Where did you think the ``Gang of Four'' got this famous Design Pattern from? They published it from a patent by NeXT. The entire Gang of Four book is a well-known design patterns book from guys tipping their hats to NeXT.
Quote:
Originally Posted by michaelab
Do you have any evidence of that?
Yes, just like the M-V-C and Factory Patterns came straight from Brad Cox and his book Object-Oriented Programming: An Evolutionary Approach. Cox was big at NeXT, actually he is Mr Objective-C, which is arguably the first object-oriented language explicitly designed for commercial use, as opposed to Smalltalk which is a wonderful research language and an inspiration for Obj-C. The second edition was 1986! He had been working on those ideas for years before anyone thought to write a book about them collectively. And as one of the inaugural engineers on the original Macontosh OS, many of his ideas were originated in his work within Apples walls all the way back into the 1970s.
I don't think it unlikely that some of the patent tree at Apple goes back to work he personally supervised. But those early day patents would be expired now, that's why we are seeing the derivative patents. That's a means of adding something to the original and still receiving IP protection for the derivation while allowing others to work with the original un-derived previously patented IP.
I think your impression is being driven by the way the information about the suit has been presented to you, which is to say, irresponsibly and sensationalized. Then again, it wouldn't "sell papers" if the dry facts were communicated, right?
You may be right, but I have read many reports about this and did some rather dry reading on the claims themselves.
At some point, you simply have to call them as you see them. I simply disagree with Apple on this one. Apple has the legal right to do what ever it wants and I have the right to decide if I want to spend any of my money on their products as a result of their actions. I am sure that my opinion is in the minority on this site, but I bet a lot of consumers will feel the same way I do about this issue...
The funny part is that one of the reasons why I recently switch from a Microsoft based computer to the Mac was because I did not like the way Microsoft conducts business. Apple seems to be acting more and more like Microsoft every day... I do not believe that is a good thing...
That's just the thing though … this is standard practice. This is how the patent system is supposed to work. What's astonishing, really, is the fact that these other guys failed to do due diligence in the first place and shipped product that tramples on somebody else's (in this case, Apple's) patents. What's even more surprising is the fact that, when confronted with this, those guys didn't alter their product or (more reasonably) just license the innovations from Apple. They had many opportunities to avoid a lawsuit, but they passed them all up. Which makes me wonder if they even have lawyers.
Actually, what seems illogical here is a best practice of companies that make things. I have been to industry seminars where the lawyers tell the engineers to never search patents, that that can only get them in trouble. Because if ANYONE in the organization sees a relevant patent and then the organization infringes, even unintentionally, the verdict can be tripled as a penalty for willful infringement.
So the lawyers recommend you just reverse engineer without doing patent searches and take your chances, because no matter what the cost-at-risk is one third of what it would be if anyone looked at patents at all.
I simply disagree with Apple on this one. Apple has the legal right to do what ever it wants and I have the right to decide if I want to spend any of my money on their products as a result of their actions. I am sure that my opinion is in the minority on this site, but I bet a lot of consumers will feel the same way I do about this issue...
I am sure that the vast majority of consumers (possibly in excess of 99.9%) haven't given this 2 seconds thought and are completely disinterested in, even oblivious to, the issue. If Apple's products meet their needs, they'll buy them and this patent dispute will have no impact on that decision.
Yes, just like the M-V-C and Factory Patterns came straight from Brad Cox and his book Object-Oriented Programming: An Evolutionary Approach. Cox was big at NeXT, actually he is Mr Objective-C, which is arguably the first object-oriented language explicitly designed for commercial use, as opposed to Smalltalk which is a wonderful research language and an inspiration for Obj-C. The second edition was 1986! He had been working on those ideas for years before anyone thought to write a book about them collectively. And as one of the inaugural engineers on the original Macontosh OS, many of his ideas were originated in his work within Apples walls all the way back into the 1970s.
I don't think it unlikely that some of the patent tree at Apple goes back to work he personally supervised. But those early day patents would be expired now, that's why we are seeing the derivative patents. That's a means of adding something to the original and still receiving IP protection for the derivation while allowing others to work with the original un-derived previously patented IP.
Yes. Write the authors. They were well known fans of NeXTStep. The book was standard issue for all Consulting Engineers at NeXT, along with the standard reference materials for NeXTStep.
Contact Apple's Mike Ferris, Peter Graffanino, Scott Forstall, or Avi Tevanian [father of the Microkernel], Bud Tribble [one of the original defectors from Apple to NeXT, now VP at Apple again], Aaron Hillegass [for all his training expertise at NeXT and Eiffel] and on and on.
