Microsoft Patents 'IsNot'

[Lenard Lindstrom]

Skip Montanaro <skip at pobox.com> writes:

> My guess is Microsoft hopes to discourage Visual Basic knock-offs.  Claim 2
> clearly seems to restrict the scope to BASIC.
> 
No, Claim-2 refers to a "BASIC-derived programming language". Description 42
claims "BORLAND DELPHI" is such a "BASIC-like or BASIC-derived language". Now I
have not used Delphi but understand it is a kind of Pascal. It looks like
Microsoft is casting a wide net indeed. Is it wide enough to ensnare Python?

We all know Python is not Basic, though it fills a similar niche. But let me
indulge my paranoia for a moment. Could the Python Software Foundation weather
a lawsuit from a large company, even if the lawsuit was unfounded? A small
change like removing 'is not' from the language would still be a significant
inconvenience. And hey, maybe IronPython would remain unaffected, making
it more backward compatible than CPython. But enough with being the
conspiracy guy.

Actually I believe Microsoft is just trying to keep Visual Basic distinct
from potential competitors.

Lenard Lindstrom
<len-l at telus.net>