O'Reilly Digital Media

This story was sent to the
Perl Advocacy mailing list and I thought I’d share it with you.

The company I work for, Telescan, Inc. used to be in the business of creating financial websites for large businesses (including American Express, Citibank, Fortune Magazine, and others). We aggregated data from various sources and provided data through proprietary web servers and ASP pages. In order to increase the customizability of the look of the pages we had developed a “template” mechanism where we could wrap the content from the proprietary web servers in HTML developed by the ASP group. Most of our websites were developed by 2-3 ASP developers and 1-2 programmers on the proprietary systems. Maintenance required about half that.

Early in 1999, we got a contract with CNBC.com. They required a much more aggressive schedule with a higher degree of customization than was normal. They offered big bucks and management said, “Sure.” This left the programming staff in a very difficult position. Because of other projects, we would only have one ASP developer at first and we would have barely had time for her to generate a full set of page templates once before we had to launch. If the client wanted changes (and you knew they would), we wouldn’t have time to rebuild all of the templates more than once before launch.

In addition, we had already reached the limits in speed of what we could do with ASP includes. Naturally, the client wanted the site to be more responsive and, of course, more full-featured as well. I talked my management into allowing me to build a system that we had discussed before, but everyone had decided was not worth the time. In
about two days, I created a Perl script that worked from an XML-based description of the overall site and a small number of “skeleton” HTML files to create about 70 templates that would be used in the system. As with many other websites, the navigation and other elements could really be static, but were normally generated in on-the-fly to improve consistency across pages and reduce redundant code.

In less than a day, the ASP developer was modifying the skeleton files and building new versions of the site. A couple of days after that she was making minor tweaks to the Perl code that generated some of the more interesting components of the site (like navigation bars and such), even
though she had never programmed in Perl before that time.

In the end, we shipped the site on time in a large part due to this program. My management then had the ASP developers for others of our projects work on building the next versions of some of our web sites using this system. A year later, we had individual ASP developers maintaining 2 or more sites at a time and experimenting with new technologies in their spare time.

In early May, I was called in by one of the ASP developers on a problem she was having with yet another generation of this same script. I routinely program in several other languages for different kinds of jobs. There is no way that I could have built something like this in the time allotted if it had not been for Perl.

–G. Wade

To learn how large and small companies are using Perl to meet their goals, check out Perl Success Stories.

If you have a Perl success story of your own that you’d like to share, please let me know. You can reach me at: betsy@oreilly.com

The two biggest movies of the year have more in common than box-office records. They’re both very competent if not stellar (pardon the pun) movies, remaining true enough to their roots to attract the faithful and innocent bystanders alike. Frankly, last year’s two blockbuster movies (”Harry Potter” and “LOTR”) were both better even though they diverged substantially from the books on which they were based. But “Spider-Man” and “Attack of the Clones” deliver the goods, even if they are campy and predictable. Both feature good performances by their protagonists as young men coming of age in a complicated world.

While “Spider-Man” is definitely too scary for young sensitive kids, teenage boys will get a kick out of Kirsten Dunst as “MJ” (Mary Jane Watson) in an impossibly short waitress uniform and a gratuitously wet blouse. (It just happens to start raining when she is about to get mugged.) The scene in which she partially unmasks Peter Parker is the most obscene you’ll ever see in a family movie. Who cares if her hair looks like a wig and she can’t act!? When your movie makes $150+ million per nipple, you’re review-proof.

Like most decent movies, “Spider-Man” has a great villian. Willem Defoe’s unadulterated grimace is even spookier than the Green Goblin’s mask. Tobey Maguire is quite good in the title role and as Peter Parker; his performance is laced with teenage angst and comic grace (especially the scene as a would-be professional wrestler). J.K. Simmons steals the show as newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson. His scenes are worth the price of admission.

Speaking of admissions, I liked “Attack of the Clones” quite a bit, complete with lots of action and camp. Natalie Portman can’t act any better than Kirsten Dunst, but she’s absolutely striking on screen anyway. Padmé “Hillary” Amidala (Portman), no longer Queen but now a Senator, changes clothes faster than OJ Simpson trying to avoid a murder rap. Although it is truly comical to see her fashionable enembles change inexplicably, even while at a remote outpost, she looks so Ab Fab that no one’s complaining. And unlike OJ’s, her clothes definitely fit like a glove. Twenty years after Carrie Fischer’s gold lame bikini first gave Ross Geller wet dreams, Portman redefines activewear in the movie’s climactic battle. There’s nothing like a grisly mutant monster to shred your costume into something more comely.

