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United States3824 Posts
EDIT I've lost the source it seems. My fault.
A Judge on Tuesday ordered Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) to stop selling its popular Word document creation application in the United States after finding that the software contains technology that violates a patent held by a third party.
Microsoft Office, which includes Word, accounted for more than $3 billion in worldwide sales in Microsoft's most recent fiscal year and is used by literally millions of businesses and consumers for everyday tasks like word processing and making spreadsheets and presentations.
The judge said the ruling, which applies to Word 2003 and Word 2007, takes effect in 60 days.
Investors shrugged off the news—perhaps in anticipation of a higher court overturning the ruling, which arose from the plaintiff-friendly Eastern Texas federal jurisdiction. Microsoft shares were up 1.6% to $23.50 in early trading Wednesday.
Judge Leonard Davis, of U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas, said Microsoft "unlawfully infringed" on a patent that describes how programs go about "manipulating a document's content and architecture separately." The patent, No. 5,787,449, is held by Toronto-based i4i, Inc. i4i develops "collaborative content solutions," according to its Web site.
i4i originally sued Microsoft for patent infringement in 2007. Microsoft officials said the company plans to appeal, adding that the software maker is "disappointed by the court's ruling." The company said it believes i4i's patent is "invalid."
Davis on Tuesday ordered Microsoft to pay $240 million in damages to i4i, plus court costs and interest. More significantly, he enjoined Microsoft from continuing to sell Microsoft Word, in its current form, in the U.S.
Specifically, Davis said Microsoft can't sell versions of Word that can open documents saved in the .XML, .DOCX, or .DOCM formats that contain custom XML. Those formats were at the heart of the patent dispute. .DOCX is the default format for the most current version of Word, which is included in Microsoft Office 2007. Custom XML is used by businesses to link their corporate data to Word documents.
"Microsoft Corporation is hereby permanently enjoined" from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 in the U.S. Davis, wrote in his order.
Davis also prohibited Microsoft from providing technical support for infringing products sold after the injunction takes effect, or from "testing, demonstrating, or marketing the ability of the infringing and future Word products to open an XML file containing custom XML."
Davis said the injunction does not apply to versions of Word that open an XML file as plain text or which apply a transform that removes all custom XML elements—possibly paving the way for Microsoft to issue a patch that rectifies the problem.
Have you ever been at school and someone would be like "I can't open this Word Document because I run Windows Vista," and you thought to yourself "You are a fucking idiot." Well now those days are over since a Texas court ruled that Microsoft infringed upon a patent with their custom XML stuff for the .docX format. Which is good because it make the documents twice the size and doesn't do anything.
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oh god american patent laws, run
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Canada7170 Posts
YES YES YES YES YES! Finallyyyyy~
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your source is linked wrong 
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Umm . . . it makes documents smaller . . . my office just did the 2003->2007 conversion and with a few test documents going from *.doc to *.docx, every single file is coming out 10% smaller or better  More like 50% if you disable Word 97-2003 compatibility, too.
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United States4126 Posts
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yes in my experience the size shrinks. Still good news i guess
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The county in East Texas in which the case was brought forth is famous for always siding with the patent holder in patent cases. Most likely, Microsoft will appeal, and win the appeal if it manages to get out of that county, since the facts (imo) of the case are pretty clearly in favor of Microsoft.
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Kau
Canada3500 Posts
I hate when people send me docx's. Now if we could get everyone to use .odt, the world would be a better place.
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o man. Microsoft is going to have to find another supply of dead babies to go on..
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United States10328 Posts
hmm, docx's indeed suck for portability, but converting docx -> doc often makes the file a lot bigger
probably because docx formatting is retarded
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we should use od (open document) format only.
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I always wonder about these kind of rulings. How much does the judge understand the technology? Was the patent stupidly vague in the first place? Should I be happy that Microsoft is on the losing end?
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United States20661 Posts
Will hopefully be overturned; I find this a bit silly.
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Odt is so much better plus it is kind of free too
That's almost as good as a 10$ 52" tv!
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actually, from a design standpoint, docx is in pretty much every single way superior to doc, including a much smaller file size
people claiming doc > docx because it's more widespread are like people who claim IE6 > everything else and complain when websites break because their browser is old and broken
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On August 13 2009 03:26 Last Romantic wrote:
Will hopefully be overturned; I find this a bit silly.
It's not silly at all?
When they decided to change the format, a lot of shit got stupid, and if someone made a "silly movement" was them in the first place.
Taking a standard, a format which even OpenOffice uses, and adding XML information which basically adds nothing to the file overall, and as someone said, increases the file size with no reason or purpose, it's a BIT SILLY.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2009 03:02 cgrinker wrote:SourceShow nested quote +A Judge on Tuesday ordered Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) to stop selling its popular Word document creation application in the United States after finding that the software contains technology that violates a patent held by a third party.
Microsoft Office, which includes Word, accounted for more than $3 billion in worldwide sales in Microsoft's most recent fiscal year and is used by literally millions of businesses and consumers for everyday tasks like word processing and making spreadsheets and presentations.
The judge said the ruling, which applies to Word 2003 and Word 2007, takes effect in 60 days.
Investors shrugged off the news—perhaps in anticipation of a higher court overturning the ruling, which arose from the plaintiff-friendly Eastern Texas federal jurisdiction. Microsoft shares were up 1.6% to $23.50 in early trading Wednesday.
Judge Leonard Davis, of U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas, said Microsoft "unlawfully infringed" on a patent that describes how programs go about "manipulating a document's content and architecture separately." The patent, No. 5,787,449, is held by Toronto-based i4i, Inc. i4i develops "collaborative content solutions," according to its Web site.
i4i originally sued Microsoft for patent infringement in 2007. Microsoft officials said the company plans to appeal, adding that the software maker is "disappointed by the court's ruling." The company said it believes i4i's patent is "invalid."
Davis on Tuesday ordered Microsoft to pay $240 million in damages to i4i, plus court costs and interest. More significantly, he enjoined Microsoft from continuing to sell Microsoft Word, in its current form, in the U.S.
Specifically, Davis said Microsoft can't sell versions of Word that can open documents saved in the .XML, .DOCX, or .DOCM formats that contain custom XML. Those formats were at the heart of the patent dispute. .DOCX is the default format for the most current version of Word, which is included in Microsoft Office 2007. Custom XML is used by businesses to link their corporate data to Word documents.
"Microsoft Corporation is hereby permanently enjoined" from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 in the U.S. Davis, wrote in his order.
Davis also prohibited Microsoft from providing technical support for infringing products sold after the injunction takes effect, or from "testing, demonstrating, or marketing the ability of the infringing and future Word products to open an XML file containing custom XML."
Davis said the injunction does not apply to versions of Word that open an XML file as plain text or which apply a transform that removes all custom XML elements—possibly paving the way for Microsoft to issue a patch that rectifies the problem. Have you ever been at school and someone would be like "I can't open this Word Document because I run Windows Vista," and you thought to yourself "You are a fucking idiot." Well now those days are over since a Texas court ruled that Microsoft infringed upon a patent with their custom XML stuff for the .docX format. Which is good because it make the documents twice the size and doesn't do anything.
What? The XML files are superior in every way (especially size.) There's a compatability pack for older versions of Office so they read .docx without having to convert anything. You guys are dum.
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Won't have to help people figure out what to do with docx anymore.
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United States4991 Posts
Yeah, this isn't at all a good thing... The good thing is that it'll probably be overturned, and even if it isn't it'll still take a while until it's actually finalized I guess.
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why are you guys complaining about the size of a document? we have drives with 1 terabyte, and u guys r talking about the different of a few killabytes???
imo microsoft should do make msoffice open source and give it free with windows and just lol like what they did with internet explorer
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United States22883 Posts
The irony is that MS went to OOXML to increase compatibility with third party software instead of the old binary format, but general computer users have been too stupid to understand what to do (even though their files have gotten 10x smaller.) Google it, people.
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United States20661 Posts
Agreed with Jibba, Insane, and azndsh.
Insofar as ubiquity goes, sure, .doc is more common, but .docx is.... better. This is even more ridiculous than Cisco's suit against Apple due to its ownership of the name "iPhone". Delay of technological advance due to some petty detail is... well. A bit silly.
@grimatoma, have you worked in a large tech firm? Those few 'killabytes' total up to a few million... what would you call them.... 'giggabytes'. And then you have to buy more storage, and service that storage, and all sorts of useless spending that can easily be prevented.
