of them.
not sureYou should know the meaning of these acronyms if you want to talk to XML techies:
accident proneThanks to mm-buster for this observation. Odd. Very odd.
IBM is shutting down a slew of software and services for their legacy AS/400 software stable on April 30, 2007 with no obvious indication as to what software will be taking its place to bring the legacy systems up to iSeries. This could be nothing although it has the feel of a major shift. I notice some servers of note are down tonight for maintenance and I can't help but wonder and wait.
Of Interest: IBM: Software withdrawal and service discontinuances for April 30, 2007
If you've a mind to poke, here's also a Microsoft anchorage to compare against. Includes discussion on Mono.
Microsoft with Mono
Crossing the Divide
Open source interoperability tools extend .NET applications to other platforms.
by Kathleen Richards
April 2007
One Excerpt Of Interest: Windows World Many corporations use Mono, asserts de Icaza, but have policies against "endorsements" so the information is not available publicly. A notable exception is financial services powerhouse Fiducial, which is running its trading system on Mono. If you're committed to .NET and a Microsoft approach to application development, and you have Linux in your environment, "you should be all over Mono," advises Forrester's Goulde. "Even if you're not using Mono, you should be intimately familiar with it and should have someone in your organization on the mailing lists, as well as the discussions."
Cross-platform development technology has been around for a while, and most corporate environments use multiple platforms, so why isn't it more mainstream? In the .NET world, the short answer is Microsoft.
However, the early innovators all the way to the early majority are willing to take more aggressive risk management positions on these technologies. "The technology itself is very impressive, but the better mousetrap doesn't always win," says Gartner's Driver. "It has got to be delivered to the market in a context that provides low enough business risk to justify how sexy the technology is, and right now the perception of Mono is that it is not quite there yet." He adds that if Mono takes off, the real loser long-term is Java, not Microsoft.
Uhhhh... what if you're hooked through the nose to Microsoft .Net and you DON'T have Linux. Sounds like tough toenails. The clear indications to me are that IBM is retooling their mainframe packages and Microsoft is supposed to introduce some Live offerings, which, according to the nice lady writing the above Microsoft article, .Net works fine with other platforms as long as it's a Linux license from Novell. But, if you do not have Linux, your Microsoft SOA is SOL. Nuff said.
Like I've said elsewhere... there's a large gap in Microsoft's capability portfolio when it comes to actual interconnection and interoperation outside their own intellectual property range.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. - Attributed to the Man Behind the Curtain
hungryI AGREE
By: arthurarnsley
28 Apr 2007, 01:29 PM EDT
Msg. 183748 of 183749
(This msg. is a reply to 183736 by phil_a_buster12.)
phil_a_buster12 - After reading again all you've written in both of your posts it looks like MSFT's push for open source XML may be backfiring on them. People are saying, if open source is good for XML then it should be good for all Microsoft products; that a generic version of any Microsoft product should be available as open source.
More later, must go to work.
Arthur
(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Hold; LT Rating- Hold)
special The above is my response to anyone who wants to take a shot at Vertical Computer Systems lawsuit against Microsoft. It's a long article so bring your spectacles.
You should take this seriously and I'll tell you why. Push the little blue title up top there and it will magically take you through the accumulated magic of SGML to VCSY, A Laughing Place, Part 3
where you will find a few of the following pieces of knowledge:
...........
Don't think Microsoft is hypervigilent to protect their interests? And why have they not addressed the Vertical interest? It only promises to get more and more vertical. KWIM?
By: mm-buster
27 Apr 2007, 07:22 PM EDT
Msg. 183726 of 183730
THIS SAYS- microsofts has mounted an intensive campaign for Open XML?
care to comment?
State by state, Microsoft responds to creeping threat
Software empire faces a new front in the assault on its products' dominance
By John Letzing, MarketWatch
Last Update: 6:34 PM ET Apr 27, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Ed Homan, an orthopedic surgeon representing a central Florida district in the state legislature, thought an amendment touting open-source document formats he tucked into a 38-page bill wouldn't draw much attention.
