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Just a quick post regarding the Software Industry drama unraveling here, here and here. Quick recap: Google is upset with “patent trolls” extracting fees from Android manufacturers via Patents. This ends up costing device manufacturers, and probably ends up making more money for Microsoft than they make from their Windows Mobile 7 sales!

As someone in the Software Industry I just wanted to say this: Over my 18 years in software industry I have seen Many ideas dubbed “revolutionary” at the time. But, I have not seen a single one that I would consider patent worthy. In fact – just about every “software patent” that I heard about was borderline ridiculous. More often than not same algorithms or coding concepts have been in use for years in various companies, but likely were never disclosed in the open. Sometimes, they may have been disclosed in open-source even, yet Patent office doesn’t check there, so they grant it anyhow.

Let’s say tomorrow I think of a clever double linked-list, combining hashed keys distribution buckets concept with bloom filters, to speed things up. Heck I could sit down and write it from scratch, all from my own head, simply because it seems like a great efficient idea to organize data in memory! Boom, someone else could patent it, even a year after I write it and use it, and now my code is violating patents?!

I promised short post so let me just sum up my thoughts on this:

• Let’s abolish pure “software” related (algorithmic, code, etc) patents altogether, they just don’t make sense – much like protecting a Drink formula. (Yes, simply follow Coca-Cola’s advice and keep your source code secret, if you want to protect it).
• For other Innovation and Patents – I respect the companies right to extract value from their unique ideas. However, with our increased pace of society now, patents should step up also. I say they should be granted within a month from application and kept valid for a year or two at most.

So there – all problems solved – and no more giant corporations squabbling over source code that was (mostly) written years ago by (undoubtedly clever) developers who since moved on to write even more clever code, for someone else (who probably doesn’t try to trick patent office into patenting it).

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed above are strictly my own personal thoughts

First, this is a response to a blog post here (via Techmeme). If you are too lazy to read it, here’s an executive summary: Google is saying they will delete 2 years worth of email and all other Google Account data for 10 years old Alex (Who is naturally crying now). All because he is under 13, which they just now learned about.

This one really hit home for me – as most of you probably know, we are completely Internet family here. Really – my 7 year old has his own laptop on his play table. It’s there for many years now and he feels extremely at home with it. My other kids are not under 13, but definitely were using Google and Microsoft and other services, for many years as well.

I must be missing something – but I definitely know that Yahoo has Family accounts Specifically for children under 13. In fact, that is how our 7 year old Elijah is able to safely enjoy email! Furthermore, there are now myriad of Online Social Games Designed for Children – such as Lego Universe he enjoys immensely this summer.

If other big companies, including Disney, Nickelodeon and many others, figured out how to let Children onto their site – is Google just incompetent or lazy?

And what about Facebook? There are TONS of children on Facebook under 13, we know for sure. They aren’t safe, because Facebook has no good parental controls or mechanisms! Either way – we keep telling our son that he needs to wait until he is 13, as lying is not something we do. There are countless times he gets upset about this, if only to be able to play those fun Facebook games (by Zynga and others) he keeps seeing others enjoy. Ridiculous – even Facebook has no excuse not to have some viable Parental controls and let kids onto their site! Does Facebook and Google think they are still young “dorm” startups, with no time or budget to ‘figure it out’?

Dealing with important Real World issues like parental-controls is what being big business is all about!!! Do they want the next generation to grow up holding a grudge against these companies, for not letting them onto their sites sooner?

Adobe Flash Platform got some bad press lately, and its exclusion from iPad is a major slap in the face to Adobe by Steve Jobs himself. Even though millions of sites out there (including this one) use Flash to liven up things and provide extra interactivity, Apple is willing to leave users to stare at Big Empty Boxes on iPad, rather than add Flash support.

To be fair, I myself did a lot of Flash/Flex development and still do! I really like what ActionScript can achieve, much more so than messing with JavaScript and CSS/HTML. But, times are tough, so here is my proposal:

How about we setup an Open Source project to build Flash alternative based on Dalvik VM and some existing Android platform components. We already know that it’s very capable, and if Google is true to its mantra, they wouldn’t mind sharing! Why not reuse the great UI library and 3D API’s, and others, and bring them into the browsers on all platforms – Windows, Unix and of course, Mac and iPad/iPhone! Can’t we all just get along?! Plus with JIT for Dalvik, and potential for native hardware video acceleration on Windows/Mac/Ubuntu/Handsets, I see very bright future!

