Why MS Office isn't free?
June 9, 2005 1:18 AM
In the early 1990s, Carlos Armando Amado, a grad student from Stanford, created an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that could import data from a Microsoft Access database. Mr. Amando approached Microsoft to license his spreadsheet.
Microsoft had already been working on such a feature, so they turned him down.
Amando applied for a patent in 1990, and eventually got it. More than decade later, he took Microsoft to court for violating his patent. The US District Court of Central California agreed and ordered Microsoft to pay Amando $8.96 million.
So the moral of the story is - patent everything you create, no matter how trite you think it might be - and then offer to license it to Microsoft. If they ever build something like it - easy money, right?
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http://www.adammessinger.com/
Posted July 5, 2005 4:31 PM
This is just one more example why patents shouldn't apply to software in the first place (that's what copyright is for).
People like Amado, and companies like SCO, are constantly trying to get rich by gaming a broken system. It's a small miracle that free / open-source software can survive in such an environment.
http://medlem.jubii.dk/loralot/antivirus
Posted November 13, 2005 7:40 PM
People like Amado, and companies like SCO, are constantly trying to get rich by gaming a broken system. It's a small miracle that free / open-source software can survive in such an environment
http://www.office-outlook.com/
Posted October 17, 2006 5:01 AM
I consider that such talented people should not suffer from firms-giants.