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BT Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Valve
- angersock 10y agoOh boy, here we go again. At least this time it's with people who have pockets deep enough on both sides to make a proper show. Let's watch the usual hivemind folks come out in defense of software patents. Folks, software patents are stupid and counterproductive, and this is just one more example of the same.
- Cozumel 10y ago“an intended audience in a reliable and predictable manner. Messages are stored as files at a server for retrieval by the intended clients. Each client transmits requests for messages to the server at automatic and periodic intervals.” I don't pretend to know anything about this but aren't these software patents ridiculously vague? The above could apply to pretty much anything!
- angersock 10y agoNot just that, but it's a fucking obvious design decision that any half-competent intern would've come up with. "Hm, message needs to be reliable, so I guess we need to store it until the client confirms receipt. The server should probably be the place to store it." "Hm, the client should ask the server for messages whenever it is ready, so let's poll. We should probably only do that every so often to avoid load, so maybe like every 30 seconds or something." "Well, if I'm chatting, a delay of 30 seconds is annoying. Maybe I should poll more frequently if I'm in a conversation. I could just cool that off as messages dribble in slower." One of the most frustrating parts about software patents is that the actual techniques are usually pretty fucking obvious to anybody who actually does it for a living.