I can guarantee you the Gang of Four will be called to testify.
Yes, just like the M-V-C and Factory Patterns came straight from Brad Cox and his book Object-Oriented Programming: An Evolutionary Approach. Cox was big at NeXT, actually he is Mr Objective-C, which is arguably the first object-oriented language explicitly designed for commercial use, as opposed to Smalltalk which is a wonderful research language and an inspiration for Obj-C. The second edition was 1986! He had been working on those ideas for years before anyone thought to write a book about them collectively. And as one of the inaugural engineers on the original Macontosh OS, many of his ideas were originated in his work within Apples walls all the way back into the 1970s.
I don't think it unlikely that some of the patent tree at Apple goes back to work he personally supervised. But those early day patents would be expired now, that's why we are seeing the derivative patents. That's a means of adding something to the original and still receiving IP protection for the derivation while allowing others to work with the original un-derived previously patented IP.
Thanks Hiro. I was going to add this as I'm staring at my copy of Brad's book reprinted with corrections, 1987, edition.
I will add, Brad founded StepStone and NeXT bought the rights to all his IP and ObjC by 1995 I believe.
I think Wolf doesn't understand the open source community (that Apple is of course part of). I personally don't care for the ideas of Richard Stallman, but he doesn't represent the entire open source community. This really is just about business though. Everyone does this. I'm sure this is about a different dispute, the patent battle is just a proxy fight for something else. Sure it is nice to set an example, but is it wrong to play fair? In the movie Aviator (and in real life), Howard Hughes has the court case about him pampering the army officials for contract work. His response was that he would prefer not to, but everyone in the industry does it so he needs to. He said he would support making the practice illegal. If we think the patent system is allowing ideas to be patented or trivial innovations to be patented then our issue should be with the patent system. I'm sure Apple would support it because they are constantly being hit by trivial patents.
where did stallman get mentioned? i think you are confusing open source and free software. i don't think stallman agrees with open source.
Yes. Write the authors. They were well known fans of NeXTStep. The book was standard issue for all Consulting Engineers at NeXT, along with the standard reference materials for NeXTStep.
Contact Apple's Mike Ferris, Peter Graffanino, Scott Forstall, or Avi Tevanian [father of the Microkernel], Bud Tribble [one of the original defectors from Apple to NeXT, now VP at Apple again], Aaron Hillegass [for all his training expertise at NeXT and Eiffel] and on and on.
I can guarantee you the Gang of Four will be called to testify.
avi tevanian?
father of microkernel? thats a bit grand isn't it?
The part that gets me is how they went to the ITC and are trying to halt the import of a competors product BEFORE they have their day in court to try and defent their patents. This seem more like extortion than a real claim of damages.
It will take YEARS before this case is resolved by a court. In the meantime, if HTC is allowed to continue, the situation could be made more complicated and damaging.
But, hey, why get uptight about this? Apple only ASKED that imports be stopped. Such requests are denied more often than not. If the request is granted, then it is probably only with good reason. If not, then you get the result you favor. So why prematurely place a value judgment on the request?
Apple has pimped open source long enough and they about to get beotch slapped. Yes we are confused and here's why http://www.bsd.org/ is free and Apple uses this as the core of it's OS's. So when you create something on top of it what's the difference between modifiying an organism? You can't patent an organism. So how can you patent something built on a an OS that's free. Sure you can file the papers saying this is mine but in court how do you defend "I'm using open source to patent my product" WRONG you can charge for what you sell but your patent is invalid in a court of law because it originated from OPEN SOURCE. No open source no fake patent. Objection! Over ruled. I 've seen this happen in the Bio-Tech industry with a huge manufacturer and it will happen with Apple. The gig is up Apple and no amount of lawyers or cash can put Humpty together again.
What's hypocrytical? Why does everything have to be a binary yes/no or bad/good?
If the concepts that Apple used for the iPhone were so obvious how come, as a TOTAL OUTSIDER, they were the first to produce an iPhone? How come all the other "innovation" that people want "competition" to drive Apple with happend AFTER the iPhone?
What's hypocrytical is those calling from innovation against the one company that drove real innovation in the smart phone market.
"people" are upset because Apple came out of left field as a total newcommer and took over an entire market segment. Worse, they didn't "play by the rules" - they aren't focused on checklists, features and geek-oriented concepts, they are focused on those loathsome end users and "normal people".
