24 Apr
1998
24 Apr
'98
2:50 p.m.
On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Zane H. Healy wrote:
If you haven't seen the news yet, I found out
thanks to http://slashdot.org
, Microsoft is pulling one of their dirtiest stunts ever in their attempt
to destroy Netscape. If anyone doesn't think Microsoft is evil this should
convince them, unless they are niave enough to think Microsoft isn't behind
this!
What makes you think the Evil Empire is behind this? Did Microsoft buy
Wang recently? If not, they'll get hit with the same suit.
The problem is, Wang is sueing them for something that
almost EVERY piece
of software available does! Netscape needs examples of software that do
the things in the patent prior to March 30th, 1983.
It sounds like the Wang patent basically covers rendering formatted
information on a terminal that was acquired via a remote connection. So,
what was the closest thing to a Web browser before 1993? GRiD fan that I
am, I vote for the 1982 GRiD/OS and remote GRiDCentral. GRiD/OS had a
form and menu based OS interface and actions were based on the file type
and extension. GRiDCentral (and the LAN-based GRiDServer) basically
distributed this menu-based filesystem over a remote connection.
-- Doug