========================================================= ----- PETER COFFEE'S ENTERPRISE IT ADVANTAGE ----- ========================================================= A weekly newsletter from eWEEK Technology Editor Peter Coffee focused on application development and technologies at the cutting edge of enterprise-class computing.
========================================================= Sponsored by IBM A FLASH DEMO ON RAISING PRODUCTIVITY. TIME WELL SPENT. You can keep working across multiple systems, or have total integration. IBM Business Process Integration helps you increase productivity. Even the demo that shows you how just takes three minutes. View it now at ibm.com. http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155580-1 ========================================================= November 22, 2004 ========================================================= In This Edition ========================================================= PETER COFFEE: Patents Should Meet BASIC Tests of Reason EWEEK NEWS: 1. News: Microsoft, Rivals Spar on XML 2. News: Justsystem Offers Peek at XML Management Architecture 3. News: XML Trailblazers Win Awards 4. News: GPL 3 to Take on IP, Patents 5. News: Microsoft Previews Avalon for Developers ========================================================= PETER COFFEE ========================================================= Patents Should Meet BASIC Tests of Reason Absurdly defined 'inventions' threaten scripting's ease of expression By Peter Coffee It sounded like the worst sort of sophomoric parody, worthy of the most rabidly anti-Microsoft blog, but it turned out to be the literal truth. A team of three inventors, two of whom are publicly identified as "members of the Visual Basic team," has applied (in a filing published late last week) for a U.S. patent on "A system for determining if two operands point to different locations in memory"--in short words, on the IsNot operator in "BASIC-derived" programming languages. The fundamental idea, of course, is the same as that of the eq predicate in Lisp, which determines whether two symbolic expressions evaluate to the same actual object rather than merely to objects with identical values, or the similarly semanticized == operator in Prolog. Oh, excuse me, I guess the patentable novelty is in having a single inequality operator that is the logical complement of Lisp's eq or Prolog's ==. Prolog, though, already had \==. And for that matter, C already had the != operator whose allowable operands include pairs of pointers. Read Peter Coffee's column: http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155583-1 ========================================================= EWEEK NEWS ========================================================= 1. News: Microsoft, Rivals Spar on XML The European Commission is caught in the middle of the latest standards battle between Microsoft Corp. and chief rivals IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc. This time it's over XML. http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155586-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2. News: Justsystem Offers Peek at XML Management Architecture Justsystem Corp. showed off a preview version of its upcoming platform for creating, integrating and expressing XML documents Tuesday at the XML 2004 conference here. http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155589-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3. News: XML Trailblazers Win Awards Two major contributors to the XML community were awarded for their efforts to improve and promote the technology at the XML 2004 conference here last week. http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155592-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 4. News: GPL 3 to Take on IP, Patents With a relatively hostile environment that has pitted proprietary software against open source as a backdrop, the Free Software Foundation, the steward of the GNU General Public License, is working on the first revamp to the license in 13 years. http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155595-1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 5. News: Microsoft Previews Avalon for Developers Microsoft on Friday released a new preview of the presentation subsystem of its upcoming Longhorn version of Windows. http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155598-1 ========================================================= Tech Jobs http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155601-1 ========================================================= Ziff Davis Channel Zone http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155604-1 ========================================================= DevSource http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155607-1 ========================================================= eNewsletter Information ========================================================= You are subscribed to this newsletter with the e-mail address [EMAIL PROTECTED] TO UNSUBSCRIBE, click here: http://www.eweek.com/unsubscribe_newsletter/0,4223,,00.asp?n=08&type=u&[EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your HTML/text preferences, change your e-mail address or subscribe to other eNewsletters from Ziff Davis Media, click here: http://eletters.eweek.com/zd1/cts?d=79-1417-6-7-214274-155610-1 Questions about your newsletter subscriptions? 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