Microsoft is a profit-making venture. Asking them to give away their hard work for free is despicable. As a Microsoft shareholder I encourage them to make money in as many ways as possible.
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Yeah this is definitely going to get overturned. This is like saying Ford can no longer make trucks.
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On August 13 2009 03:40 Grimatoma2 wrote:
why are you guys complaining about the size of a document? we have drives with 1 terabyte, and u guys r talking about the different of a few killabytes???
imo microsoft should do make msoffice open source and give it free with windows and just lol like what they did with internet explorer
Yeah man, rage against the man, man. Microsoft should just give away everything for free and pull money out of their hats.
P i a n o M a n
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On August 13 2009 03:32 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 03:02 cgrinker wrote:SourceA Judge on Tuesday ordered Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) to stop selling its popular Word document creation application in the United States after finding that the software contains technology that violates a patent held by a third party.
Microsoft Office, which includes Word, accounted for more than $3 billion in worldwide sales in Microsoft's most recent fiscal year and is used by literally millions of businesses and consumers for everyday tasks like word processing and making spreadsheets and presentations.
The judge said the ruling, which applies to Word 2003 and Word 2007, takes effect in 60 days.
Investors shrugged off the news—perhaps in anticipation of a higher court overturning the ruling, which arose from the plaintiff-friendly Eastern Texas federal jurisdiction. Microsoft shares were up 1.6% to $23.50 in early trading Wednesday.
Judge Leonard Davis, of U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas, said Microsoft "unlawfully infringed" on a patent that describes how programs go about "manipulating a document's content and architecture separately." The patent, No. 5,787,449, is held by Toronto-based i4i, Inc. i4i develops "collaborative content solutions," according to its Web site.
i4i originally sued Microsoft for patent infringement in 2007. Microsoft officials said the company plans to appeal, adding that the software maker is "disappointed by the court's ruling." The company said it believes i4i's patent is "invalid."
Davis on Tuesday ordered Microsoft to pay $240 million in damages to i4i, plus court costs and interest. More significantly, he enjoined Microsoft from continuing to sell Microsoft Word, in its current form, in the U.S.
Specifically, Davis said Microsoft can't sell versions of Word that can open documents saved in the .XML, .DOCX, or .DOCM formats that contain custom XML. Those formats were at the heart of the patent dispute. .DOCX is the default format for the most current version of Word, which is included in Microsoft Office 2007. Custom XML is used by businesses to link their corporate data to Word documents.
"Microsoft Corporation is hereby permanently enjoined" from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 in the U.S. Davis, wrote in his order.
Davis also prohibited Microsoft from providing technical support for infringing products sold after the injunction takes effect, or from "testing, demonstrating, or marketing the ability of the infringing and future Word products to open an XML file containing custom XML."
Davis said the injunction does not apply to versions of Word that open an XML file as plain text or which apply a transform that removes all custom XML elements—possibly paving the way for Microsoft to issue a patch that rectifies the problem. Have you ever been at school and someone would be like "I can't open this Word Document because I run Windows Vista," and you thought to yourself "You are a fucking idiot." Well now those days are over since a Texas court ruled that Microsoft infringed upon a patent with their custom XML stuff for the .docX format. Which is good because it make the documents twice the size and doesn't do anything. What? The XML files are superior in every way (especially size.) There's a compatability pack for older versions of Office so they read .docx without having to convert anything. You guys are dum.
Thank you.
And no there's no reason to be happy about this. Some stupid company (i4i -> lol?) taking advantage of stupid rules and possibly forcing Microsoft to change the format in which word documents are saved. For portability issues I always use this http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=f1fc413c-6d89-4f15-991b-63b07ba5f2e5&displayLang=en and export my .docx files to pdf.
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On August 13 2009 03:42 HuskyTheHusky wrote:
Yeah this is definitely going to get overturned. This is like saying Ford can no longer make trucks.
yeah sums it up pretty well.
just give the guy his millions and let Microsoft be Microsoft.
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YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!
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Patent law -_-
Esp. When it is applied to computers, it mostly just prevents people from doing the best work they can... Its like a limit on what you can make, for example people have to use worse / less efficient methods of rendering shadows in 3D games because the best ways are patented.
Capitalism does this all the time.. Makes things shitty for everyone just so 1 person can make money. Planned obsolescence, anyone?
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On August 13 2009 03:41 Last Romantic wrote:
Agreed with Jibba, Insane, and azndsh.
Insofar as ubiquity goes, sure, .doc is more common, but .docx is.... better. This is even more ridiculous than Cisco's suit against Apple due to its ownership of the name "iPhone". Delay of technological advance due to some petty detail is... well. A bit silly.
@grimatoma, have you worked in a large tech firm? Those few 'killabytes' total up to a few million... what would you call them.... 'giggabytes'. And then you have to buy more storage, and service that storage, and all sorts of useless spending that can easily be prevented.
Microsoft is a profit-making venture. Asking them to give away their hard work for free is despicable. As a Microsoft shareholder I encourage them to make money in as many ways as possible.
uh where exactly is this "free" part that you are gleaning from the article? And quite regardless of whether or not it's good, worked, or doesn't work, if Microsoft did in fact steal another company's idea or programming or whatever the fuck it is, then Microsoft needs to pay that company. I don't know if they did or not...but if they did, then they should.
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as much as I dislike microsoft, this is retarded
just another patent troll
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On August 13 2009 03:25 Nytefish wrote:
I always wonder about these kind of rulings. How much does the judge understand the technology? Was the patent stupidly vague in the first place? Should I be happy that Microsoft is on the losing end?
not at all
yes
no
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United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2009 03:50 -fj. wrote:
Patent law -_-
Esp. When it is applied to computers, it mostly just prevents people from doing the best work they can... Its like a limit on what you can make. People have to use worse / less efficient methods of rendering shadows in 3D games because the best ways are patented.
Capitalism does this all the time.. Makes things shitty for everyone just so 1 person can make money. Planned obsolescence, anyone?
Uh... if you create something you deserve to profit off of it. If patent holders couldn't make money off their inventions, those rendering methods wouldn't have been created in the first place.
The problem is when the law is stretched to an unreasonable extent, and this is one of them.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2009 03:51 NoobsOfWrath wrote:
if Microsoft did in fact steal another company's idea or programming or whatever the fuck it is, then Microsoft needs to pay that company. I don't know if they did or not...but if they did, then they should.
Patent
Method and system for manipulating the architecture and the content of a document separately from each other
Abstract
A system and method for the separate manipulation of the architecture and content of a document, particularly for data representation and transformations. The system, for use by computer software developers, removes dependency on document encoding technology. A map of metacodes found in the document is produced and provided and stored separately from the document. The map indicates the location and addresses of metacodes in the document. The system allows of multiple views of the same content, the ability to work solely on structure and solely on content, storage efficiency of multiple versions and efficiency of operation. Basically a file with metacodes.
The fun thing is that MS is just being singled out for $$$. Apple, IBM, Sun, etc. are all using the same format.
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On August 13 2009 03:55 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 03:50 -fj. wrote:
Patent law -_-
Esp. When it is applied to computers, it mostly just prevents people from doing the best work they can... Its like a limit on what you can make. People have to use worse / less efficient methods of rendering shadows in 3D games because the best ways are patented.
Capitalism does this all the time.. Makes things shitty for everyone just so 1 person can make money. Planned obsolescence, anyone? Uh... if you create something you deserve to profit off of it. If patent holders couldn't make money off their inventions, those rendering methods wouldn't have been created in the first place. The problem is when the law is stretched to an unreasonable extent, and this is one of them.
computer patents have a whole host of other problems since a) the turn over is a lot faster than in other fields. Having a company able to sit on a patent for 17 years is pretty ridiculous. b)when you do a patent, you are patenting an algorithm, which is just a generic way to accomplish a task. The vast majority of tech patents are ridiculous for this reason.
The company can make money off the program itself.
If patent holders couldn't make money off their inventions, those rendering methods wouldn't have been created in the first place.
its more than a bit flimsy to say that by itself without justification. Of course those rendering methods would still be used. You use those algorithms to produce a superior product which you then sell. Someone using the same/similar algorithms doesnt mean they will have the same product.
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United States22883 Posts
The problem is they give out patents too generally. If you're John Carmac and you build a whole freaking engine, then yes you get control of it. If you're talking about a singular algorithm or method, then I think it's a bit silly.