But within an hour of the proposed bill's reading in late March, Homan said, he was greeted in his office by three lobbyists representing Microsoft Corp. (MSFT : Microsoft Corporation
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"They were here lickety-split," Homan said. "I had no idea it was going to get that kind of reaction."
State-by-state skirmishes over open-source document formats represent the latest showdown in a long-running, and so far unsuccessful, campaign to topple Microsoft's sheer dominance of the desktop software application market. Outside of Florida, four other states since January have seen language similar to Homan's included in proposed bills.
Document formats serve as an underlying digital container, controlling access to files like spreadsheets and the ability to share them. Efforts like Homan's could lead to broader use by states of OpenDocument Format, or ODF, an open-source technology promoted by Microsoft's competitors. ODF, analysts say, could undercut one of Microsoft's most essential businesses, by opening the door to alternatives to Excel and Word and other popular productivity applications owned by the world's biggest software company.
Characteristically, as lawmakers like Homan have learned, Microsoft's hardly taking a passive position.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company has mounted an intensive campaign for Open XML, an open format designed to counter ODF. Microsoft argues ODF is a limited technology that can't read Microsoft files very well, and says that Open XML ensures compatibility with Microsoft's full Office suite of products.
'We knew we'd be up against a tough battle, because of who they are and the lobbyist they hired.'
— Texas Rep. Marc Veasey
According to Homan, his open-source amendment has been pulled from the Florida bill, because other legislators "didn't want to go to the mat on one paragraph." But if similar bills are passed elsewhere, a spreading ODF format could prove a gateway to its compatible open-source applications -- whereas bureaucracies, and most computer users, have relied to date on Microsoft Office suite products such as Word.
"File formats for years have been what's really locked people into Microsoft Office," said Michael Silver, an industry analyst with Gartner Inc. Office, in turn, has thrived. Microsoft's business division, over 90% of which is made up of Office products, contributed one-third of the company's $14.4 billion in sales from January through March.
Sensitive issue
Soon after introducing an open document format bill in the Texas state legislature in February, Rep. Marc Veasey said it was clear Microsoft was going to commit considerable time and effort to influencing the outcome.
"Immediately we heard from Microsoft and their lobbyist here in Austin, and we knew we'd be up against a tough battle, because of who they are and the lobbyist they hired," Veasey said.
Veasey is co-sponsoring the open document format bill, which is now being read by committees in both chambers of the legislature.
Other states recently weighing calls to adopt open-document formats are California, Minnesota and Oregon.
Massachusetts was an early adherent of open-document format technology. It began moving certain state agencies to the use of ODF earlier this year, based on a 2005 mandate.
'Microsoft sees what's coming. Things like Word and Excel are sort of like a drug now getting ready to go generic.'
— Florida Rep. Ed Homan
Lawmakers in other states haven't necessarily recommended ODF over Open XML. But Microsoft clearly sees the spread of ODF as a potential, threatening result of their proposals.
In a document Microsoft lobbyists left with Homan, the company downplayed the "minority of voices" arguing specifically for ODF. Open XML, it argued, is a "more robust" option.
According to Veasey, in the proposed Texas bill, "We really wanted to stay away from choosing one format over the other."
"We went out of the way to bring Microsoft in to seek their input in drafting this legislation," Veasey said. Ultimately, however, "they said they thought it was favoring ODF," Veasey said, and declined to lend their support.
Veasey said he would gladly support the adoption of Microsoft's Open XML, if the Texas department of information resources decides that it meets his bill's definition of "open."
The impetus for the Texas bill was similar to that in other states -- a desire to ensure access to archived and current documents regardless of which company's application is used to open them, and lower costs.
Related Blog Posts & Articles
Continued on page 2
1 | 2
(Voluntary Disclosure: Position- Long; ST Rating- Strong Buy; LT Rating- Strong Buy)
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Read this and think through how many IT managers there are who know what XML predicts but have never had the pleasure of working with it on Microsoft products.