It's techie class warfare and it's getting a little tiresome. Bunch of insecure geeks whining...
The people complaining are iPhone and Mac users, not old phone industry "geeks" (whoever those people are). I haven't heard anything from other users. Hardcore Apple users tend to be pretty idealistic. There are a lot of questions about Apple's intentions in this case. Of course we may never know for sure what those intentions are. Apple is also pretty idealistic, so I trust they are doing the right thing. It is just too bad they can't be more transparent about it. Certainly Apple should protect their IP, that's not what people are questioning.
Apple has pimped open source long enough and they about to get beotch slapped. Yes we are confused and here's why http://www.bsd.org/ is free and Apple uses this as the core of it's OS's. So when you create something on top of it what's the difference between modifiying an organism? You can't patent an organism. So how can you patent something built on a an OS that's free. Sure you can file the papers saying this is mine but in court how do you defend "I'm using open source to patent my product" WRONG you can charge for what you sell but your patent is invalid in a court of law because it originated from OPEN SOURCE. No open source no fake patent. Objection! Over ruled. I 've seen this happen in the Bio-Tech industry with a huge manufacturer and it will happen with Apple. The gig is up Apple and no amount of lawyers or cash can put Humpty together again.
You are confusing a patent with a license. Any software that Apple derived from BSD was also made open source, so there are no licensing issues.
Consultant: NeXT, Inc. architectural specification for the NextStep cross machine networking API.
Can you give me more information about the work of Cox with Apple?
He didn't, he worked for Stepstone. NeXT aquired full rights to Objective-C from Stepstone. Brad Cox was the co-inventor of Objective-C though. He most likely worked closely with NeXT engineers.
Comments
Where did you think the ``Gang of Four'' got this famous Design Pattern from? They published it from a patent by NeXT. The entire Gang of Four book is a well-known design patterns book from guys tipping their hats to NeXT.
Do you have any evidence of that?
Yes, just like the M-V-C and Factory Patterns came straight from Brad Cox and his book Object-Oriented Programming: An Evolutionary Approach. Cox was big at NeXT, actually he is Mr Objective-C, which is arguably the first object-oriented language explicitly designed for commercial use, as opposed to Smalltalk which is a wonderful research language and an inspiration for Obj-C. The second edition was 1986! He had been working on those ideas for years before anyone thought to write a book about them collectively. And as one of the inaugural engineers on the original Macontosh OS, many of his ideas were originated in his work within Apples walls all the way back into the 1970s.
I don't think it unlikely that some of the patent tree at Apple goes back to work he personally supervised. But those early day patents would be expired now, that's why we are seeing the derivative patents. That's a means of adding something to the original and still receiving IP protection for the derivation while allowing others to work with the original un-derived previously patented IP.
I think your impression is being driven by the way the information about the suit has been presented to you, which is to say, irresponsibly and sensationalized. Then again, it wouldn't "sell papers" if the dry facts were communicated, right?
You may be right, but I have read many reports about this and did some rather dry reading on the claims themselves.
At some point, you simply have to call them as you see them. I simply disagree with Apple on this one. Apple has the legal right to do what ever it wants and I have the right to decide if I want to spend any of my money on their products as a result of their actions. I am sure that my opinion is in the minority on this site, but I bet a lot of consumers will feel the same way I do about this issue...
The funny part is that one of the reasons why I recently switch from a Microsoft based computer to the Mac was because I did not like the way Microsoft conducts business. Apple seems to be acting more and more like Microsoft every day... I do not believe that is a good thing...
That's just the thing though … this is standard practice. This is how the patent system is supposed to work. What's astonishing, really, is the fact that these other guys failed to do due diligence in the first place and shipped product that tramples on somebody else's (in this case, Apple's) patents. What's even more surprising is the fact that, when confronted with this, those guys didn't alter their product or (more reasonably) just license the innovations from Apple. They had many opportunities to avoid a lawsuit, but they passed them all up. Which makes me wonder if they even have lawyers.
Actually, what seems illogical here is a best practice of companies that make things. I have been to industry seminars where the lawyers tell the engineers to never search patents, that that can only get them in trouble. Because if ANYONE in the organization sees a relevant patent and then the organization infringes, even unintentionally, the verdict can be tripled as a penalty for willful infringement.
So the lawyers recommend you just reverse engineer without doing patent searches and take your chances, because no matter what the cost-at-risk is one third of what it would be if anyone looked at patents at all.
