OffTopic -- Always look on the sunny side ....

[Background: some clown named Charlie Northrup was given a US Patent that he
claims covers Web services.  This article in XML Journal gets the reactions
from various people in the XML community to Northrup's attempts to enforce
it]
http://www.sys-con.com/XML/articlenews.cfm?id=627

"BEA's Tyler Jewell as usual takes a refreshingly honest and upfront view.
... "Charlie's lawyers are going to have a devil of a time determining what
Web services even are, much less figuring out how their patent remotely
applies." 


So, I guess we have done the community a great service by trying so hard,
and failing so badly, to define "Web services" :-)