A Blog From Behind the Trenches

If you read the report from the W3C Patent Advisory Group (PAG) regarding Apple's patent claim against the Widgets 1.0 specification, you will not only see the reasons why the PAG does not think the patent is relevant, but it also reveals some worrying things about the way Apple handled the whole thing.

Read more...

In an article triggered by RIM's acquisition of Torch Mobile and their WebKit based browser, CNET's Matt Asay argues that Apple has too much control over WebKit. Other companies relying on WebKit for their browser will basically be slaves to Apple's release cycles, and Apple will always control where WebKit is heading and optimize it for their own products.

So what is his solution to this suggested problem?

it would be nice to see a truly open-source project--open in source, and open to outside involvement--standardize the mobile browsing experience, too

In other words, he is echoing Symbian's call for a standardized browser for all mobile phones.

Read more...

There's some potentially bad news from the open standards front.

Early last month, it became clear that Apple might be causing trouble for the W3C Widgets specification. They are unwilling to make patent 5,764,992 (W3C information), which covers automatic software upates, royalty-free if the Widgets Update specification is found to use anything covered by the patent. This basically means a lot of additional work for the Working Group at the W3C, and might slow down the process of finalizing the widgets specification.

So as a response to this situation the W3C has put together a Patent Advisory Group, meaning that several companies are forced to spend a lot of time and money trying to figure out if Apple's patent claim actually applies, and if it does, what to do about it.

With the recent rumours of Apple getting all lawsuit-happy over patents, what are they up to exactly?

For Opera's position on software patents, take a look at Opera's vision statement.