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This appeal is retarded. Its a custom usage of a doc format. Every damn software vendor can make their own format and even compress it and distribute it with their application. Common sense.
Now its as if they try to sue Microsoft into bankrupcy just for the sake of.. what??? This makes no sense to me. I find it malicious. I dont care if docx is not "portable" enough, it's their fucken software..
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FUCK YES, THAT IS SO AWESOME! sorry for caps, but am really celebrating this :D
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LR, aren't you a mod? where are your ban powers T_T
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United States20661 Posts
On August 13 2009 03:51 NoobsOfWrath wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 03:41 Last Romantic wrote:
Agreed with Jibba, Insane, and azndsh.
Insofar as ubiquity goes, sure, .doc is more common, but .docx is.... better. This is even more ridiculous than Cisco's suit against Apple due to its ownership of the name "iPhone". Delay of technological advance due to some petty detail is... well. A bit silly.
@grimatoma, have you worked in a large tech firm? Those few 'killabytes' total up to a few million... what would you call them.... 'giggabytes'. And then you have to buy more storage, and service that storage, and all sorts of useless spending that can easily be prevented.
Microsoft is a profit-making venture. Asking them to give away their hard work for free is despicable. As a Microsoft shareholder I encourage them to make money in as many ways as possible. uh where exactly is this "free" part that you are gleaning from the article? And quite regardless of whether or not it's good, worked, or doesn't work, if Microsoft did in fact steal another company's idea or programming or whatever the fuck it is, then Microsoft needs to pay that company. I don't know if they did or not...but if they did, then they should.
Not from the article, from the previous poster who said that Office should be open source/free to download like internet explorer is.
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Maybe they'll stop fucking with file formats that don't belong to them now. The amount of formats they've bastardized and/or used without any right is enormous.
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On August 13 2009 03:14 Kau wrote:
I hate when people send me docx's. Now if we could get everyone to use .odt, the world would be a better place.
QFT. For the most part, though, .rtf does the trick quite well, since everything supports it.
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On August 13 2009 03:14 Kau wrote:
I hate when people send me docx's. Now if we could get everyone to use .odt, the world would be a better place.
lol our company promotes using .odt and makes their own 'word program' to specifically default to .odt.
Maybe I don't like the program we use, but odt is a waste of time.
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I like odt cause well its free and i'm a poor college student that can't afford Microsoft products yet.
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On August 13 2009 03:26 Last Romantic wrote:
Will hopefully be overturned; I find this a bit silly.
i agree that this is a retarded ruling. it's like saying that Microsoft Visual Studios is banned because it allows you to read code that might be copyrighted and written by other people.
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On August 13 2009 05:27 Polyphasic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 03:26 Last Romantic wrote:
Will hopefully be overturned; I find this a bit silly. i agree that this is a retarded ruling. it's like saying that Microsoft Visual Studios is banned because it allows you to read code that might be copyrighted and written by other people.
I don't understand your comparison at all.
The jury not only decided that Microsoft infringed the patent, but that they did so willfully, which means that Microsoft knew about the patent when they designed .docx and infringed it anyway. The patent was filed in 1994, before the term XML even existed so this isn't a situation where Microsoft got blindsided by a patent troll holding a new patent that no one knew about. I don't know the exact details behind the case, but it's quite possible that Microsoft engineers read this patent and essentially copied its methods. That's exactly what patent law is designed to protect against.
So now Microsoft has 60 days to buy/license the patent or patch Word to stop using .docx and start selling the patched versions. Their stay of injunction already got denied by the district court, and appeals take a lot longer than 60 days to be heard and resolved. Chances are Microsoft will just buy these guys off and we'll never hear about it again.
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I hate retarded patent infringement lawsuits.
That said, I also hate the .docx file format, so... in this case, I'm not complaining.
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On August 13 2009 05:41 ShadowDrgn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 05:27 Polyphasic wrote:On August 13 2009 03:26 Last Romantic wrote:
Will hopefully be overturned; I find this a bit silly. i agree that this is a retarded ruling. it's like saying that Microsoft Visual Studios is banned because it allows you to read code that might be copyrighted and written by other people. I don't understand your comparison at all. The jury not only decided that Microsoft infringed the patent, but that they did so willfully, which means that Microsoft knew about the patent when they designed .docx and infringed it anyway. The patent was filed in 1994, before the term XML even existed so this isn't a situation where Microsoft got blindsided by a patent troll holding a new patent that no one knew about. I don't know the exact details behind the case, but it's quite possible that Microsoft engineers read this patent and essentially copied its methods. That's exactly what patent law is designed to protect against. So now Microsoft has 60 days to buy/license the patent or patch Word to stop using .docx and start selling the patched versions. Their stay of injunction already got denied by the district court, and appeals take a lot longer than 60 days to be heard and resolved. Chances are Microsoft will just buy these guys off and we'll never hear about it again.
![[image loading]](http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/msfti4ic.jpg)
you dont find that just a tiny bit ridiculous?
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You can't just paste figure 1 and call it ridiculous. It's just an illustration with no legally enforceable weight.
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The problem with patents in technology are that they get abused so frequently in much the same fashion that it's being abused here. The companies are interested in making as much money possible, so they try to get patents on everything remotely new, and then fight to make them as vague and unspecific as they can.
As a result, a lot of these new technologies go completely unused for years. The companies just sit on the patents without even using them. And because of the wide net that they cast with their patent, you get ridiculous situations like this.
Going with the car analogy, it's like someone patenting their idea of a vague shape of a car, some object with a body and 4 wheels that moves around, and then claiming royalties for every new car design that comes out.
It's really an unfortunate situation. The general public cannot reap the full benefit of the innovations, and the inventors can't even see their ideas get put to use.
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On August 13 2009 05:51 ShadowDrgn wrote:
You can't just paste figure 1 and call it ridiculous. It's just an illustration with no legally enforceable weight.
wat
thats what the patent entails. I'm not saying its ridiculous as in the artist sucks or something or the image isnt in high enough resolution. I'm saying thats the extent of the patent (ie data and metacode held separately and later combined) and being able to patent that IS ridiculous.
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docx is vile.
I don't evangelise open source very much in day to day life, but sending me docx files just turns my crank. Fortunately, since I do all the data analysis in my group, I can demand people stop using such formats and they'll listen.
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Here's claim 20:
20. A method for producing from a document made up of metacodes and content, a map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content of the document and stored in distinct map storage means, the method comprising:
(a) reading the content of the document until a metacode is found;
(b) copying the content and storing the copied content in a mapped content storage;
(c) noting in the map the found metacode and its position in the content;
(d) repeating the processing of (a)-(c) until the entire document has been processed; and then
(e) providing the document as the content of the document separately from the metacode map of the document
Was that new and nonobvious in 1994? The USPTO apparently thought so. Does it sound ridiculous today? Yeah, but that doesn't matter.
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anyone saying that docx makes the files bigger is terribly, terribly wrong, had a 20 meg doc file at work, put it in docx format and it cut down to like 3.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2009 05:10 StorrZerg wrote:
I like odt cause well its free and i'm a poor college student that can't afford Microsoft products yet.
Your college doesn't give you free copies of Office 2007?
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On August 13 2009 06:13 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 05:10 StorrZerg wrote:
I like odt cause well its free and i'm a poor college student that can't afford Microsoft products yet. Your college doesn't give you free copies of Office 2007?
yea, that's how i got my home copy of office...contact your school about it
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On August 13 2009 03:50 -fj. wrote:
Patent law -_-
Esp. When it is applied to computers, it mostly just prevents people from doing the best work they can... Its like a limit on what you can make, for example people have to use worse / less efficient methods of rendering shadows in 3D games because the best ways are patented.
Capitalism does this all the time.. Makes things shitty for everyone just so 1 person can make money. Planned obsolescence, anyone?
You made sense until that last point. Patents are not a creation of capitalism, they are a creation of governments. They do allow people to make more money than they otherwise would, but only through a grant of monopoly by governments, not through market power.
Anyway, this is just another example of why software patents, and patents in general, do not fulfill their goal of increasing innovation and idea creation. This is a pretty good read on the subject of patents/copyright, I think: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm
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This is fucking stupid. Sometimes I really think we argue about the stupidest shit in the courts.
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You guys do know that .docx is basically a .zip of xml files... you can rename .docx to .zip and open it with any xml viewer.
