Microsoft Delays IE's ActiveX D-Day
March 30, 2006 2 Comments
In a somewhat ironic turn of events, Microsoft is being forced to change how ActiveX works in order to avoid a software patent held by Eolas. So much for proprietary software indemnifying you from patent issues. As a heavy user of the web and a proponent of open standards, I'm really happy to see anything that decreases the use of ActiveX. It's insecure and only works in IE, but that doesn't stop people from using it for some reason. On the flip side though, this is yet another example of why software patents are bad. I'd like to think a light would go on at some companies when a system they support is used against them in a very questionable way, but from some reason I don't think that's going to happen. It should be interesting to watch on April 11th to see how the browser update really does change peoples perspectives on things. Will they start to learn why open standards are good and why software patents are bad? Very unlikely. Will they not care about the technical/legal stuff and simply seek out a solution that just works? Much more likely, which means it could be a good day for Firefox.
–jeremy
Microsoft, ActiveX, Patents, Eolas, Internet Explorer, Firefox
Jeremy's Blog 
Finally, something to (hopefully) prevent ActiveX from growing across the universe. I do hope this also means that MS will examine the rest of their stuff to see if they infringe any other copyrights. Yeah, right.
I'm just wondering when I'll actually notice the change. I do use Msft Windows at work (especially this behemouth .net/aspx code nightmare that was hacked to gether for our billing system), but hardly ever at home. When I do, I don't use IE, unless I'm getting MS updates. I guess that I'll have to mark my calander when I do actually notice it.