Oh yes - There will be lawsuits.

This has to be one of the more absurd (internet related) schemes for profit that I’ve heard. But it does bring me one step closer to a real life version of that scene in hackers when the feds bust into my apartment to arrest me. Or maybe a different, more lawerly, subpoena-eee version of that story. Keep reading.

Ajax is now a commonly used coding technique to load data from a server without refreshing the entire page. Over the years we’ve seen an abundance of web apps with advanced capabilities, all thanks to Ajax. Can’t think of one? Think of Gmail. Facebook. Every time you do a search on the internet somewhere and a window pops up finishing your sentence under the search bar, that’s ajax.

Ajax is what currently makes the internet turn; if all these sites had to turn off their Ajax features, their user experiences would crumble. I mean, have you ever used Gmail in HTML mode? Gross.

But did you think a patent was out on Ajax? Well, apparently some knucklehead company Eolas claims to have a patent.

And they’re suing everyone you know talk about. Amazon, Google, Adobe, Apple – everyone.

Now, I’m not saying people shouldn’t profit off of their good ideas, but there has to be a line drawn.

Ownership and the internet are not friendly ideas – the internet is a messy, cacophony of sharing; ownership is a structure against that concept.

The government, if it is to decide who owns what, should make concessions. When you own something that could be more beneficial to society if it were shared than owned, then the government should stand up and say it’s not for anyone to own. More importantly – if what you own does not make any money in-and-of-itself, it’s my opinion that you own nothing.

Ajax is a technology that everyone any coder can easily use to create a Web app; it isn’t an idea that makes money, it’s just an idea that makes my job cooler.

Eolas – Stop being dicks, and please don’t sue me.