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Microsoft retracts BlueJ patent
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daniel
about 1 year ago about Microsoft
According to Slashdot, in a post over on SIGCSE, Microsoft has announced their retraction of the patent for BlueJ, the lightweight IDE for students:
“Many thanks to the members of the community that brought this to my attention – and here’s the latest. The patent application was a mistake and one that should not have happened. To fix this, Microsoft will be removing the patent application. Our sincere apologies to Michael Kölling and the BlueJ community.”
It’s hard to say if this was a legitimate mistake or if Microsoft is hastily backpedaling because of the backlash, either way, it is good to see MS do the right thing and retract this ill-advised application.
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Comments
submitted by rod (verified representative for dotherightthing.com) about 1 year ago
it may be unlike them but this is a solid move by MSFT
submitted by jbus about 1 year ago
I hate the way everyone is patting Microsoft on the back for this as if this was some gift they offered up… Microsoft had no legal legs to stand on. They would have NEVER legally obtained a patent for this and therefor had no other option by to pull the application.
Mistake or no mistake, they should have never filed for the patent to begin with. I’m marking this as a big fat ZERO.
In other news...
submitted by Veinor about 1 year ago
Microsoft promises to not kick puppies.
Big fat ZERO for this one by me as well.
Just another bit of FUD
submitted by bob_calder about 1 year ago
How many times does MS have to do a Barney Job on you before you just say “No’’ ? This isn’t a BJ but it does have some of the same hallmarks.
What about Bill’s adventure into education? He buys a defunct school in Detroit and has a budget of 10,000 a year per student while the public schools can spend only 5,000. Then everybody says, “Bill is such a smartie. He should run the world’s schools.” A monkey could do better than the public school system with that kind of advantage.
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