I simply disagree with Apple on this one. Apple has the legal right to do what ever it wants and I have the right to decide if I want to spend any of my money on their products as a result of their actions. I am sure that my opinion is in the minority on this site, but I bet a lot of consumers will feel the same way I do about this issue...
I am sure that the vast majority of consumers (possibly in excess of 99.9%) haven't given this 2 seconds thought and are completely disinterested in, even oblivious to, the issue. If Apple's products meet their needs, they'll buy them and this patent dispute will have no impact on that decision.
Yes, just like the M-V-C and Factory Patterns came straight from Brad Cox and his book Object-Oriented Programming: An Evolutionary Approach. Cox was big at NeXT, actually he is Mr Objective-C, which is arguably the first object-oriented language explicitly designed for commercial use, as opposed to Smalltalk which is a wonderful research language and an inspiration for Obj-C. The second edition was 1986! He had been working on those ideas for years before anyone thought to write a book about them collectively. And as one of the inaugural engineers on the original Macontosh OS, many of his ideas were originated in his work within Apples walls all the way back into the 1970s.
I don't think it unlikely that some of the patent tree at Apple goes back to work he personally supervised. But those early day patents would be expired now, that's why we are seeing the derivative patents. That's a means of adding something to the original and still receiving IP protection for the derivation while allowing others to work with the original un-derived previously patented IP.
Brad Cox resume on his webpage:
http://virtualschool.edu/cox/cv/BCoxResumeSE.htm
The only reference to Apple o NeXT is:
Consultant: NeXT, Inc. architectural specification for the NextStep cross machine networking API.
Can you give me more information about the work of Cox with Apple?
Do you have any evidence of that?
Yes. Write the authors. They were well known fans of NeXTStep. The book was standard issue for all Consulting Engineers at NeXT, along with the standard reference materials for NeXTStep.
Contact Apple's Mike Ferris, Peter Graffanino, Scott Forstall, or Avi Tevanian [father of the Microkernel], Bud Tribble [one of the original defectors from Apple to NeXT, now VP at Apple again], Aaron Hillegass [for all his training expertise at NeXT and Eiffel] and on and on.
I can guarantee you the Gang of Four will be called to testify.
Yes, just like the M-V-C and Factory Patterns came straight from Brad Cox and his book Object-Oriented Programming: An Evolutionary Approach. Cox was big at NeXT, actually he is Mr Objective-C, which is arguably the first object-oriented language explicitly designed for commercial use, as opposed to Smalltalk which is a wonderful research language and an inspiration for Obj-C. The second edition was 1986! He had been working on those ideas for years before anyone thought to write a book about them collectively. And as one of the inaugural engineers on the original Macontosh OS, many of his ideas were originated in his work within Apples walls all the way back into the 1970s.
I don't think it unlikely that some of the patent tree at Apple goes back to work he personally supervised. But those early day patents would be expired now, that's why we are seeing the derivative patents. That's a means of adding something to the original and still receiving IP protection for the derivation while allowing others to work with the original un-derived previously patented IP.
Thanks Hiro. I was going to add this as I'm staring at my copy of Brad's book reprinted with corrections, 1987, edition.
I will add, Brad founded StepStone and NeXT bought the rights to all his IP and ObjC by 1995 I believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepstone
The Gang of Four book is an expansion on Brad Cox's Object-Oriented Programming, An Evolutionary Approach.
http://www.amazon.com/Object-oriente.../dp/0201103931
Pick it up. It's a great read.
I think Wolf doesn't understand the open source community (that Apple is of course part of). I personally don't care for the ideas of Richard Stallman, but he doesn't represent the entire open source community. This really is just about business though. Everyone does this. I'm sure this is about a different dispute, the patent battle is just a proxy fight for something else. Sure it is nice to set an example, but is it wrong to play fair? In the movie Aviator (and in real life), Howard Hughes has the court case about him pampering the army officials for contract work. His response was that he would prefer not to, but everyone in the industry does it so he needs to. He said he would support making the practice illegal. If we think the patent system is allowing ideas to be patented or trivial innovations to be patented then our issue should be with the patent system. I'm sure Apple would support it because they are constantly being hit by trivial patents.
where did stallman get mentioned? i think you are confusing open source and free software. i don't think stallman agrees with open source.
Yes. Write the authors. They were well known fans of NeXTStep. The book was standard issue for all Consulting Engineers at NeXT, along with the standard reference materials for NeXTStep.