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On August 13 2009 06:15 tec27 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 03:50 -fj. wrote:
Patent law -_-
Esp. When it is applied to computers, it mostly just prevents people from doing the best work they can... Its like a limit on what you can make, for example people have to use worse / less efficient methods of rendering shadows in 3D games because the best ways are patented.
Capitalism does this all the time.. Makes things shitty for everyone just so 1 person can make money. Planned obsolescence, anyone? You made sense until that last point. Patents are not a creation of capitalism, they are a creation of governments. They do allow people to make more money than they otherwise would, but only through a grant of monopoly by governments, not through market power. Anyway, this is just another example of why software patents, and patents in general, do not fulfill their goal of increasing innovation and idea creation. This is a pretty good read on the subject of patents/copyright, I think: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm
I think his last point is legitimate. Even if they weren't created by capitalism, it is because of capitalism that patents have turned into what they are today. They have transformed from being a method of protecting ideas to a method of imprisoning them.
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First, patents are a stimulator of innovation. For every case like this where they seem 'silly' there's a million others that contribute perfectly to our explosive technological growth.
Second, Microsoft is, internally, a horribly run company. The company's uber-strength is a pressure-cooker atmosphere filled with thousands of genius-types. Its uber-weakness is a terrible internal organization, lack of communication between teams, and very poor management skills (programmers managing programmers...). It is this dichotomy that allows them to produce a new operating system every four years or less (which is fast) while having to recreate most of the old OS 'from scratch' and ending up with something that is almost worse than the OS before it (lack of team communication, lack of good management, techies getting way into their code competitively without a clear focus for the main project as a whole...).
My years at Microsoft were the best and worst of my work life. The unfortunate truth is that Microsoft's unique industry gifts it with billions in cash that it literally doesn't know what to do with, which gives the company no incentive to fix its ridiculous internal problems. I guarantee you that Windows Vista is worse than Windows XP because of the company's internal problems, and that Windows 7 will be worse than Windows Vista for the same reason. They're a bunch of geniuses under extreme pressure to produce, without any real guidance. Sadly we're all going to snap their shit up anyway, purely due to network externalities, and hardware producers will have to up their efforts to create cheap super-computers that will almost be able to run the terribly inefficient Windows 2020 at the speeds we're already at today...
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i've always had microsoft office 2000 so i just used openoffice to open docx files haha. good thing open office came out or else i wouldn't have been able to open some documents for school and such..
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Does this mean that we can now pirate Word 2007 openly and legally? Sweet!
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On August 13 2009 06:27 Slithe wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 06:15 tec27 wrote:On August 13 2009 03:50 -fj. wrote:
Patent law -_-
Esp. When it is applied to computers, it mostly just prevents people from doing the best work they can... Its like a limit on what you can make, for example people have to use worse / less efficient methods of rendering shadows in 3D games because the best ways are patented.
Capitalism does this all the time.. Makes things shitty for everyone just so 1 person can make money. Planned obsolescence, anyone? You made sense until that last point. Patents are not a creation of capitalism, they are a creation of governments. They do allow people to make more money than they otherwise would, but only through a grant of monopoly by governments, not through market power. Anyway, this is just another example of why software patents, and patents in general, do not fulfill their goal of increasing innovation and idea creation. This is a pretty good read on the subject of patents/copyright, I think: http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm I think his last point is legitimate. Even if they weren't created by capitalism, it is because of capitalism that patents have turned into what they are today. They have transformed from being a method of protecting ideas to a method of imprisoning them.
This is a rather moot point. Patents were created to provide exclusive monopoly to certain entities (generally, people that create new devices/methods/ideas), and that is what they are still being used to do. The fact that a large number of rent-seekers have sprung up due to such intervention is not due to capitalism. Such behavior is at the heart of economic law (and therefore applicable regardless of economic system). We could argue that patents are good in some idealistic world where no one develops rent-seeking behavior and they are only granted to people who actually contribute something of merit, but such a world does not and will never exist.
Furthermore, patents have always been devices of imprisonment, not protection. All intellectual property follows suit in that: it effectively grants you a right to say what other people *cannot* do with their property. If I develop a new widget, and get a patent, I now have the power to say that no one else can form materials into the same widget without my approval. This is imprisonment, regardless of whether I actually contributed anything of merit to my field.
On August 13 2009 06:31 garmule2 wrote:
First, patents are a stimulator of innovation. For every case like this where they seem 'silly' there's a million others that contribute perfectly to our explosive technological growth.
You may want to read the link I pasted, or at least skim it. I can't think of any examples where patents have contributed to explosive technological growth. On top of that, it is nearly impossible to see what we have lost by having patents in place.
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how is this a good thing? This relaly sucks
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On August 13 2009 06:31 garmule2 wrote:
First, patents are a stimulator of innovation. For every case like this where they seem 'silly' there's a million others that contribute perfectly to our explosive technological growth.
Second, Microsoft is, internally, a horribly run company. The company's uber-strength is a pressure-cooker atmosphere filled with thousands of genius-types. Its uber-weakness is a terrible internal organization, lack of communication between teams, and very poor management skills (programmers managing programmers...). It is this dichotomy that allows them to produce a new operating system every four years or less (which is fast) while having to recreate most of the old OS 'from scratch' and ending up with something that is almost worse than the OS before it (lack of team communication, lack of good management, techies getting way into their code competitively without a clear focus for the main project as a whole...).
My years at Microsoft were the best and worst of my work life. The unfortunate truth is that Microsoft's unique industry gifts it with billions in cash that it literally doesn't know what to do with, which gives the company no incentive to fix its ridiculous internal problems. I guarantee you that Windows Vista is worse than Windows XP because of the company's internal problems, and that Windows 7 will be worse than Windows Vista for the same reason. They're a bunch of geniuses under extreme pressure to produce, without any real guidance. Sadly we're all going to snap their shit up anyway, purely due to network externalities, and hardware producers will have to up their efforts to create cheap super-computers that will almost be able to run the terribly inefficient Windows 2020 at the speeds we're already at today...
I'm sure you meant for your nerdrant to be coherent except you missed the part where windows 7 is already being used and confirmed to be way, way better than xp or vista.
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That sucks, I used to take random apps and rename them as .docx and send them to my teachers, then when they couldn't open it I would have an extra day to do my assignments. Fucking awesome.
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On August 13 2009 06:45 tec27 wrote:
If I develop a new widget, and get a patent, I now have the power to say that no one else can form materials into the same widget without my approval. This is imprisonment, regardless of whether I actually contributed anything of merit to my field.
If someone actually wants to create your widget, then you did contribute something of merit to your field (assuming the widget is actually new and nonobvious). Logically, if you didn't contribute anything of merit, then no one will want to create your widget, and therefore any imprisonment is irrelevant.
Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 06:31 garmule2 wrote:
First, patents are a stimulator of innovation. For every case like this where they seem 'silly' there's a million others that contribute perfectly to our explosive technological growth. You may want to read the link I pasted, or at least skim it. I can't think of any examples where patents have contributed to explosive technological growth. On top of that, it is nearly impossible to see what we have lost by having patents in place.
The pharmaceutical industry is the typical example of why patents are necessary for innovation. Developing new drugs takes lots of highly educated scientists years of working with very expensive equipment. Manufacturing drugs takes a factory (that already exists) and pennies worth of materials. If research companies weren't given monopolies on new drugs, it wouldn't be financially viable to produce them.
As for the software industry? Well, that's harder to defend. I write software patents for a living, and I'm still on the fence as to whether they're a net gain or loss.
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ShadowDrgn, they're a net loss. The things that software patents cover are things that would get invented if they could not be patented, anyway. Patents are there for the extra incentive for inventions that would not be invented if the cost/failure-risk of inventing them would be too big to recover through commercial application, due to anyone taking off with said invention.
Now if you'd think that software patents cover inventions (or whatever they're called in this case) that would not be otherwise made if it wouldn't be for the patenting possibilities, aside from the application of selling the patent or 'striking gold' with one (which is not why patents were put into law), can you name one?
Edit: Just sprang to my mind, a second benefit of patents in general is that inventions get publicized, rather than staying business secrets (which might leak out anyway hence the patenting process). This enables inventions to become widespread in a good open competing market, after the initial monopoly by the patent holder (and licensees).