Like Maguire in “Spider-Man,” Hayden Christensen handles the lead role admirably, ably portraying Anakin Skywalker’s teen lust, impatience, anger, and angst. He even manages to cook up some on-screen chemistry with Padmé despite Portman’s porcelain performance. It is a testament to Christensen’s portayal that we believe he is in love and not just a hormonal phase. Despite his valiant struggle, Portman’s backless dress is enough to lure any man to the Dark Side.

Speaking of obscene things you can do with a midget, my main complaint with the movie is that Yoda performs the same “mind over matter” trick too many times. Liam Neeson, playing a Jedi to be sacrified later, set a bad precedent by saying, “There’s always a bigger fish,” twice in “The Phantom Menace.” I can forgive Lucas for thinking no one was paying attention the first time in that snoozer, but we’ve already seen Yoda levitate an X-Wing Fighter in the past/future. No one is impressed seeing the same thing three times in three minutes; even if it’s a porn star you know it’s just a cheap camera trick. The swashbuckling Yoda is a lot of fun, however, even if in a laughable sort of way. Ewan McGregor (as Obi-Wan Kenobi) is only slightly less annoying and irrelevant than Jar Jar Binks (voiced by Bill Gates).

I’d give both movies 3.5 stars out of five. Neither are on par with “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” which was truly phenomenal, but they’re both fun escapist fare for the die-hard fan.

What is your favorite or least favorite thing about Spiderman and Attack of the Clones?

Working in the O’Reilly bookstore at the WWDC a couple of weeks ago was quite an eye-opener for me. As a product manager here at O’Reilly, I’m familiar with the Unix crowd, but I’m pretty new to Mac users. We’ve always had a Mac at home (my husband is in elementary education and that’s all they use), but at work I use a PC. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I was just a little bit out of my environment, if you know what I mean.

It was exciting to see the community building that was going on around the Mac OS X operating system. There seems to be a great passion among its users for Mac OS X — similar to the passion I’ve seen in the Perl community toward the tools that they use. In the past I’ve asked Perl users to share their stories with me, and I’ve really enjoyed passing those along. Seems to me the Mac community has a great story to tell, and I’d love to hear those and share them with others.

Mac OS X is a radical departure from previous versions of the Macintosh operating system. Not only is there a whole new look and feel, there are huge differences under the hood. What’s under the hood might not matter to users who simply want to use its slick graphical interface to run their applications or manage their files. But if you want to dig a little deeper, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

It could be that Mac OS X is the best of both worlds. If you agree, then I’d like to hear your story. Even if you don’t agree, I’d like to hear from you. You can contact me at:
betsy@oreilly.com

Feel free to post your story here or you can contact me directly.

Related link: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/23/technology/23VIDE.html

This NY Times article (registration required) shows the angst that the television broadcasters and advertisers are feeling towards DVR’s (Digital Video Recorders). We’ve heard some heart warming comments from Turner Broadcasting’s Jamie Kellner, like “There’s no Santa Claus. If you don’t watch the commercials, someone’s going to have to pay for television and it’s going to be you” and “Your contract with the network when you get the show is you’re going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn’t get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you’re actually stealing the programming.”

Between Kellner and Jack “Boston Strangler Metaphor” Valenti, you’d think that 99% of american citizens sole purpose in life is to pirate Hollywood’s goods. The truth is that consumers are accepting and adapting to innovation before media providers have their ducks in a row to take advantage of the changing market. Advertisers and broadcasters will need to change their game plan for getting their products out into the public eye, and neither party are sure just how this is going to happen.

We learn so much from the past, as we’ve seen with the madly popular “Survivor”. Win this physical challenge and get a bag of Doritos to munch on while your compatriots yearn for just one chip. Product placement was key for advertisers in the early years of television, and over the past decade more and more movies are slipping them in without distraction to the audience.

DVR’s are a boon to consumers, no more channel surfing trying to find something good enough to watch, and they can choose to view their favorite programs at their convenience. Because DVR’s are hooked up to either a phone or broadband connection, we’ll one day see users surfing the net one minute, and watching their favorite TV show the next, no longer dependent on any broadcasters schedule.

