FEBRUARY, 1999:  During testimony in federal court, Microsoft presents a video to show how Internet Explorer cannot be removed from Windows 98 without degrading system performance and other negative impacts.  Government attorney David Boies catches a small mistake in the video, and it is discovered that the video is actually spliced from two machines.  Microsoft’s Jim Allchin claims this was an honest mistake, that IE must be bundled into the operating system, and to remove it would hinder innovation. In the end, Microsoft wins the browser war.  (See also: NY Times)

OCTOBER, 2006:  Microsoft ships Internet Explorer 7, the first major release of a browser from Microsoft in several years.  Microsoft is no longer embroiled in competition with Netscape, and instead faces eroding market share by open-source rival Firefox.  Apparently whatever happened in 1999 which made IE so tightly coupled with the OS is now irrelevant, because this browser is no longer has unified navigation with the shell (see here), can easily be installed and uninstalled, and even runs side-by-side with IE6.

I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, but which one is it?  I guess technology has improved and now Microsoft has the technology to no longer bundle browsers.  Of course, Netscape had this technology in 1993.  On the positive side, IE7 is a huge leap forward, and its great that users can choose to either use IE6, IE7, or Firefox.  Choice is good!

If you’ve tried Vista, you’ve no doubt been hit with the onslaught of “elevation prompts” for tasks that need to run with elevated privileges.  The messages are so frequent, they almost read like this:  “You’ve clicked on the Disk Defragmenter button.  Did you really mean to click the Disk Defragmenter button?”  Uh, hello?  Vista?  You mean someone else might have clicked on it?

I really appreciate that Microsoft is trying to solve the security issues they’ve had in the past.  That part is great.  The problem is that the solution doesn’t fix the problem.  As a user, Vista inundates you with “Do you want to do XYZ” so frequently that you become completely numb to the problem.  The message descriptions are obtuse, and your choices blur together.  In the end, you conclude, “damnit, just do what I say” and click yes.  If there was a real reason for the alert, the user doesn’t know and clicked through anyway.

I’m sure the lawyers at Microsoft are happy, though.  Vista provides a credible argument that Microsoft did warn you before something bad happened.  But it’s really like reading the End-User-License-Agreement (EULA) that comes with any website or software package these days - nobody reads them.  In the end, the lawyers are protected, and the users are left with unintelligible gobbledygook that just slows them down.

What we really wanted, Microsoft, was warnings about errors.  What you gave us, was a warning about anything we do normally that might be an error.   And unfortunately, 99.9% of the time, it is not an error!  So, the prompts you’ve just displayed are basically useless (except to the lawyers).

If you aren’t planning on suing Microsoft anyway, I stumbled upon this great tip by way of Omar for how to turn the damn things off.

In the software industry, our employers sometimes ask us to patent stuff.  The usual claim is that it is for “defensive purposes” in case your company gets sued.  Of course, as loyal employees, we want our company to safe from greedy lawyers seeking bogus patent infringements, so we blindly believe, agree, and patent like mad.

This is a fallacy, of course, and all of us at the rank-and-file levels of our companies should resist patenting anything.

The problem is that eventually patents are used for offensive purposes rather than defensive purposes.  It’s just a matter of when it economically makes sense to use the patent.  Eventually, your company will struggle financially, and eventually an energetic young lawyer will come to the senior management with a solution to the shareholders’ woes -  enforcement of patents.  This has happened too many times to count.  It is the inevitability of patents.

So, if you are a technologist, don’t file software patents.  Software patents are for lawyers that like to destroy other businesses for their own personal gain.  The USPO is not capable of differentiating a worthy software patent from mathematically impossible one. Your company may try to bribe you with incentives to get you to “help”.  Your company will claim that the patents are only for “protection”.  It’s not your company’s fault.  All successful companies need lawyers, and lawyers tell them to do this.  The company always starts out with the best of intentions.  But, mark my words, if the patent proves useful monetarily, your patent will someday be used to tear apart someone else’s hard work.

Until the law changes, the only way to win is to not play.

NTP is the group which is suing Research In Motion, the makers of Blackberry wireless handhelds. They’ve won a $450 Million judgement and are threatening to “shut down” Blackberry. They did this because they hold a few key patents in the wireless messaging arena.

