To be honest, I'm happy the Yeti guys are mentioning context and names. The patent crap too often goes on behind closed courtains, unless it's Apple and Google battling it out on a global scale, and people don't realise how hurtful and dated the system is.
The fact that a "best obvious" solution is getting in the way of development is NOT good for any of us, and that a small developer, because Joe isn't a large evil corp, decides to attack a much better competitor that could wipe his only succesful product off the market in the next two years through patent walling instead of through quality and improvments to a notoriously flawed and aging product doesn't paint him in a good light. Is this the kind of small developer you want empowered? I can only speak for myself, but I'll say no. There are many patents that are just first come first served deployments of ideas that had been around, sometimes even implemented, for a long time, this is on the edge of those cases, if not squarely within the domain. On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Ed Manning <etmth...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm sure Joe's intentions have been pretty good all along. > > Certainly Shave has in the past been one of very few tools that worked > even a little bit well enough for production in this area, especially at a > price that small shops could afford. > > However, I can say that he has made a number of people, mostly paying > customers of his, very very unhappy on some occasions though his actions or > inactions. > > This action does not seem to help, but due to the completely insane world > of US Patent Law, it is entirely possible that Joe is virtually required to > act like a total %#$@^@$ whether he wants to or not. And if he's actually > pursuing legal action, he also likely won't legally be able to say anything > about the situation to the world at large until the courts decide, or a > settlement is reached. > > You might or might not agree that software patents are a good thing, but > they are the law of the land, and if you go to the trouble of filing for > and receiving patent protection and believe your patent to be infringed > upon, you damn well better take action. Of course there are many ways in > which to do this, starting with a friendly phone call. It's frankly not > very cool of Yeti to publicly blame him for the situation without any > description of the events leading up to this point. > > > -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