I am not ignoring Silverlight or HTML 5, I just don’t see either as viable solution. Silverlight is still proprietary and you need specific Microsoft tools to develop for it, while HTML 5 feels like a bit “future-ware” and even when materializes, it’s unclear that it can provide all the richness of visual effects, 3D support, overall speed and pixel level manipulation which we expect in this day and age.

But what about JavaFX you ask? Feels like DOA to me, sadly. I love Java, which is yet another reason why I think Android approach is great, but JavaFX is just “overweight” out the door, and many posted about other major shortcomings.

Plus true modularity is still not there with neither technology! Why are we (developers) still forcing users to go through complex installation ritual to get new software on a system? Why does it have to be a gamble, especially when installing complex applications, whether it will interfere with other applications on the system and break things?!

So, I want to see comments! I know it’s rather big project, so without some people weighing in as to it’s merit (or with offers of participation), I am not going to bother starting even. Besides, probably Googlers are already doing it, whether in their 20% or even as main task, who knows…

UPDATE: I just discovered that someone implemented Flash player in JavaScript!? I didn’t think it was possible, but it is seemingly done using HTML5 browser features in modern browsers. More details and browsers compatibility list on the Gordon project on Github.

I have been working this weekend (not enough of it, granted) on organizing and preparing our household 2009 taxes for filing. There is plenty of time before April 15th deadline in United States, but I like to have breathing room as this process always takes way longer than one expects (and hopes). I have been self-filing via software for many years now, and this year again opted for H&R Block software for Home and Business, which is newly renamed TaxCut software from prior years.

First, I am not convinced that going through this annual ritual is good for US Residents nor US Government. Accounting is getting more complex every year, and way too many “grey” areas still exist in the code. On top of this, creative return preparers often taking on “risk” in your name, because ultimately each of us is fully responsible for their Tax return.

Solution: Fairtax.org – which sounds like a great idea to me! In fact, I say bump it up to 25 or even 30% ! It simplifies accounting for all, and should provide boost to our overall GDP, IMHO.

As an alternative, I say we should introduce government mandated accounting cloud. In fact, the two solutions aren’t mutually exclusive! Such cloud will have strict requirements for reporting directly from Point-of-sale systems, inventory systems, and other software systems companies already use in-house to track their own accounting! Only this time all these systems will be unified by single standard and have specific requirements for “calling home” to the cloud within 48 hours of transaction, for example. I know everyone is afraid of “big brother” effect, but accounting anyhow ends up being reported one way or the other, and providing country-wide standard should only help keep it all fair!

I am still blogging less in a futile effort to minimize “ramblings”. But I am out there on the Web, on Twitter and now on all encompassing Google Buzz, which you should be able to subscribe to via my Google Profile page.

Lately I use multiple browser, more so than ever, in this order: Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer 64 bit.

This story unfolded literally few minutes ago, and I believe entire thing happened online within past few hours, at the most.

Some “entrepreneurial” guy registered blizzard-admin.net domain and setup a fake Login page to mimic World of Warcraft in every way possible, all in a classic phishing scheme. But, this time they took it a bit further. As I was catching up on my late night gaming, a direct message came in over from someone called “blizzrdadmin” within a Game, telling me to go to this web site to register for Rare in-game mount.

I think it took me about 2 seconds to report that account as Spammer, and from what Blizzard promised in the past, they review such complaints very seriously, often within minutes of complaining.

And here is where Google Chrome shines – I decided to still check out how clever these “phishers” were, and told my Chrome to show me the site. I was pleasantly surprised when a Warning came up, telling me to Stay Away! Excellent!

And here’s the kicker, neither Firefox nor Internet Explorer, which also contain anti-phishing technology, knew yet that this is a Phishing site! They both took me to the site…

This is just further reinforces my admiration for Chrome and I am sure I will be using it more and more as my primary browser. I don’t recall if I wrote about it before, but I also find Google Chrome under Windows 7 to be by far the fastest of browsers. I believe part of the reason is unique architecture of Chrome, as it creates separate Operating System processes for each Browser Tab or Window.

In unrelated news – I realize I haven’t been blogging much lately, apologies, and will improve!