Because the internet comes into play with DVR’s,
advertisers should be content as well. Imagine a day when you’re watching “Friends” and you admire the dress that Jennifer Aniston is wearing. If metadata were embedded in each show, then all one would have to do is set up a system where the viewer could purchase said dress by a click of the remote without taking more than one minute away from the program.

There is an abundance of opportunity coming with the acceptance of digital media/DVR’s/MP3’s, all dependent on when old school Hollywood decides that in order to escape extinction, they’ll need to evolve. Start your office pool now.

Do you think DVR’s should be outlawed, or should advertisers/broadcasters be looking to change their ways?

Do you have a Perl success story that you’d like to share? What I’m trying to do is to promote the use of, and add legitimacy to, Perl. Publishing user testimonials is an excellent way to do this. If you want to send me your story, it would be great if you could include some of the following:

*Some background: Any information you think is particularly interesting about your company, its business and your role in it.

*A rough idea of how many users your Perl applications serve.

*The history of your use of Perl, whether you used it from the start or switched from another language.

*Some characteristics of Perl that make it right for your needs (why did you finally choose Perl, were there concerns about it being open source vs. proprietary, etc.)

*The name and function of a particular Perl application you use or have developed.

*Last but not least, some glowing comments on how much time/money/pain Perl has saved you.

If you think you might be interested in participating in this project, please let me know. I can be reached at: betsy@oreilly.com

For other examples of Perl success stories, check out: Perl Success Stories.

You can email me or post directly in the comments section.

Related link: http://www.bannister.org/software/emu.htm

Clearly there is a strong market need for emulators : )

Big news for the future of webcasting: based upon the Recommendation of the Register of Copyrights (Marybeth Peters), the Librarian of Congress (James H. Billington) has issued an Order rejecting the Panel’s determination proposing rates and terms for webcasters.

The Librarian of Congress now has 30 days to issue his final determination (June 20, 2002).

The details below were excerpted from “U.S. Copyright Office NewsNet Issue 161″
newsletter:

Librarian of Congress Rejects CARP Determination on
Webcasting Rates and Terms

The Librarian of Congress has rejected the
determination of the Copyight Arbitration Royalty Panel
(CARP) recommending rates and terms for the statutory
license for eligible nonsubscription services to
perform sound recordings publicly by means of digital
audio transmissions (”webcasting”) under 17 U.S.C. §114
and to make ephemeral recordings of sound recordings
for use under the statutory license set forth in
17 U.S.C. §112. The Librarian’s final determination on
rates and terms will be due on June 20, 2002.

The text of the Librarian’s Order may be
found on the Copyright Office website at:

http://www.copyright.gov/carp/webcasting_rates-new.html.

Resources

• Order from the Librarian of Congress/Recommendation from the Register of Copyrights
  (http://www.copyright.gov/carp/webcasting-rates-order.html)

• U.S. Copyright Office NewsNet
  (http://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/subchange.html)

• U.S. Copyright Office Announcement of the rejection
  
  (http://www.copyright.gov/carp/webcasting_rates-new.html)

Could this mean that independent webcasters might have a chance to at least be a part of this process?

This story came from Jay Lawrence, writing in to the mod_perl mailing list.

TERMIUMplus is a trilingual application that allows translators and terminologists to search a collection of 1.5 million entries in English, French and Spanish. The system is freely available to any employee of the Canadian Federal government as well as by subscription to individuals and organizations outside. The terms and the user interface are both trilingual.

mod_perl plays an integral role in the success of this system. Because the server experiences significant amounts of traffic during the middle of the day efficient request handling is of paramount concern. It is not uncommon to be servicing over 100 concurrent requests at 2pm. Not only does the system perform very well but it is also very stable. I don’t think our httpd’s have ever crashed - and almost all requests are in the sub-second response range.

If great performance and stability were not enough - mod_perl (Perl) - has allowed us to provide a very easy to use and enjoyable interface to our database servers. The servers are actually on NT running a proprietary database software package. The database software is very good at performing both full text and exact term searches of the term data. However, the software interface to the database engines is weak and unusable at best. By using Perl to talk to the database server’s HTTP interface we were able to extract the desired results data and then use Perl’s power to reformat the results into something pleasing and tailored to the user’s preferences. Because each record has over 100 fields and each field can have a number of sub components - I don’t think the job would be doable in any other language than Perl! In addition to reformatting the output of the database we also employ some processing of search terms. This processing is unique to our data collection but helps increase recall by eliminating stopwords such as “a”, “an”, “le”, “les”, etc.

