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> Motif has been open source for years. So has Linux, yet SCO didn't hesitate to spend enormous amount of lawyer-hours attacking it. AFAIK even simple scroll
by qwerty456127 5y ago
> Motif has been open source for years.
So has Linux, yet SCO didn't hesitate to spend enormous amount of lawyer-hours attacking it.
AFAIK even simple scroll bars and double clicks are patented, the patent holders (Microsoft and Apple, IIRC) just have generously allowed the GNU/Linux community to use them.
- isr 5y agoI don't know if you mentioned scrollbars as a rhetorical argument, or literally. But if the latter, then ... (queue rant) ... What? Even scrollbars? Shows just how broken, regressive and anti-innovation the US Patent system is. Its part of software legend how Jobs et al learned of these concepts through early exposure to Smalltalk. There are numerous videos of Jobs himself talking about it (with requisite amounts of awe). I'm sure most people here already know the history. Theres even the interesting tale of how Jobs critiqued the scrolling (he prefered something smoother than line-by-line scrolling), and Dan Ingalls live coded a solution in a few minutes. "Prior art" indeed :)