So who is this NTP? No doubt they are a struggling, small startup just doing their best to bring their own products to market while being bullied by the huge conglomorate RIM, right? Well, not exactly. Actually, NTP is a holding company that has no assets except for a couple of patents. They’ve never built a product and have made no indications that they ever plan to. Instead, their plan is to just sue anyone else who actually does build things.

Also in the news today is that NTP (via Visto) is now suing Good Technology. Good has been a competitor to RIM for a while. Last year, in order to make sure that Good was not hit by NTP’s legal shenanigans, Good and NTP inked a deal for Good to license the patents. Good was proactive in seeking out this arrangement. Although I don’t personally think NTP should have this patent in the first place, our legal system lets it be, and Good did the right thing by legally licensing with NTP. Keep in mind that Good is a small company doesn’t have the deep pockets that RIM does. This was an easy deal for NTP, as it lends credibility to their patent, and yet doesn’t represent nearly the magnitude of dollars that suing RIM would represent.

Nonetheless, NTP’s greed remains unquenched, and they’ve now decided to go after their licensee Good under the Visto name.

Do you remember Visto? Of course not. They are basically dead now. They are a small, Silicon Valley startup that made some semi-interesting, but not-too-revolutionary sync products for wireless devices. Unfortunately, like many startups, they found that their biggest impediment to success was running out of money.

Thanks to our vulturous legal system, however, the corpse of Visto is still sputtering. NTP and Visto just announced last month that Visto has given NTP an equity stake in the company in exchange for use of NTP’s patents. The San Jose Mercury News ran an article titled, NTP ally Visto sues Good over wireless patents. But I thought Good was NTP’s ally that had licensed their patents? I guess that was last year!

This whole case with RIM, Good, and NTP is such a travesty. RIM is building a great product - millions of people use it daily. NTP, by contrast, builds nothing of value. The man who originally filed the patents NTP now holds is already dead, and the lawyers that remain at NTP are suing only to get rich. In the meantime, the poor guys at Good are trying to play by the rules with their meager startup budget. As a payback for helping out NTP, NTP goes and partners with another Good competitor, and then sues Good.

I hope NTP loses big time.

Last week I went to an “Anti-Harassment Training Class”. I’ve been a development manager for about 8 years now, and in the software business for longer than that, but this was the first course like it I had ever taken.

Why did I have to take it now? I’ve never been accused of harassing, and it is all basic common sense.

The reason I had to take it is because I work for a company that has deep pockets. When I worked for startups, the chances of being sued were low. Lawyers just don’t take cases where their chance of collect their paycheck is low. Further, public sentiment in trial is less likely to blame a company rather than an individual at a small company.

At the big companies, however, there is going to be a harassment case eventually. And when it happens, the company will get fined with some set of punitive damages. In order to minimize those damages during the punitive phase of the trial, the company needs to prove that it did everything it could to prevent this up front, and that it wasn’t the company’s fault (which is true). So, the company trains its employees.

Optimists may think that this training is about prevention of harassment rather than minimizing damages. But I don’t believe that for a few reasons. First, there is no correlation between training and avoidance of harassment charges. Unfortunately, even smart people that should know better sometimes go over the line and harass. But secondly, the fact that it’s only large companies that implement training shows that this is really about damage control than it is about prevention. If you’ve got assets and something to protect, implement anti-harassment training. If you don’t, you don’t. Third, if it were about prevention and not damages, why do lawyers end up collecting the majority of the punitive damages? Shouldn’t the money be spent either to compensate the victim or to prevent future incidents? In reality, it does not work out that way.

In my mind, this is just one more example of the many hidden costs created by our legal system. Anti-harassment training is not necessary for creating a positive work environment, and it a complete waste of time. But companies throughout the US are forced to spend billions of dollars annually on these programs, when instead they could be building real products and real customer value. Unfortuantely, in our times, a successful company needs to constantly be watching his back just in case the lawyer comes knocking. And you know he will. It’s so well known that these will come up that the cost of lawyers is now baked into our product prices and reflects all the way back to the customer. So, companies aren’t punished when these events occur. Instead, consumers just pay more in retail prices for lower quality products.

Lawyers are “Productivity Harassers”.

Lawyers spar at Microsoft-Google hearing

You know, this is such a waste of time. How many millions do we have to waste on this stuff? This is a lose-lose situation for Microsoft and Google. Both sides should figure out how to settle this immediately. Either Google should say they just don’t need this guy (because they don’t), or Microsoft should they don’t need this guy (because they don’t) and that they don’t care if he goes to Google (because it doesn’t matter).

