Re: [xml-dev] Yahoo! Tech article on injunction against MS Word

[Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com>]

Well said, Michael, but I don't believe that MS will end up paying any 
ransom to I4I. Ultimately, MS will win on appeal, and the only people 
who will gain, here, will be the lawyers and the expert witnesses. (And 
to my way of thinking, even the lawyers will also lose, because in the 
end they will have spent their irrecoverable time on this nonsense.)

Western intellectual property laws engender rent-seeking behaviors which 
in turn require the existence of a major highly technical industry that 
produces nothing and taxes everyone else's productivity in myriad ways. 
It's a multifaceted example of a "tragedy of the commons" -- the commons 
in this case being the publicly-financed resources required to uphold 
laws based on the absurd notion that the public interest is served by 
making technical know-how a private asset. People die every day because 
of this absurdity. "Draining the lifeblood" is no mere metaphor.
>>> We really need to find a copy of the SGML systems still extant.
>>>       
>
> No. Let Microsoft sweat it out. They'll probably end up paying the ransom
> money, which will encourage the next holder of a silly patent to pursue
> them. Then, when enough people attack Microsoft with silly patents,
> Microsoft will eventually see the light on software patenting and join the
> campaign for their abolition, and we will all benefit.
>
> Unless of course the lawyers drain the lifeblood out of the industry first.
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael Kay
> http://www.saxonica.com/
> http://twitter.com/michaelhkay 
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
>
> XML-DEV is a publicly archived, unmoderated list hosted by OASIS
> to support XML implementation and development. To minimize
> spam in the archives, you must subscribe before posting.
>
> [Un]Subscribe/change address: http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/
> Or unsubscribe: xml-dev-unsubscribe@lists.xml.org
> subscribe: xml-dev-subscribe@lists.xml.org
> List archive: http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
> List Guidelines: http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php
>
>
>