In addition to the fancy user interface TERMIUMplus also offers a server-to-server term translation service. This allows other search engines to offer on-the-fly term translation as part of their service. An excellent feature when dealing with a bi- or tri-lingual document corpus. You are welcome to see this yourself by visiting the Strategis search site.

Check on Bilingual search and try a word such as “turbofan”. As a note, I am not aware of what software the Strategis search system was built with.

The entire system runs on a dual processor Sun 250 with 2GB of RAM for the front end of the request processing (we discovered how important lots of RAM is for this level of concurrent user activity). For the database queries we have 2 quad Xeon NT boxes which we divide between Extranet and Internet traffic. We will be replacing the Sun 250 with a quad processor Sun 450 with 8GB of RAM.

In addition to mod_perl we use MySQL as our user sessions
database and intend to start replacing many functions of our
proprietary backend database with functions developed using
mod_perl and MySQL. Linux is our front-line development system and CVS is our versioning management system. We use CVS to then move our work on to a Sun staging system for pre-release testing and then finally rsync to push final code on to production servers. All of our code runs as well on Linux as it does on Solaris - with no modifications other than compile time options for the major packages of the application.

I feel that using mod_perl to build TERMIUMplus has allowed for the construction of a high quality service which is capable of handling a significant user load. It is very rare (never?) that we have experienced any major problems with the Apache, mod_perl, and Perl portion of our system. Most of our operational difficulties are coming from our vendor supplied software at the database backend where daily server problems are experienced.

Software costs aside, I wouldn’t build this application using anything but mod_perl, Apache and MySQL!

–Jay Lawrence

To learn how large and small companies are using Perl to meet their goals, check out Perl Success Stories.

If you have a Perl success story of your own that you’d like to share, please let me know. You can reach me at: betsy@oreilly.com

Schuyler Erle quotes with approval David “Gumby” Henkel-Wallace’s assertion at O’Reilly’s E-Tech con that, “Copyright is dead. It may take ten or thirty years to die, but it’s dead.” Schuyler adds: “Would someone please notify the RIAA?”

Gumby went on to describe a “post-copyright world,” which he sees as a return to the age of patronage. For instance, Budweiser or Nike would sponsor artists to create works (read, ads) that they would want freely distributed. In this so-called utopia, information is once again free and there are no constraints on the copying and sharing of these bytes.

But this is the worst possible future. To my mind, we don’t want a world in which you can’t make money by making art or movies or music unless you’re creating advertising! Copyright exists to protect the creators of stuff, to encourage them to invest their money and creativity, to find an audience (marketing), and to sell product.

We usually think about protecting the lone artist, but of course very large industries have grown up around these “creatives.” Movies get made not only because an auteur has a vision, but also because movie studios put up millions of dollars to pay for the salaries, production costs and marketing dollars required to bring a movie to an audience. Does anyone really think that movies would get made without the protection of copyright? Sure, some shoestring-budget independent films would still get made, but is that the only kind of movie that should be available? Copyright protects diversity, because it promises that whatever kind of work you’re creating, you have the right to find an audience and make a sale (or give it away if you want).

What we are saying is that at after some number of years, it is good public policy for creations to enter the public domain. The Founders said this “limited” term was 14 years, with an option to renew copyright for another 14 years. Over the last 40 years, Congress has extended the term of copyright 11 times, so it now stands as life of the author plus 70 years, as specified in the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, passed in 1998. The previous law put it life plus 50 for individuals and 75 years from the date of creation for “corporate” creations. Sonny Bono adds 20 years to both protections.

Mickey Mouse was created in 1928. Under the old law, Mickey would enter the public domain in 2004. Now its 2024. Call Sonny Bono the Disney Protection Act. Assuming that copyright isn’t extended once (or twice) again, Mickey will have been protected for 96 years.

As Prof. Lessig pointed out at the E-TechCon, some 4 million works are created each year, only 50,000 of which have any value. The others simply don’t have an audience or were never intended for sale; they could all enter the PD without harming the creator or anyone else. For the benefit of Mickey and other works of great value, all of these other works are held hostage.

Now there is a chance that Sonny Bono may be overturned. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Eldred v. Ashcroft, a suit that directly challenges Sonny Bono on the purest possible grounds. The language of the Founders is that copyright is granted for a “limited” term:”The Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts . . . by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries.” Prof. Lawrence Lessig will argue the case in the Supreme Court this fall and a decision is expected the following spring. In the lower court’s decision, the plaintiffs lost on three arguments. This go-round they will focus on the “limited term” argument, which was expressed well by the dissenting justice in that decision: The Copyright Clause “is not an open grant of power to secure exclusive rights. It is a grant of power to promote progress. The means by which that power is to be exercised is certainly the granting of exclusive rights — not an elastic and open-ended use of that means, but only a securing for limited times.” Lessig and Eldred are hoping that the Supremes will subscribe to this argument and not to the majority’s opinion that Congress has pretty much unfettered rights to alter copyright law. The fact that the Court has taken the case is promising, since it’s unlikely they would have taken it only to agree with the lower court. I expect a 5-4 decision, though no one could say which side the 5 will be with.

This case is the best hope, perhaps the last best hope, for putting the brakes on the perpetual extension of copyright. It is manifestly self-defeating to say that “copyright is dead” or that the law of the land or court decisions are irrelevant. What we want is balance: protection with limits, just like the Founders.

or am I wrong?

At the Emerging Tech conference, Tim O’Reilly announced that O’Reilly & Assoc. would adopt the Founders’ Copyright of 14 years (with the proviso of authors’ agreement). Under current law, copyright is lifetime of the author plus 70 years.

why is this a good thing?

During last week’s O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference,
Marc Stiegler introduced his E Development platform for creating “capability confined applications,” demonstrating a capabilities-secure desktop, browser, and even a distributed filelsharing system.

Marc made a great case for capability confined applications across distributed systems that allow you to interoperate powerfully with others while only granting them limited authority.

He held up his wallet. “When you go to the liquor store, do you hand the cashier your wallet, and ask him to take out what it costs?”

The audience chuckled, and then grew progressively quieter as Marc demonstrated how even applications as simple as Microsoft’s Notepad are allowed to have far more access to a user’s system than anyone would ever reasonably allow, were they actually ever given the chance to grant the program permissions.

You can download the binaries or read more about it in the paper:
The E Language in a Walnut.

Resources

• The E Development Platform: Exploiting Virus-Ridden Software
  
  (http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2002/view/e_sess/2223)

• Combex, Inc.
  (http://www.combex.com)

• 
  The E Language in a Walnut
  (http://www.skyhunter.com/marcs/ewalnut.html)

• E-Lib InterObject Semantics
  (http://www.erights.org/)

• Download E by Platforms and Versions
  (http://www.erights.org/download/0-8-17/index.html#platforms)

Do you think “capability secure” browsers and desktops are overkill? or a necessity?

Just when you thought patents couldn’t get any more absurd, there seems to be a new trend of “social method patents”. Can ‘innovative, non-obvious’ social instruments and constructs really be given intellectual property protection?

Many seemingly obvious activities and methods have been able to be patented when they are linked with PC hardware or a “computing apparatus”, such as this leadership effectiveness measurement patent. However, if you’ve kept up with the swing patent (not a joke) then you are already aware that simple techniques can be linked with a physical apparatus of some kind and be patented.

An example of a social method patent is the “method for single threaded conversations in a group”. Anyone who has heard “let’s go around the circle and introduce ourselves” has experienced this phenomenon. Well, apparently, to the ‘inventors’ of this Social Method Patent, merely attaching this system to physical hardware will give them the construct they need to seek intellectual property protection for their approach,

How these new licenses are going to be enforced is unknown. For instance, if your support group “accidentally” infringes on such a patent, how would they know? Are they immune if they are a non-profit?

In light of these new approaches, I’m sorry to announce that I will soon be announcing fees for the licensing my “method of social communication through online journal entries”. I figure, instead of charging the software developers (only a few), it’s more effective to charge the weblogger’s directly… kind of like they’re trying to do with MPEG-4 .

As I wrote in an earlier blog entry, the Adobe victory in a lawsuit earlier this week was a non-event. On May 10,2002, Macromedia won its countersuit against Adobe.

Macromedia was awarded $4.9M in damages, more than the $2.8M Adobe was awarded earlier in the week. The two companies will now work out a cross-licensing deal and everyone will stay on their side of the masking tape dividing the couch.