Now for software, do you think software companies poor over software patent filings looking to find an invention that one could apply to ones own software product? Do you know any specific case, other than cases where a software company considers licensing only after being notified of patent infringement by a third party? (i.e. by their own initiative)
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don't really care about .docx but IE really needs to get with the program or get axed. it's funny that someone said microsoft office should be freely distributed, that's a terrible idea. that's what happened to IE and it went to hell (not that it was great in the first place), it's ridiculous that i have to hack the IE browser just to get a site to display how i want it to.
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On August 13 2009 07:17 Badjas wrote:
Edit: Just sprang to my mind, a second benefit of patents in general is that inventions get publicized, rather than staying business secrets (which might leak out anyway hence the patenting process). This enables inventions to become widespread in a good open competing market, after the initial monopoly by the patent holder (and licensees).
Now for software, do you think software companies poor over software patent filings looking to find an invention that one could apply to ones own software product? Do you know any specific case, other than cases where a software company considers licensing only after being notified of patent infringement by a third party? (i.e. by their own initiative)
No, certainly not. In fact, software developers wouldn't search through patents like that because of damages issues (i.e. willful infringement damages like we see in this case). The publication of software patents isn't even a good policy argument because it's hard to imagine what kind of methods and systems someone could keep secret and still be useful after 20 years in this area. Maybe innovation will slow down in the future (not likely), but right now, 20 years is forever for computers.
Drawing a box around software patents is hard though. Any "software" invention can be implemented in hardware so why should someone be able to patent a device that does X but not the underlying method of doing X? Should a router be patentable but not a general purpose computer configured to act exactly like the router? With the way technology is progressing, everything is becoming electronic, computerized, and software-driven, which makes it hard to separate what's a useful invention and what's "just an algorithm."
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That's bad. I actually like *.docx formats haha.
And *.odt format just kills...I never liked OpenOffice.
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I dont see how it can be overturned if they were using someone else patent. It is a bit silly since Microsoft is such a large and productive company but that being said, that same reason also makes it a great target.
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docx format is just an useless format microsoft forced upon it's consumers to force them to update and pay out cash
fuck microsoft
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On August 13 2009 07:46 GreEny K wrote:
I dont see how it can be overturned if they were using someone else patent.
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit could invalidate the patent.
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On August 13 2009 08:00 ShadowDrgn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 07:46 GreEny K wrote:
I dont see how it can be overturned if they were using someone else patent. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit could invalidate the patent.
When was the last time we actually saw that? From what I have read they have a track record favoring the patent holders quite a bit.
Just a question, I haven't read anything too recent on the topic, so I don't know if the...what was it, 2006 revisions I think, has changed the matter much.
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On August 13 2009 07:02 fanatacist wrote:
That sucks, I used to take random apps and rename them as .docx and send them to my teachers, then when they couldn't open it I would have an extra day to do my assignments. Fucking awesome.
Ahaha I remember doing that a few times just to mess with people/profs. "What? it won't open?? wtf ill fix it in a bit"
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Sanya12364 Posts
Patents are a terrible way to "stimulate" innovation. They're absolutely terrible and it's only natural that the current rent seeking nature of business would turn patents into a major hindrance of innovation where companies have to seek legal protection before venturing to do business.
The best stimulation of innovation is open competition and open sharing of ideas. The best case scenario for patents is where they have a short lifespan with an use-it-or-lose-it stipulation at the very beginning. The length of effective patent lifespan varies from industry to industry so it doesn't even make sense to have an uniform rule for all industries.
Innovation is far faster after a patent expires than before. There is also no real advantage to innovation since people who invent (people who tinker) would invent regardless of whether or not there were legal protection for their work. In additional most innovations are derived from borrowed techniques of unrelated industries. Modern patent laws have effectively put an end to that.
Also the willful infringement is always going to be asserted by patent holding companies. It's their way to trigger the triple damages clause of patent law. Otherwise the legal battle wouldn't be worth fighting.
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Patents aren't meant to stimulate innovation in western legal systems. They are meant to provide an incentive to divulge technical information publicly. That patents do not support innovation is obvious; they are designed roadblocks to it. The question isn't whether innovation would increase or decrease, but if the public would have access to it or not.
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On August 13 2009 03:40 Grimatoma2 wrote:
why are you guys complaining about the size of a document? we have drives with 1 terabyte, and u guys r talking about the different of a few killabytes???
imo microsoft should do make msoffice open source and give it free with windows and just lol like what they did with internet explorer
Smaller file size without loss of features or data is always good.
Some reasons:
downloads are faster
uploads are faster
loading time is faster
memory requirements are smaller
One of the big reasons why photoshop always feels like its running super slow is because the .psd format is completely bloated.
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On August 13 2009 08:16 Ecael wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 08:00 ShadowDrgn wrote:On August 13 2009 07:46 GreEny K wrote:
I dont see how it can be overturned if they were using someone else patent. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit could invalidate the patent. When was the last time we actually saw that? From what I have read they have a track record favoring the patent holders quite a bit. Just a question, I haven't read anything too recent on the topic, so I don't know if the...what was it, 2006 revisions I think, has changed the matter much.
The Fed. Cir. invalidated a business method patent in Bilski last year for being unpatentable subject matter, and that decision is being used against all types of software patents at the USPTO, the board of patent appeals and interferences, and district courts. The Bilski test is (1) whether a claimed process is tied to a particular machine or apparatus or (2) whether it transforms a particular article into a different state or thing. Unfortunately, the court didn't give any guidance as to what a "particular machine" entails so no one really knows which software patents are valid and which aren't. Bilski is on appeal to the US Supreme Court so maybe they'll tell us. Right now, software patents are a mess and my job has become even more difficult. 
So yeah, it's quite possible that the Fed. Cir. could invalidate this patent for Microsoft if they find the claims aren't tied to a particular machine (they certainly don't transform any physical objects). Microsoft's problem is that the injunction begins in 60 days and the appeals process takes a lot longer than that.
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On August 13 2009 09:05 mindspike wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 03:40 Grimatoma2 wrote:
why are you guys complaining about the size of a document? we have drives with 1 terabyte, and u guys r talking about the different of a few killabytes???
imo microsoft should do make msoffice open source and give it free with windows and just lol like what they did with internet explorer Smaller file size without loss of features or data is always good. Some reasons: downloads are faster uploads are faster loading time is faster memory requirements are smaller One of the big reasons why photoshop always feels like its running super slow is because the .psd format is completely bloated.
Generally when data's smaller, the loading time's faster because it takes longer to decompress the file, and usually the memory requirements will be higher for that reason.
Photoshop runs slow because of your lack of temporary storage, so the writing speed would be the bottleneck.
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Holy fuck I hated docx
THANK YOU TEXAS JUDGE YOU ARE A MANLY MAN.
And yes tons of people in my class had that problem with documents that wouldn't fly on school computers. Microsoft is retarded sometimes.
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On August 13 2009 07:02 fanatacist wrote:
That sucks, I used to take random apps and rename them as .docx and send them to my teachers, then when they couldn't open it I would have an extra day to do my assignments. Fucking awesome.
Haha that's fucking awesome. I wish I had thought of that. LOL.
I like *.docx personally, but I hated having to save everything in .doc because no one would upgrade their shit. FFS, the compatibility pack was free. -_- So everyone bitching about "Microsoft used *.docx to make people shell out money" is really ignorant.
This is just seemingly retarded to me.
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Wouldn't it be funny if Microsoft got an appeal, won it, and then sued this company for loss of revenue for however long they couldn't sell their product and won that too? I would laugh.
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Docx is not dead. Microsoft will cut a deal with them. This was just a sneaky move on the patent holders part to gain a quick cash payout.
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On August 13 2009 06:15 tec27 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 03:50 -fj. wrote:
Capitalism does this all the time.. Makes things shitty for everyone just so 1 person can make money. Planned obsolescence, anyone? You made sense until that last point. Patents are not a creation of capitalism, they are a creation of governments. They do allow people to make more money than they otherwise would, but only through a grant of monopoly by governments, not through market power.
Well, I wasn't saying capitalism created patents or anything of the sort. I will say though that they go hand in hand. Without profit as a legitmate highest value, patents don't make sense at all.
What I really was saying is that, in all ways including supporting patent-culture, capitalism kind of prevents mankind's creations from being as good as they could be.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
This thread has actually been really interesting to read. Basically confirms that TL's moderation is doing a good job of keeping the morons away.