By: explore98
27 Apr 2007, 06:30 PM EDT
Msg. 183722 of 183731
(This msg. is a reply to 183721 by morrie33.)
The only thing that will legitamize VCSY at this point in the eyes of the bashers will be a hugh contract . Why haven t they made any money on this new type of technology,XML. My answer is IBM . When it s ready to be announced watch out .. I was talking to one of the IT managers I deal with about VCSY . I told her that they have a patent on an this xml enabler . She didn t know vcsy but her eyes lit up as she went on telling me all about xml . Boys and Girls , well and bashers too , mark my words ....THIS WILL BE HUGH .....IMO.... EXPLORE�
Folks, if you know what XML can do you know you learned it from reading Bill Gates and OzRay. You know what XML can do and you've wondered for years what's been up with it. Well, friends and neighbors, it's been under cover at IBM, Microsoft and VCSY until more recently as IBM has openly embraced XML and Microsoft has avoided XML like it was black death and VCSY has said 'mmmfffppphh...' while the critics and bashers maintained their self-righteous ignorance and refusal to debate.
One can only wonder what the topic of conversations will be at MiX07. Should be an interesting week ahead. (That's 'ajead' in SPanish)
And when this guy says 'Alarming'... I believe him especially for the 'countless' folks who've been experimenting in their labs coming up with what Microsoft should have sold them in a box years ago... if only they could have. If only they could have spent only a little money and bought a license back then. But, then Microsoft DID promise to endemnify users of Microsoft products from intellectual property suits in November 2004.
Do you remember that? We do.
A company named Vertical Computing Systems Inc. is suing Microsoft for a patent violation involving Microsoft’s .Net framework. The patent is for a “system and method for generating web sites in an arbitrary object framework.”
Let’s hope this patent doesn’t place countless other Web and application frameworks into Vertical Computing’s cross hairs.
Yep that is quite a worry. Maybe Microsoft will be able to give their assessment of their chances against this suit at MiX'07... I hope, for the sake of all the work you people have put out since... when?
Well, heck, they isn't anything to worry about, salamander. Microsoft has plenty of cash and I'm sure they'll make good on it. Might even let you bring your corporate image in for a makeover and paint job at the next developer's retreat.
What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. - Rumplestilsken, I think. Oh, no, that's not right. The google says Sir Walter Scott. Who the hell is that? Is he a venture capitalist with options? Sounds like it.
smellyI go on a mad tear sometimes because there are so many small yet solid indications as we get closer and closer to the deadline for Microsoft to show something for the past five years of atrophy and denial.
BUT this blog will soon get to look like a Daffy Duck comic book with so many things popping up so I've decided to dedicate one post to something that really gets my goat... sheep... whatever.
So it will pop up from time to time and (hopefully - there's a size limit) will hold the items of irritation so we can track the path Microsoft bile makes through our own digestive system. Disgusting thought I know, but it really is that vile to use power, influence and money to buy time and favor... tsk tsk tsk.
Oh, well, the truth will out. It does always. It will also now.
So if you see this post pop up from time to time you can use it to watch your path from the back seat of the station wagon, as it were.
Tonight's travesty will map Microsoft's statements (just as they've been made with Mary Jo) with various experts and incidencts so we can see where they are headed and where they've always been.
There may be no analysis or opinion from me. Just an information osmosis therapy to feed the little potted plant of anger and righteous indignation. Sorry... I should collect my wits, such as they are, and sit quietly in the corner over here whilst you peruse and amuse and abuse and lose shoes and get blues. I get the feeling 'getting blued' is not going to have the same happy connotation it used to for some of you folks. We're just all going to read carefully and let them tell us where they're going. That way we can be there right with them when they finally arrive.
It's all good.
While I was at the SAP Sapphire 2007 conference this week I ran into Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's Business Division. He was at the event to promote the extended roadmap of Duet, the collaboration between the two companies that integrates Microsoft Office and SAP business processes.
