Subject: RE: [TS] Another app with possibly useful ideas...
wtanksley@bigfoot.com
Date: Wed Aug 09 2000 - 14:42:28 EDT
From: Ben Darnell [mailto:ben@thoughtstream.org]
>On Wed, Aug 09, 2000 at 10:29:18AM -0700, wtanksley@bigfoot.com wrote:
>> http://progect.sourceforge.net/
>Hey, that is impressive. Too bad it doesn't work at all on my
>Palm IIIx
>(OS3.5.2). It looks neat in the emulator, even if it is rather crashy.
>The code's all in one big .c file at the moment, so it's hard to tell
>how feasible it would be to split the outline widget off into
>a library.
Doesn't work on my Visor either -- and here I thought I was just special
;-).
>> >This wouldn't be too hard to hard-code in, but I'd like to
>> >see a more
>> >general solution (i.e. advanced searching/filtering)
>> Oh, absolutely.
>Of course, the implied conclusion to the previous thought is
>that a more
>general solution would be hard. Especially if the task
>management stuff is in a separate module and not in the
>core.
Yes. However, it just might be possible. I've been working on some ideas
on systems like this, although I've been focussing on standalone OSes rather
than applications.
>> >* WebDAV - http://www.webdav.org
>> However, there's at least one patent on it, which might be
>> incompatible with
>> the GPL (its owner allows anyone to use, but megaprofits
>> companies have to
>> pay for a license). IMO the patent is valid (I used to
>> program for Geos, so I know exactly what the patent covers).
>A patent on what, exactly? Does it effect clients, servers, or both?
It affects both, although only servers have to pay the royalties. There may
be licensing info at the owner's site, http://www.geoworks.com
Geoworks wrote Geos for the Commodore way back when, and in 1982 they
started work on a PC version. In '88 it was released, and it included a
patent pending user interface technique which allowed the system to provide
platform-appropriate user interfaces to applications without any special
code in the applications. The patent was granted in the mid-nineties.
For example, the "Edit" menu can be replaced by a set of pen gestures (this
is what the original HP OmniGo did), or the entire UI can be made to look
and feel exactly like Motif, OS/2, or Windows. The number of applications
is very impressive -- and WAP happens to use it directly.
It's definitely patentable technology, very clever. I don't like patents,
but I have to admit that they deserve that one.
It didn't save them from Microsoft, though. MS said they would crush them
unless they got out of the desktop business, and so they did (that's why
they made the Casio/AST Zoomer and HP Omnigo), but Geos wasn't the right OS
for handhelds ("better than CE" just doesn't cut it). Their stock went to
$2, and dragged there for a long time, before they discovered that WAP was
using *precisely* their techniques. So they joined the WAP forum (which was
created to provide cross-licensing of patents), and let the others know
about their patent.
>-Ben
-Billy
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