Contact Apple's Mike Ferris, Peter Graffanino, Scott Forstall, or Avi Tevanian [father of the Microkernel], Bud Tribble [one of the original defectors from Apple to NeXT, now VP at Apple again], Aaron Hillegass [for all his training expertise at NeXT and Eiffel] and on and on.
I can guarantee you the Gang of Four will be called to testify.
avi tevanian?
father of microkernel? thats a bit grand isn't it?
The part that gets me is how they went to the ITC and are trying to halt the import of a competors product BEFORE they have their day in court to try and defent their patents. This seem more like extortion than a real claim of damages.
It will take YEARS before this case is resolved by a court. In the meantime, if HTC is allowed to continue, the situation could be made more complicated and damaging.
But, hey, why get uptight about this? Apple only ASKED that imports be stopped. Such requests are denied more often than not. If the request is granted, then it is probably only with good reason. If not, then you get the result you favor. So why prematurely place a value judgment on the request?
Thompson
avi tevanian?
father of microkernel? thats a bit grand isn't it?
No. His Ph.D. was the Mach Microkernel at CMU. Hurd was the future direction of it.
So why prematurely place a value judgment on the request?
Thompson
Indeed, why prematurely place a value judgment on attempted fraud? Let's see first whether it succeeds or not.
Well to all of those think Apple shouldn't go after companies that copy from them should look at the Duet W002. Talk about cloning at it's worse.
I totally think Apple should go after companies that copy from them like that, instead of companies like HTC that are not copying from Apple.
To jump a few replies forward:
fanboi: But HTC is so copying from Apple!
rational person: What exactly is HTC copying from Apple?
fanboi: <crickets>
Nokia vs Apple
Rim vs Apple
Apple vs HTC
Does Apple have time to make another good product = IPad
Flashy software no pun intented designed for elderly and pre-schoolers
The first bite from the Apple = Pride before the fall
What's hypocrytical? Why does everything have to be a binary yes/no or bad/good?
If the concepts that Apple used for the iPhone were so obvious how come, as a TOTAL OUTSIDER, they were the first to produce an iPhone? How come all the other "innovation" that people want "competition" to drive Apple with happend AFTER the iPhone?
What's hypocrytical is those calling from innovation against the one company that drove real innovation in the smart phone market.
"people" are upset because Apple came out of left field as a total newcommer and took over an entire market segment. Worse, they didn't "play by the rules" - they aren't focused on checklists, features and geek-oriented concepts, they are focused on those loathsome end users and "normal people".
It's techie class warfare and it's getting a little tiresome. Bunch of insecure geeks whining...
The people complaining are iPhone and Mac users, not old phone industry "geeks" (whoever those people are). I haven't heard anything from other users. Hardcore Apple users tend to be pretty idealistic. There are a lot of questions about Apple's intentions in this case. Of course we may never know for sure what those intentions are. Apple is also pretty idealistic, so I trust they are doing the right thing. It is just too bad they can't be more transparent about it. Certainly Apple should protect their IP, that's not what people are questioning.
Apple has pimped open source long enough and they about to get beotch slapped. Yes we are confused and here's why http://www.bsd.org/ is free and Apple uses this as the core of it's OS's. So when you create something on top of it what's the difference between modifiying an organism? You can't patent an organism. So how can you patent something built on a an OS that's free. Sure you can file the papers saying this is mine but in court how do you defend "I'm using open source to patent my product" WRONG you can charge for what you sell but your patent is invalid in a court of law because it originated from OPEN SOURCE. No open source no fake patent. Objection! Over ruled. I 've seen this happen in the Bio-Tech industry with a huge manufacturer and it will happen with Apple. The gig is up Apple and no amount of lawyers or cash can put Humpty together again.
You are confusing a patent with a license. Any software that Apple derived from BSD was also made open source, so there are no licensing issues.
Brad Cox resume on his webpage:
http://virtualschool.edu/cox/cv/BCoxResumeSE.htm
The only reference to Apple o NeXT is:
Consultant: NeXT, Inc. architectural specification for the NextStep cross machine networking API.
Can you give me more information about the work of Cox with Apple?
He didn't, he worked for Stepstone. NeXT aquired full rights to Objective-C from Stepstone. Brad Cox was the co-inventor of Objective-C though. He most likely worked closely with NeXT engineers.
where did stallman get mentioned? i think you are confusing open source and free software. i don't think stallman agrees with open source.
You are right, but that just makes Wolf more wrong because he is describing something that sounds more like free software.