[lug] ms patenting xml ??

[Paul E Condon]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 07:11:30PM -0800, bill ehlert wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Microsoft Justifies Its XML Patent Moves
> 
> By Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft Watch 
> January 24, 2004   
> 
> 
> Microsoft watchers are questioning yet again
> Microsoft's intentions toward XML, the Worldwide
> Web Consortium (W3C) Extensible Markup Language
> standard.
> 
>     . . .
> 
> 
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1460095,00.asp
> 
> 
> **  i really don't understand this.
> 
>     but i have the feeling it's a  Bad Thing
>     for open-source software
> 
> 

I skimmed the stuff at the hot link. I think it may 
well pressage the end of civilization as we know it.

I note the usage "software that understands ... "
The framers of our Constitution surely did not 
understand that a thing, such as a computer, could
understand, in any of the many senses of the word 
that were extant at the time. And, whatever our 
courts may make of this issue, there are parts of
the world where our law does not apply. If we take
this argument seriously, we are abandoning the future
to those parts of the world. 

We are tieing ourselves in rhetorical knots, and 
someone, not us, will cut the (Gordian?) knot, and
us in the process. 

Let us grant Redmond status as an independent nation,
then treat them with the same respect that we once
granted the Soviets! (Same, not more, not less.)

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon at peakpeak.com