Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: RIP: ActiveX controls in Internet Explorer?


From: igenge2 () csc com au
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 09:09:35 +0800

Richard M. Smith wrote:

A small company called Eolas recently won a $521 million
judgment against Microsoft for patent infringement.  The Eolas patent
covers plugins in Web pages to show multimedia content.

The $521 million payment covers past infringement.  Because Bill Gates
loathes to pay per-copy royalties, it looks like Microsoft is going to
either partially or completely remove support for ActiveX controls in
Internet Explorer rather than pay Eolas any more money.

Random prediction, pure speculation and my opinion only (nothing to do 
with my company):

Microsoft buys Eolas or the patent rights and refuses to licence the 
patent to other browser developers thus ensuring that IE is the only 
browser with active content.  As a local car ad says, "Game over!"  Let's 
hope I'm wrong.


IG

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html


Current thread: