Open Source web shopping

["Imago" <imago@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

During a meeting we were talking about open source issues .
Someone mentioned that Amazon.com was evil because they
claimed to own 'one click shopping'.  This interested me
because my auction site could use 'one click bidding', which
presently takes two or three clicks and password typing.  I
don't think EBAY has made a clain to this because they are not
using it. I don't understand how a company can claim using a
cookie is a property right. The section below caught my eye
because they used Tim O'Reilly's words about the internet.

imago

[From Por Richards's Web Site News]
   Amazon claims it cost them $1,000,000 to create their
one-click
   program. That's just plain nonsense (if it's true, someone
   needs firing for running a grossly inefficient programming
   department). But even if it were true, it doesn't mean that
   such an "invention" should be patentable. The idea is too
   obvious. It's like patenting the idea of the light bulb,
rather
   than an actual functioning light bulb. The concepts behind
   one-click and affiliate programs are pretty basic, and the
   technologies combined to create these systems are widely
used,
   and, quite frankly, basic commonplace stuff. Furthermore,
it
   seems that Amazon may not have even been the first company
to
   use such systems. CDnow, for instance, claims to be the
first
   company on the Internet to use an affiliate program, and
   another company claims that it had an application for a
patent
   on affiliate programs rejected in 1994.

   These software patents are a nuisance, a drag on e-commerce
   development, and, as Tim O'Reilly of the publishing company
   O'Reilly and Associates pointed out, they're also pretty
tacky.
   They are, he points out ...

         "a slap in the face of Tim Berners-Lee and all of the
         other pioneers who created the opportunity that
Amazon
         has done such a good job of exploiting. Amazon
wouldn't
         have existed without the generosity of people like
Tim,
         who made legitimate, far-reaching inventions, and put
         them out into the public domain for all to build
upon.
         Anyone who puts a small gloss on this fundamental
         technology, calls it proprietary, and then tries to
keep
         others from building further on it, is a thief. The
gift
         was given to all of us, and anyone who tries to make
it
         their own is stealing our patrimony."

   As a number of people have pointed out (such as Paul
   Barton-Davis, one of Amazon's first programmers -->
   http://www.op.net/~pbd/amazon-1click.html ), Amazon's very
   existence depends on a great deal of work done in the old
   Internet spirit, that of releasing one's ideas and work on
the
   Internet for free. Amazon's patent, Barton-Davis says, is a
   "cynical and ungrateful use of an extremely obvious
   technology."

   Tim O'Reilly also points out -- and I hope he's right --
that
   in the long term such patents are probably not going to be
   upheld.

   If you feel strongly about this issue, I suggest you sign
Tim's
   open letter to Amazon:

   http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/amazon_patent.comments.html

   (In just two days hundreds have signed the letter; the
   equivalent of 400 pages of names and comments.)

   More information ...

   The Amazon One-Click Patent:
   http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05960411__

   The Amazon Affiliate Program Patent:
   http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US06029141__

   Tim's column on the Amazon patents:
   http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/amazon_patent.html

   IBM's Intellectual Property Site (you can search the patent
   databases):
   http://www.patents.ibm.com/

   O'Reilly's Patent Web Site (including a list of
controversial
   software patents):
   http://www.oreillynet.com/patents/

   The Boycott Amazon site:
   http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/amazon.html#whyBoycott