Submitted by “With the permission of IBM, the Computer History Museum is pleased to make available the source code to the 1969-1972 ‘XM6’ version of APL for the System/360 for non-commercial use.” This is great: we need to make sure material like this is preserved. We can learn from it.
And hopefully we can even find some techniques that qualify as prior art to subvert some patent trolls.
But then again, patent system is going from first-to-invent towards first-to-file, so it may not do that much good.
First-to-file doesn’t negate the idea of prior art.
To clarify, what it basically means is…
First-to-invent means, if five people invent the same thing within a year, and they all file the patent, the first to invent gets the patent. (Others may initially get it, and then it gets invalidated due to the earlier invention existing, and eventually the first to invent gets it.)
First-to-file means, if five people invent the same thing within a year, it depends on who files first. If the first to invent was the first to file, they get it. If a later inventor files first, then they may initially get it, and then their patent gets invalidated due to the earlier invention existing. Nobody gets the patent, the idea is in the public domain.
(That said, a better revocation method for patents would be useful.)
This has always been the case in Australia.
Just as a minor point, programming languages don’t have source code. It’s the interpreters and/or development environments that do.
Just sayin’
Edited 2012-10-12 17:03 UTC
Or if you’re using a real language; a compiler.
Nah, if you’re using a real language you’d be using an assembler.
Well, I thought I’d download the source, just to poke around, but their “Agree” link goes nowhere. Hopefully they’ll fix this soon.
I’m amazed Apple didn’t sue the authors of the APL programming language yet [end of joke].
Now, seriously, not so much ago Apple sued and destroyed webstore which sells groceries, based in Poland. Why, you may ask? well, the name of this store was “A”. Nothing weird, huh? Well, the rest of the “name” – as the Apple lawyers thought – was the polish domain, which is “pl”, so all in all the name goes as follow: a.pl.
Oddly enough they managed to destroy this innocent business with their rediculous claims. Shame on you all, Apple, Apple workers, lawyers, american law system and americans! SHAME.ON.YOU. This name was not even corelated with Apple in ANY way.
First off I’d like to say I don’t agree with Apple on this.
But… the suit isn’t about the domain name a.pl, it’s about a logo on fresh24.pl, which is owned by a.pl. Nor has a.pl (or fresh24.pl) been “destroyed”.
The worse that can happen is that they need another logo, but since this logo looks more like an apple than an Apple and they don’t sell tech I doubt they’ll lose.
Maybe it’s just me but I don’t see a logo there that is even remotely like the Apple logo.
Rumor has it it was their old logo, but even that can’t be confused with Apple’s.
Even so I doubt anyone goes on-line to buy an iMac and ends up with a box of oranges.
Well, that’s not quite true. A.pl may have some problems related to their own business, but this lawsuit didn’t help them a bit.
Besides – the problem remains. Is that even remotely similar to the original Apple logo?
http://fresh24.pl/Images/logo.png
And – is “A.pl” even remotely similar to Apple?
No and no. There’s something deeply wrong with US law which allows such claims.
What I said is true. They didn’t get destroyed and the suite isn’t with regard to a.pl.
The logo does look a bit like the Apple logo, but not to such a level that it would be confusing, even more so because they are two totally kinds of businesses: fruit vs tech.
But….a.pl does not do business in the U.S, does it
I’m pretty sure the U.S has no jurisdiction in Poland.
We know that, not sure the U.S. does.
Leave it to OSAlert to turn an article about an obsolete programming language into a discussion about how evil Apple and the US are…
(Never heard of it != obsolete) = (!Mainstream != obsolete)