[Ilugc] Re: about linux GUI development
- From: siva@xxxxxxxxxxx (Sivasankar Chander)
- Date: Fri Jul 2 18:32:16 2004
... and Microsoft is patenting double-clicks, taskbar grouping, etc
.... with some point of time patenting the usage of computer itself.
My question is whether we (GNOME, KDE, WMs) have to pay to Microsoft
as a result of these patents?
Taskbar grouping has prior art in CDE, etc. Microsoft used it only
in Windows 95, so that patent will get thrown out on challenge, which
the EFF will definitely do.
Double-clicking is problematic. It's there in Windows 1.0, and Apple also
had it in the Macintosh (1984), so there's going to be a fight between
Apple & Microsoft on this one. X, unfortunately, does not have a
double-click primitive, although the later GUIs (kde, ...) built on X do
have it.
Apple/Microsoft's patent portfolio can get problematic for us going forward.
Our best hope is to make peace with Apple.
-Siva
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