🚀 go-pugleaf

>I thought the people reading this newsgroup might find this interesting.

>| >US patent number 4,956,809 covers using a single standard byte
>| >ordering for transfer of data between machines whose normal byte
>| >ordering is different.

>| I suspect many of you will be as shocked as I was to learn that the
>| Assignee (owner) of this patent is Mark Williams Company.  I'm fairly
>| certain that this is the same Mark Williams which markets an incredibly
>| cheap UNIX clone (Coherent), and (if I remember correctly) once donated
>| an Atari ST-based C compiler to the public domain.  [The patent text
>| explicitly mentions Coherent in many places, and that's the only Mark
>| Williams Company I know of].

>| Assignee:	Mark Williams Company
>| 
>| Patent Abstract:
>| 
>| A method for making files compatible between different computers having
>| different binary structures while using the same operating system by
>| keeping all files in a standardized canonical order when they move to or
>| from external data storage or communication means. The method includes
>| converting all binary data accessed from a file or communications channel
>| from the canonical order to the natural order of the host computer before
>| using the binary data in the host computer and converting all binary data
>| which is to be sent to a file or communications channel from the natural
>| order of the host computer to the canonical order before sending the binary
>| data.

From my point of view, this is a total fucking nightmare, if its true.  I've
worked long and hard to promote Coherent, largely because of its potential
role in making decent software technology affordable and widely available.

The current plague of software patents, each more ludicrous than the last,
has the potential to do more damage to these goals than any thousand products
like Coherent will ever do to further them.  I believe that exploiting the
current insanity at the Patent Office that permits such patents to be issued--
such as Mark Williams is claimed to be doing here-- is an unethical act of
mammoth proportion.

Say it ain't so, somebody.


-- 
	Scott Rose
	rose@cs.wisc.edu
	(608) 238-3801