Very interesting ... this is why software patents are evil. <Quote Article>
Jobs delivered his threat to Sun personally, Schwartz said, calling his office to say the graphics in Sun's operating system 3D interface, Project Looking Glass, were "stepping all over Apple's IP," and that if Sun commercialized it, "I'll just sue you." The meeting with Microsoft followed the same pattern. "As we sat down in our Menlo Park conference room, Bill skipped the small talk, and went straight to the point, 'Microsoft owns the office productivity market, and our patents read all over OpenOffice,'" Schwartz wrote. "Bill was delivering a slightly more sophisticated variant of the threat Steve had made, but he had a different solution in mind. 'We're happy to get you under license.' That was code for 'We'll go away if you pay us a royalty for every download'--the digital version of a protection racket." In both cases, Sun countered with its own patent portfolio. </Quote> More at http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000215-264.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 (specially ...er... nice __how__ Sun fended off both Apple and Microsoft.) ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
