Oh, I likely started on it before they did -- the initial moves in that direction were the Spark project, in the latter days of Zingdom, and the greatly-reworked CommYou (which is much closer to Wave) was designed in late '07. It's certainly parallel evolution, but I don't know when they began the project, and when it developed its conversational model. (I *suspect* it started out with the co-editing, and the conversation stuff evolved over time.)
But IMO none of it deserves to be patented. One of the complaints often leveled against Wave is, "There's nothing *new* there", and that's largely true. It misses the point, however: CommYou, and to a large degree Wave, are less about New and Different, and more about combining the ideas that were already out there correctly.
Mind, it probably *could* have been patented -- the patent regime has allowed far worse than that. But I have enough self-respect that I never tried: I sincerely don't believe that it's novel enough to deserve patent protection. So far, I believe that all of the patents that have had my name associated with them were at least based around new ideas, not just remixes.
(Now, if Google tries to assert a patent over this stuff -- well, then I start combing through my back LJ posts, to see if I can break the patent. I've occasionally contemplated doing that to Dash -- I know that I described their underlying ideas at least 8-9 years ago -- but they're a smaller and scrappier company, and I kind of would like to see them succeed...)
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Re: Question...
Date: 2009-11-06 11:39 pm (UTC)But IMO none of it deserves to be patented. One of the complaints often leveled against Wave is, "There's nothing *new* there", and that's largely true. It misses the point, however: CommYou, and to a large degree Wave, are less about New and Different, and more about combining the ideas that were already out there correctly.
Mind, it probably *could* have been patented -- the patent regime has allowed far worse than that. But I have enough self-respect that I never tried: I sincerely don't believe that it's novel enough to deserve patent protection. So far, I believe that all of the patents that have had my name associated with them were at least based around new ideas, not just remixes.
(Now, if Google tries to assert a patent over this stuff -- well, then I start combing through my back LJ posts, to see if I can break the patent. I've occasionally contemplated doing that to Dash -- I know that I described their underlying ideas at least 8-9 years ago -- but they're a smaller and scrappier company, and I kind of would like to see them succeed...)