That’s probably the best solution - both sides agree to never hire him again.

But the lawyers are advising both sides to take this to court. They probably advise that this is somehow precident setting for future employee hires. Yeah right. The real reason is because that’s how lawyers make money.

From Overlawyered.com:

“A Suit That Makes More Cents for the Lawyers”
A check for 49 cents arrives in the mail, in settlement of a class action against Bank of America. A staff writer for the L.A. Times starts digging and finds that the lawyers who filed the suit are going to swallow half the $4.2 million settlement. As for residual unclaimed funds, they’re going to a charity, but one the parties are unwilling to name. (Doug Smith, Los Angeles Times, Apr. 11). On the Schwartz v. Citibank class action, filed by the same lawyer (Brian Strange) and involving the same issues.

Schwartz v. Citibank late fee class action
I just received a notice in the mail informing me that, as a member of the class of Citibank and AT&T Universal Card customers, I was eligible for a refund under the terms of a settlement agreement reached in a class action lawsuit. A quick internet search revealed the following (PDF, see last page):

“The Cards business agreed to create a settlement fund of $18 million, most of which will be distributed automatically to cardholders and to make a cash payment of approximately $9 million for attorneys fees and costs.”

My refund check is for $0.18. — Paul Prichard, Moodus, CT

The Grand Theft Auto game is again being accused of being the cause that led to murder. This time, the accusation is from Fayette, Alabama, and the accusor is the families of victims shot by the accused Devin Thompson. Thompson is accused of killing 3 police officers. The family members bringing the suit certainly have some tear-jerking stories. They say they want to punish the companies that made this murder happen by selling this kid a video game.

Don’t believe a word of it, this is about money.

The lawsuit is against Sony, Wal-Mart, Gamestop, and Take-Two Interactive Software (in other words, anyone who has money). If the plaintiffs really cared about changing the world and making it a better place, why are they in civil court trying to collect money? They should be petitioning for laws to change, or working to make stricter age-limit controls, or working to help parents be aware of video game violence.

But no, these people don’t really care about making the world a better place. They pretend to be “punishing” the wrongdoers. But the monetary damages which would come from this case will NOT be significant enough to punish Sony or WalMart. So its not about punishment. If its not about punishment, what is it about? Its about making a buck for the victims.

To the victims: Look, we live in a dangerous place. This event was a tragedy, there is no doubt about it. But a bad guy killed 3 men. These brave men were guys who put their lives on the line every day. And unfortunately, on this day, the bad guy got them. It sucks, and I’m sure your lives will never be the same. But taking it to civil court isn’t the answer. Spend your time trying to change the laws that made this possible. Spend your time raising parental awareness. Spend your time boycotting the companies that built this game until they change their policies. Why aren’t you doing that? Too much work? I bet there aren’t any lawyers volunteering to help with that for free. Naw, the lawyers definitely only care about the green.

The reality is that these kinds of frivolous lawsuits are already built into the cost of making a computer game today. The makers of the game knew all too well that some money grubber like this would be coming after them eventually. As such, they built it into the cost of the video game. They’ve made $2B in sales on the game, so I bet they have quite a bit of room to accomodate this lawsuit. So you aren’t punishing these companies. Instead, you are part of the system which is taxing every American consumer. We’re paying a higher cost for goods because the manufacturers know that they’re going to have to pay you off. They already had earmarked the money for you to take.

To the victims I probably sound callous and cold. But there is nothing we can do to help soothe your suffering. If you really believe in your cause, then help others by getting our laws changed. That would be progress. Instead, it looks like you are just cashing in your lottery ticket.

And to the lawyers in this case, I guess this is where you guys are playing your own version of “Grand Theft Auto”. Only, for some reason, “Grand Theft Legal” isn’t against the law. How whacked is that.

I’m still not sure if anyone likes reading my rants about our legal system, but if you do get a kick out of it, you’ll want to check out this blog as well:

http://www.overlawyered.com/

Its a great site, the authors have a great sense of humor, and you’ll like it.

Maybe this should be something we do across the board?

What I don’t understand is why these people aren’t in jail? A federal judge found that this firm of about 80 lawyers “intentionally misleads” (that’s legal talk for “lies”). Isn’t the judicial system and the American Bar association all about truth? How can our Legal system work at all without truth? Who should be held to a higher standard than our lawyers?

OK, fine, don’t send them to jail. Disbar them instead.