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Netherlands19135 Posts
On August 13 2009 03:06 Crunchums wrote:
oh god american patent laws, run
lol yes.
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Patent lawyers (and future patent lawyers) of the world rejoice! You are guaranteed employment and large paychecks!
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wtf .docx is so good and there are no fucking compatibility issues at all as mentioned before
I particularly liked the ingenious troll post on the second page
On August 13 2009 03:40 Grimatoma2 wrote:
why are you guys complaining about the size of a document? we have drives with 1 terabyte, and u guys r talking about the different of a few killabytes???
imo microsoft should do make msoffice open source and give it free with windows and just lol like what they did with internet explorer
haha lmao
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On August 13 2009 03:14 Kau wrote:
I hate when people send me docx's. Now if we could get everyone to use .odt, the world would be a better place.
qft
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On August 13 2009 16:30 SweeTLemonS[TPR] wrote:
Wouldn't it be funny if Microsoft got an appeal, won it, and then sued this company for loss of revenue for however long they couldn't sell their product and won that too? I would laugh.
The loss of revenue that would not be fair according to the judge of appeals, would have been caused by the patent office's examiner, not the company filing for the patent. So Microsoft would have to sue the patent office if it seeks damage compensation.
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Anyone tested the new Office 2010 beta? Apparently it is vastly improved. both in speed and content handling.
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On August 13 2009 07:37 ShadowDrgn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 07:17 Badjas wrote:
Edit: Just sprang to my mind, a second benefit of patents in general is that inventions get publicized, rather than staying business secrets (which might leak out anyway hence the patenting process). This enables inventions to become widespread in a good open competing market, after the initial monopoly by the patent holder (and licensees).
Now for software, do you think software companies poor over software patent filings looking to find an invention that one could apply to ones own software product? Do you know any specific case, other than cases where a software company considers licensing only after being notified of patent infringement by a third party? (i.e. by their own initiative) No, certainly not. In fact, software developers wouldn't search through patents like that because of damages issues (i.e. willful infringement damages like we see in this case). The publication of software patents isn't even a good policy argument because it's hard to imagine what kind of methods and systems someone could keep secret and still be useful after 20 years in this area. Maybe innovation will slow down in the future (not likely), but right now, 20 years is forever for computers. Drawing a box around software patents is hard though. Any "software" invention can be implemented in hardware so why should someone be able to patent a device that does X but not the underlying method of doing X? Should a router be patentable but not a general purpose computer configured to act exactly like the router? With the way technology is progressing, everything is becoming electronic, computerized, and software-driven, which makes it hard to separate what's a useful invention and what's "just an algorithm."
With the suggestion that software companies look in the patent databank looking for something useful, I meant not for those companies to infringe in the patent, but to get a license for the patent. (as could happen with non-software patents.)
Anyway, I agree with your points. A physical box that has a certain unique function that would satisfy 'traditional' patent law should of course be patentable. The software in the thing would simply be a means to an end, not separately patentable. For much the same reason that mathematical formula's aren't patentable. I'm not in the business like you are but in my imagination, the line would be pretty easy to draw. I guess you have seen many a vague edge case.
And, I believe, software can only be implemented in hardware if you use physical metaphors for the abstract things that govern software.
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Yes because the internet is so slow this days and hard disks are so small that making a fuss if the file is 50k or 80k is important..
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On August 13 2009 21:44 Samurai- wrote:
Yes because the internet is so slow this days and hard disks are so small that making a fuss if the file is 50k or 80k is important..
You have no idea what you're talking about.
And neither does anyone who only views this from the student/housewife/solo-user point of view. This has a huge impact on large companies who have millions of files in office. In the 3 years I worked for the company I'm currently employed with, I have made/worked with over 20.000 files. And they are all stored on the server. If you multiply that by 20 employees, you get 400.000 files. So that 30kb extra is actually about 10Gb of extra data, and we're a SMALL company. You have no idea what kind of impact this has on large companies.
Besides, it's not like it matters that you have to DOWNLOAD office 2007 anyway, but what about all those companies that bought and use it? Should they stop making docx files now? Should they start converting all their files back? It's absurd. Most people who are pro-this don't see the big picture.
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On August 13 2009 22:15 CubEdIn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 21:44 Samurai- wrote:
Yes because the internet is so slow this days and hard disks are so small that making a fuss if the file is 50k or 80k is important.. You have no idea what you're talking about. And neither does anyone who only views this from the student/housewife/solo-user point of view. This has a huge impact on large companies who have millions of files in office. In the 3 years I worked for the company I'm currently employed with, I have made/worked with over 20.000 files. And they are all stored on the server. If you multiply that by 20 employees, you get 400.000 files. So that 30kb extra is actually about 10Gb of extra data, and we're a SMALL company. You have no idea what kind of impact this has on large companies.
If mom and pops can afford the disk space to the extend that they don't need to look after the file sizes of their word documents, then so can companies small and large. The amount of storage space spent is proportionate to turnover, depending on the kind of work the company does of course.
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konadora
Singapore66355 Posts
Fucking .docx
Never figured out why they really needed another extension. .doc was good enough
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By that argument why did we need doc, txt was good enough.
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What? Those are completely different formats.
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What the fuck is this? You're happy to stay with a 10 year old format rather than update? The only reason you don't like it is evidently everyone you know is too retarded to hit "save in Word 95 compatible format" and your school is too retarded to just install the packs that allow the older versions to read .docx. It's a BETTER FORMAT for a variety of reasons. We can't stay with .doc forever, it's going to have to change at some point, you know this right? It's so damn simple to resolve this "issue" of .docx it's pissing me off just thinking of having to explain it to someone.
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And the nub question: Should i buy Microsoft Office ASAP then, or is there no need to worry? (Just got a new laptop with only the trial on here so far)
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On August 14 2009 00:15 Insane Lane wrote:
And the nub question: Should i buy Microsoft Office ASAP then, or is there no need to worry? (Just got a new laptop with only the trial on here so far)
No need to worry, this lawsuit is going to have literally no effect on the actual sale of Word, it's going to get overturned as soon as MS appeals it.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 13 2009 22:40 Badjas wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 22:15 CubEdIn wrote:On August 13 2009 21:44 Samurai- wrote:
Yes because the internet is so slow this days and hard disks are so small that making a fuss if the file is 50k or 80k is important.. You have no idea what you're talking about. And neither does anyone who only views this from the student/housewife/solo-user point of view. This has a huge impact on large companies who have millions of files in office. In the 3 years I worked for the company I'm currently employed with, I have made/worked with over 20.000 files. And they are all stored on the server. If you multiply that by 20 employees, you get 400.000 files. So that 30kb extra is actually about 10Gb of extra data, and we're a SMALL company. You have no idea what kind of impact this has on large companies. If mom and pops can afford the disk space to the extend that they don't need to look after the file sizes of their word documents, then so can companies small and large. The amount of storage space spent is proportionate to turnover, depending on the kind of work the company does of course.
Mom and Pops don't have enough volume that doing anything differently would make a substantial difference, nor are they aware of it. The argument against .docx stupid, and no different than arguing type writers > keyboards. Fuck, why do we need calculators? Abacus does well enough. COMBUSTION ENGINE? I"VE GOT A STEAM ENGINE THAT WORKS FINE THANK YOU VERY MUCH. FUCK you people are dumb.
I've seen long papers drop in size about 9x from going .doc to .docx. Do you realize how much bandwidth that saves across the internet in general, and in company intranets? Not to mention there's a ton more things you can do with XML, which is why companies prefer it.
If you're too lazy to download the free Office Compatibility pack, then that's all on you. And Open Office and iWorks and every other modern programs on the planet read .docx, so what people are complaining about. OOXML > ODF > .doc
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
I read a bit more on this than the cover story, but not a whole lot. It seems that this is not a simple case of patent whoring by the smaller company. they actually have a legitimate case of their technology being jacked without acknowledgement. That texas court has a reputation for granting this sort of cases, but I don’t think it is all that certain that this will be automatically overturned.
.docx is pretty useless for the home/school user, but i guess they put it in to answer business demands.