I asked Raikes about the likelihood of a browser-based Microsoft Office, given the move to cloud-based computing and all the noise around Google Docs and Spreadsheets and the forthcoming presentation component, as well as upstarts like Zoho, ThinkFree and Zimbra. Microsoft has a Microsoft Office Live, but it's a set of service designed for small businesses, not a browser-based productivity application suite.
Raikes said the browser-based application space is extremely important to watch, but there is not a lot of demand now for Microsoft Office in the cloud. He added that cloud/browser-based applications are inadequate in many scenarios, such as for students who need footnotes in a document. "The key point is what are the scenarios, how services can extend the user experience," Raikes said, which is the standard Microsoft line and a wholly legitimate point of view. You want to be able to work seamlessly online and offline as is appropriate for the specific task and setting.
Clearly, Google's emerging Office and the other cloud-based suites aren't materially affecting Microsoft's bottom line. But, you would think that among the 500 million Microsoft Office users and the rest of the digital universe that a desire, a demand for supply, exists to have a cloud-based Microsoft Works (not even the full blown MS Office, which would choke in some aspects if it were purely cloud-based). Microsoft Outlook has 200 million users, and Outlook Web Access has 100 million users. Zoho has a plug-in for Microsoft Office that lets users work offline with Microsoft Word or Excel and save changes in their cloud-based Zoho applications.
Charles Fitzgerald, general manager of platform strategy at Microsoft, talks about the company having a multi-headed platform strategy–software + services. OK, then where is the head with Microsoft Word and Excel Live, which integrate with the desktop Office and SharePoint?
I also talked to Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie earlier this month about talks about creating scenarios where it makes sense to have browser-based software.
In the docs and spreadsheets realm, I believe there are certain uses of spreadsheets in particular, where the sharing model [enabled by] using it up on a service could be really useful. I think that there are other scenarios where you want it on your laptop. As a company, Microsoft views this as an opportunity — to deliver the aggregate productivity value in all places.
Microsoft's MIX 07 conference, focused on the consumer Web, takes place this week in Las Vegas, and Ozzie will be giving a major keynote. Perhaps he will have more to say about Microsoft's plan for Office cloud services, but given Raikes' statement that there is no demand, don't count on it.
See also: David Berlind's Google gradually assembling Office secret weapons
Wow, this is huge. Bigger threat than Java eva' waz. They are only opensourcing a portion but this is huge, and it's an acknowledgement I think that Adobe respects the real threat that Silverlight could become over the next 10 years. Robert has some great videos talking to the folks at Adobe's Flex team. By outsourcing, they sure are "Flexing" the format. The official press release is here.
The definition and evolution of Flex has been influenced by our incredibly talented developer community from day one,” said David Mendels, senior vice president, Enterprise and Developer Business Unit at Adobe. “The decision to open source Flex was a completely natural next step. I am incredibly excited to deeply collaborate with the developer community on Flex, and further fuel its momentum and innovation.”
Ryan Steward has his take here:
As part of the initiative, Adobe will be releasing the source to the following parts:
- The Flex Compilers (mxmlc, compc, asc) - the command line tools that compile flex code
- Flex command line debugger
- View source utilities
- Automated Testing Framework
- Flex core component library - this includes Apollo components
- Build Scripts
- Web tier compilers
- Flex-Ajax Bridge - already open source, but moving from MIT license to MPL License
d'oh
Looking at him.
By: teachrcoach
29 Mar 2007, 12:22 AM EDT
Msg. 180123 of 180466
Jump to msg. #
Anyone know what happened to Rastamafoo? After reading many of his posts and posts by many of the other knowledgeable longs like RR, Beach, Arthur,etc., and after doing a little DD myself I decided to buy some shares(not a huge amount as I am a school teacher after all!). Did Rasta get tossed or is he back under another name?
(Voluntary Disclosure: ST Rating- Strong Buy; LT Rating- Strong Buy)