So who’s the bad-guy in all this? It depends. If you believe that software patents are evil, you could say that Adobe is the bad guy for crying foul when Macromedia imitated their interface. If you believe software patents are good, then there is no good-guy or bad-guy, although Rob Burgess (Macromedia’s CEO) would have you believe the customers lost (they didn’t).

Point is, software patents are usually used defensively, not to stifle innovation but to prevent your own innovation from being stifled. IOW, if I infringe on your patent, it is okay as long as I have a patent portfolio with which to play the game. If I don’t have a patent portfolio, I’m probably underneath the radar of companies like Adobe and Macromedia, as long as I don’t get too uppity.

So without debating the good/evil of software patents, the system continues to approximate a sane if not rational world. The lawsuit had no impact beyond enriching some lawyers. I told you so.

Related link: http://www.hybit.com/jriskin/osx_tips/

Nice article on how to speed up OS X, and add some favorite GUI features as well.

Apple is suing Sorensen to prevent Sorensen’s video technology from being used in Macromedia’s Flash Player. Is this is big deal? Yes and no. There is a lot more to Flash than video, but video support is a feature that many developers are excited about.

Because the Flash Player incorporates Sorensen video playback technology, Flash users can view video without QuickTime installed. This has to annoy Apple, as they thought they had an exclusive deal with Sorensen.

Even if Macromedia isn’t party to the suit, if they are enjoined from supporting Sorensen video in the Flash Player, one of their high profile features will have to be dropped or reengineered.

Macromedia often updates the Flash Player, and deploying a new player is largely transparent to users. But it would be impossible for Macromedia to “recall” existing plugins. While sites can encourage site visitors to upgrade their plugin, they can’t force them to. All Macromedia can do is upload the desired plugin to their site and wait for users to download it.

If Sorensen loses the case, this will have much more impact on Flash than Adobe’s unrelated patent suit against Macromedia, which my earlier blog entry concludes is a non-event.

Do you plan on using Flash MX’s video feature?

Adobe won its patent infringement suit against Macromedia and was awarded $2.8M in damages. Adobe claimed that Macromedia products infringed U.S. Patent No. 5,546,528. That patent covers Adobe’s method of combining multiple floating palettes into a single tabbed windoid. See the Adobe Press Release.

Macromedia disputes the jury’s finding and has filed a countersuit, to be heard shortly.

Macromedia may be enjoined from shipping Flash MX and other Macromedia products, such as Dreamweaver and Fireworks, that use the same tabbed palettes. This lawuit was filed in 2000, and there were threats of a lawsuit from Adobe prior to that, so it predates the MX family of product significantly.Adobe’s LiveMotion authoring tool doesn’t seriously challenge Macromedia’s Flash, but the original suit was intended to prevent Fireworks from imitating Photoshop. When Macromedia started touting its “industry standard UI” in 2000, Adobe cried foul. I’ve examined the patent and the applications in question, and Macromedia’s applications, such as Flash 5, clearly infringe on the Adobe patent. If Macromedia couldn’t find prior art or another reason to invalidate the patent, the jury’s conclusion seems reasonable to me.

Regardless, Macromedia could simply recompile Flash to disable this feature in the authoring tool. The lawsuit or patent do not affect the Flash Player browser plugin.

Is this a meaningful blow to Macromedia? I doubt it. If they ship the Flash authoring tool without tabbed palettes, users can still open and close palettes individually, it just takes a little more screen area. In fact, the Macromedia MX interface (used in Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX, and Fireworks MX) uses a somewhat different paradigm to show/hide multiple palettes than did Flash 5, Dreamweaver 4, and Fireworks 4. So the issue may be moot, except for the small damage award.

Macromedia still has their countersuit and may use other tactics to bring Adobe to the bargaining table (in the past, it has been Macromedia that has refused to negotiate).

Macromedia may have to pay a small judgement, and at worst, recall some products from the channel and replace them with a slightly modified version that doesn’t infringe. But Macromedia isn’t stupid. They’ll settle with Adobe, if necessary, at a cost that won’t significantly affect their bottom line. I haven’t studied their financials, and I don’t know if they have insurance or an existing set-aside for cases like this. Macromedia says there will be no material impact on their financial outlook. I rarely believe what Macromedia says about their financials, but I agree with them on this one.

Bottom line: This is a non-event. The Macromedia MX product family will not be measurably affected.

The Apple suit against Sorensen over Flash MX’s video feature is much more relevant.