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why yay?? I think a lot of people, including me, will suffer
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On August 14 2009 00:19 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 22:40 Badjas wrote:On August 13 2009 22:15 CubEdIn wrote:On August 13 2009 21:44 Samurai- wrote:
Yes because the internet is so slow this days and hard disks are so small that making a fuss if the file is 50k or 80k is important.. You have no idea what you're talking about. And neither does anyone who only views this from the student/housewife/solo-user point of view. This has a huge impact on large companies who have millions of files in office. In the 3 years I worked for the company I'm currently employed with, I have made/worked with over 20.000 files. And they are all stored on the server. If you multiply that by 20 employees, you get 400.000 files. So that 30kb extra is actually about 10Gb of extra data, and we're a SMALL company. You have no idea what kind of impact this has on large companies. If mom and pops can afford the disk space to the extend that they don't need to look after the file sizes of their word documents, then so can companies small and large. The amount of storage space spent is proportionate to turnover, depending on the kind of work the company does of course. Mom and Pops don't have enough volume that doing anything differently would make a substantial difference, nor are they aware of it. The argument against .docx stupid, and no different than arguing type writers > keyboards. Fuck, why do we need calculators? Abacus does well enough. COMBUSTION ENGINE? I"VE GOT A STEAM ENGINE THAT WORKS FINE THANK YOU VERY MUCH. FUCK you people are dumb. I've seen long papers drop in size about 9x from going .doc to .docx. Do you realize how much bandwidth that saves across the internet in general, and in company intranets? Not to mention there's a ton more things you can do with XML, which is why companies prefer it. If you're too lazy to download the free Office Compatibility pack, then that's all on you. And Open Office and iWorks and every other modern programs on the planet read .docx, so what people are complaining about. OOXML > ODF > .doc
If it is any big of a deal then people would already solve the space/size issue by simply compressing the documents to zip files. which is what docx does. Try compressing docx files, you won't get much out of that. Now it used to be that people would send their docs in a zip file across the internet. They still might do that, in which case for those people, that docx format saves them a step. big deal.
And about your stupid steam engine comparison, I was discussing only about the merits of docx's file size. The format probably has other advantages. Way to make an analogy.
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On August 14 2009 00:07 Adeny wrote:
What? Those are completely different formats.
The similarity of the format doesn't particularly pertain to the point, which is that we shouldn't be staying on a past format just because of the popular support that it has. Given that txt is practically universal, doesn't that beat out doc? People are making a deal out of a conversion that isn't remotely difficult, a conversion that provides benefits because...what, they are too lazy to google?
On August 14 2009 00:17 sith wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 00:15 Insane Lane wrote:
And the nub question: Should i buy Microsoft Office ASAP then, or is there no need to worry? (Just got a new laptop with only the trial on here so far) No need to worry, this lawsuit is going to have literally no effect on the actual sale of Word, it's going to get overturned as soon as MS appeals it.
I am not really optimistic about the prospect of that, more like they'll extort a deal out of MS because of how immediate the injunction is.
On August 14 2009 01:11 Badjas wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 00:19 Jibba wrote:On August 13 2009 22:40 Badjas wrote:On August 13 2009 22:15 CubEdIn wrote:On August 13 2009 21:44 Samurai- wrote:
Yes because the internet is so slow this days and hard disks are so small that making a fuss if the file is 50k or 80k is important.. You have no idea what you're talking about. And neither does anyone who only views this from the student/housewife/solo-user point of view. This has a huge impact on large companies who have millions of files in office. In the 3 years I worked for the company I'm currently employed with, I have made/worked with over 20.000 files. And they are all stored on the server. If you multiply that by 20 employees, you get 400.000 files. So that 30kb extra is actually about 10Gb of extra data, and we're a SMALL company. You have no idea what kind of impact this has on large companies. If mom and pops can afford the disk space to the extend that they don't need to look after the file sizes of their word documents, then so can companies small and large. The amount of storage space spent is proportionate to turnover, depending on the kind of work the company does of course. Mom and Pops don't have enough volume that doing anything differently would make a substantial difference, nor are they aware of it. The argument against .docx stupid, and no different than arguing type writers > keyboards. Fuck, why do we need calculators? Abacus does well enough. COMBUSTION ENGINE? I"VE GOT A STEAM ENGINE THAT WORKS FINE THANK YOU VERY MUCH. FUCK you people are dumb. I've seen long papers drop in size about 9x from going .doc to .docx. Do you realize how much bandwidth that saves across the internet in general, and in company intranets? Not to mention there's a ton more things you can do with XML, which is why companies prefer it. If you're too lazy to download the free Office Compatibility pack, then that's all on you. And Open Office and iWorks and every other modern programs on the planet read .docx, so what people are complaining about. OOXML > ODF > .doc If it is any big of a deal then people would already solve the space/size issue by simply compressing the documents to zip files. which is what docx does. Try compressing docx files, you won't get much out of that. Now it used to be that people would send their docs in a zip file across the internet. They still might do that, in which case for those people, that docx format saves them a step. big deal. And about your stupid steam engine comparison, I was discussing only about the merits of docx's file size. The format probably has other advantages. Way to make an analogy.
One of Microsoft's argument for their newer platforms is in fact the one or two minor step that it saves. It is a big deal, if you do enough of the work then it certainly adds up.
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United States22883 Posts
Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 01:12 Ecael wrote:
No need to worry, this lawsuit is going to have literally no effect on the actual sale of Word, it's going to get overturned as soon as MS appeals it. I am not really optimistic about the prospect of that, more like they'll extort a deal out of MS because of how immediate the injunction is.
This. It's also stupid that only MS is getting slapped with this, since every other company on the planet uses XML the same way.
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On August 14 2009 00:19 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 22:40 Badjas wrote:On August 13 2009 22:15 CubEdIn wrote:On August 13 2009 21:44 Samurai- wrote:
Yes because the internet is so slow this days and hard disks are so small that making a fuss if the file is 50k or 80k is important.. You have no idea what you're talking about. And neither does anyone who only views this from the student/housewife/solo-user point of view. This has a huge impact on large companies who have millions of files in office. In the 3 years I worked for the company I'm currently employed with, I have made/worked with over 20.000 files. And they are all stored on the server. If you multiply that by 20 employees, you get 400.000 files. So that 30kb extra is actually about 10Gb of extra data, and we're a SMALL company. You have no idea what kind of impact this has on large companies. If mom and pops can afford the disk space to the extend that they don't need to look after the file sizes of their word documents, then so can companies small and large. The amount of storage space spent is proportionate to turnover, depending on the kind of work the company does of course. Mom and Pops don't have enough volume that doing anything differently would make a substantial difference, nor are they aware of it. The argument against .docx stupid, and no different than arguing type writers > keyboards. Fuck, why do we need calculators? Abacus does well enough. COMBUSTION ENGINE? I"VE GOT A STEAM ENGINE THAT WORKS FINE THANK YOU VERY MUCH. FUCK you people are dumb. I've seen long papers drop in size about 9x from going .doc to .docx. Do you realize how much bandwidth that saves across the internet in general, and in company intranets? Not to mention there's a ton more things you can do with XML, which is why companies prefer it. If you're too lazy to download the free Office Compatibility pack, then that's all on you. And Open Office and iWorks and every other modern programs on the planet read .docx, so what people are complaining about. OOXML > ODF > .doc
.docx is a better file format than .doc, and the switch was a good idea. The implementation was utterly horrible- Microsoft should've made sure there was a very easy and intuitive way for older versions of Word to get an update to become forwards-compatible with .docx- say, an automatic online update. The fact is, half the computers you take a .docx document to won't be able to read said file, which makes .docx more trouble than it's worth.
Given the shitty implementation of the format switch, it's better if it had never happened in the first place, although the best-case scenario would've been a good implementation of the switch to the .docx format.
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On August 14 2009 01:15 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 01:12 Ecael wrote:
No need to worry, this lawsuit is going to have literally no effect on the actual sale of Word, it's going to get overturned as soon as MS appeals it. I am not really optimistic about the prospect of that, more like they'll extort a deal out of MS because of how immediate the injunction is. This. It's also stupid that only MS is getting slapped with this, since every other company on the planet uses XML the same way.
