[OT] Free software versus software idea patents

[Dan Stromberg]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 1:46 PM, Westley Martínez <anikom15 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-04-14 at 14:02 +0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 Apr 2011 19:15:05 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote:
>>
>> > 4) Assumes people aren't deliberately fiddling the figures. Yeah, that
>> > would be correct. We're in the realm of conspiracy theories here... does
>> > anyone seriously think that browser stats are THAT important that they'd
>> > go to multiple web servers with deceitful hits?
>>
>> Back in the day, not that many years ago, when it looked like Internet
>> Explorer would never dip below 90% market share and web developers coded
>> for IE quirks instead of standards as a matter of course, I used to
>> fantasize of writing a Windows virus that (apart from propagating) did
>> nothing but change the user-agent string on IE. It would have been
>> awesome to witness the consternation among web developers.
>>
>> But thanks to the EU doing what the US DOJ refused to do, and the grass-
>> roots popularity of Firefox (plus a fewer well-known even if not often
>> used browsers like Safari and Opera), and then Google's scarily efficient
>> way they can capture hearts and minds on the Internet, IE's market share
>> has been whittled away to the point that there are places in the world
>> where IE is a minority browser. A large minority, it is true, but still a
>> minority.
>>
>> Now, if only we could convince web users that having your browser execute
>> untrusted code downloaded from the Internet is not such a good idea,
>> supposed sandbox or not. What the world needs is a virus that silently
>> removes Javascript and Flash from browsers...
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Steven
>
> Web developers will always use the tool they find to be the most
> reliable, efficient, and useful, as will consumers.

You're kidding.

Web developers will usually use what they believe will reach users,
without excessive pain or embarrassment - and sometimes with.