Wait for it, Rambus style suing the shit out of everyone for a long period of time and running the company off the profits derived from these blackmail.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 14 2009 01:16 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 00:19 Jibba wrote:On August 13 2009 22:40 Badjas wrote:On August 13 2009 22:15 CubEdIn wrote:On August 13 2009 21:44 Samurai- wrote:
Yes because the internet is so slow this days and hard disks are so small that making a fuss if the file is 50k or 80k is important.. You have no idea what you're talking about. And neither does anyone who only views this from the student/housewife/solo-user point of view. This has a huge impact on large companies who have millions of files in office. In the 3 years I worked for the company I'm currently employed with, I have made/worked with over 20.000 files. And they are all stored on the server. If you multiply that by 20 employees, you get 400.000 files. So that 30kb extra is actually about 10Gb of extra data, and we're a SMALL company. You have no idea what kind of impact this has on large companies. If mom and pops can afford the disk space to the extend that they don't need to look after the file sizes of their word documents, then so can companies small and large. The amount of storage space spent is proportionate to turnover, depending on the kind of work the company does of course. Mom and Pops don't have enough volume that doing anything differently would make a substantial difference, nor are they aware of it. The argument against .docx stupid, and no different than arguing type writers > keyboards. Fuck, why do we need calculators? Abacus does well enough. COMBUSTION ENGINE? I"VE GOT A STEAM ENGINE THAT WORKS FINE THANK YOU VERY MUCH. FUCK you people are dumb. I've seen long papers drop in size about 9x from going .doc to .docx. Do you realize how much bandwidth that saves across the internet in general, and in company intranets? Not to mention there's a ton more things you can do with XML, which is why companies prefer it. If you're too lazy to download the free Office Compatibility pack, then that's all on you. And Open Office and iWorks and every other modern programs on the planet read .docx, so what people are complaining about. OOXML > ODF > .doc .docx is a better file format than .doc, and the switch was a good idea. The implementation was utterly horrible- Microsoft should've made sure there was a very easy and intuitive way for older versions of Word to get an update to become forwards-compatible with .docx- say, an automatic online update. The fact is, half the computers you take a .docx document to won't be able to read said file, which makes .docx more trouble than it's worth. Given the shitty implementation of the format switch, it's better if it had never happened in the first place, although the best-case scenario would've been a good implementation of the switch to the .docx format. The Office Compatibility Pack was released before Office 2007. What did you expect them to do differently? Most people have autoupdate turned off, and they simply failed to Google it when the problem arose.
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Great news! But please start using openoffice.org and support the free revolution. :o)
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
Apparently the xml patent thingy was filed in 94, which gave ms ample time to ward off a potential suit. Besides, ms is a late comer to xml integration. the patent holder just waited for a big fish like ms to bite and then spring the suit on them. i think both sides know that the end game here is a settlement for a truckload of money.
some guy with more detail http://www.techreport.com/ja.zz?id=420873
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On August 13 2009 12:05 Abyzou wrote:
Holy fuck I hated docx
THANK YOU TEXAS JUDGE YOU ARE A MANLY MAN.
And yes tons of people in my class had that problem with documents that wouldn't fly on school computers. Microsoft is retarded sometimes.
I find this kind of reasoning to be silly. Seems like everybody who screams "HURRAY" do it because they've had problems finding something to open the files with etc.
Obviously then, the problem is not with the format itself, it's with the software you use and/or people who send .docx files. Microsoft is not retarded for wanting to use a more modern, better file format for their Word application.
In summary: if you have a .docx file on your computer and can't open it then either 1) You're stupid; or 2) The person who provided you with the file is stupid.
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Yes Parasite, docx was retarded because it caused a ton of compatibility problems for people, for no good reason.
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On August 14 2009 01:41 XsebT wrote:
Great news! But please start using openoffice.org and support the free revolution. :o)
You can be all internet hipster and whatnot, but the truth is open office just lack many of the functionalities that microsoft office has and is just overall an inferior piece of software.
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United States20661 Posts
On August 13 2009 16:48 Plexa wrote:
This thread has actually been really interesting to read. Basically confirms that TL's moderation is doing a good job of keeping the morons away.
Wait what there are so many misinformed morons in this thread who don't know the first thing about technology.
A couple have obviously not read anything besides the OP.
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On August 14 2009 02:29 Abyzou wrote:
Yes Parasite, docx was retarded because it caused a ton of compatibility problems for people, for no good reason.
As plenty have already explained: if you know about google, than compatibility couldn't have been a problem. Christ, there's a "save as Word 97-2003" choice on the save menu in Word 2007.
The complaint is simply not valid.
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Our court system is plagued by frivolous cases.
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On August 14 2009 02:31 AssuredVacancy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 01:41 XsebT wrote:
Great news! But please start using openoffice.org and support the free revolution. :o) You can be all internet hipster and whatnot, but the truth is open office just lack many of the functionalities that microsoft office has and is just overall an inferior piece of software.
That is very true, but Rome wasn't built in a day.
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On August 14 2009 03:08 XsebT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 02:31 AssuredVacancy wrote:On August 14 2009 01:41 XsebT wrote:
Great news! But please start using openoffice.org and support the free revolution. :o) You can be all internet hipster and whatnot, but the truth is open office just lack many of the functionalities that microsoft office has and is just overall an inferior piece of software. That is very true, but Rome wasn't built in a day.
Yeah... I'll go to Rome when it's built then.
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On August 14 2009 02:40 ParasitJonte wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 02:29 Abyzou wrote:
Yes Parasite, docx was retarded because it caused a ton of compatibility problems for people, for no good reason. As plenty have already explained: if you know about google, than compatibility couldn't have been a problem. Christ, there's a "save as Word 97-2003" choice on the save menu in Word 2007. The complaint is simply not valid.
You know what "end user" means to people who program software? It's a synonym for "moron who doesn't know how to use a computer". The lowest common denominator in computer users are computer-illiterate, and if a word document won't open, then they'll think it's broken and not working.
Yes, it's sad. Yes, many programs don't have to deal with this kind of "end users", and can assume there's a thinking human being who can use Google as the user. But when you're talking about one of the most basic and common functionalities of computers- word processing-, you really should make sure it's fool-proof. And .docx is not.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 14 2009 03:39 Zato-1 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 02:40 ParasitJonte wrote:On August 14 2009 02:29 Abyzou wrote:
Yes Parasite, docx was retarded because it caused a ton of compatibility problems for people, for no good reason. As plenty have already explained: if you know about google, than compatibility couldn't have been a problem. Christ, there's a "save as Word 97-2003" choice on the save menu in Word 2007. The complaint is simply not valid. You know what "end user" means to people who program software? It's a synonym for "moron who doesn't know how to use a computer". The lowest common denominator in computer users are computer-illiterate, and if a word document won't open, then they'll think it's broken and not working. Yes, it's sad. Yes, many programs don't have to deal with this kind of "end users", and can assume there's a thinking human being who can use Google as the user. But when you're talking about one of the most basic and common functionalities of computers- word processing-, you really should make sure it's fool-proof. And .docx is not.
I think what annoys us is the number of "morons who don't know how to use a computer" posting in this thread.
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United States22883 Posts
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"i4i claims it presented internal e-mails within Microsoft where [employees] said that they would go ahead with the custom XML feature, even as they acknowledged the i4i patent," said Negrin. "And i4i maintains it even tried to pitch their technology to Microsoft, but Microsoft said, 'thanks, but no thanks.'"
Court documents in the case refer to a 2001 meeting between i4i and Microsoft representatives, held at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash. headquarters.
"Microsoft has a reputation for squashing the little guys," Negrin said.
Anyone still think this was frivolous litigation by a patent troll?
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On August 16 2009 10:38 fusionsdf wrote:
yes
no
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United States3824 Posts
On August 14 2009 02:37 Last Romantic wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2009 16:48 Plexa wrote:
This thread has actually been really interesting to read. Basically confirms that TL's moderation is doing a good job of keeping the morons away. Wait what there are so many misinformed morons in this thread who don't know the first thing about technology. A couple have obviously not read anything besides the OP.
Lol so what I thought docx was when I started was an extra set of data in the document file that let it be parsed by web pages. Then a bunch of people said I was a terribad person and it made me feel bad about my future as a Computer Scientist
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On August 16 2009 10:46 cgrinker wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2009 02:37 Last Romantic wrote:On August 13 2009 16:48 Plexa wrote:
This thread has actually been really interesting to read. Basically confirms that TL's moderation is doing a good job of keeping the morons away. Wait what there are so many misinformed morons in this thread who don't know the first thing about technology. A couple have obviously not read anything besides the OP. Lol so what I thought docx was when I started was an extra set of data in the document file that let it be parsed by web pages. Then a bunch of people said I was a terribad person and it made me feel bad about my future as a Computer Scientist
huh docx is an archive containing parseable xml files..
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EPT
