It finally dawned on me what OpenSearch
does. Basically you tell it about different search engines by
showing it how to query something in each, and get back an RSS
return. Then when you search for some term, say foo+bar, it
performs the search in all the engines you have configured it for.
So it's a way to group a bunch of search engines together and
command them all to look for the same thing. It is clever. It is
something that hasn't been done before, to my knowledge. That's the
good news. The bad news is that Amazon is a leading patent abuser.
So as good as this idea is, it's bad for all the rest of us, unless
they tell us that they're granting us some kind of license to use
the idea. [via Scripting
News]
I am no fan of Amazon's moves in the patent
arena. At the same time I am very confident that OpenSearch isn't
headed down this part. Virtualization isn't new or unique
(irrespective of context), and the prior art defense should be
pretty trivial.
For now, I like what OpenSearch offers, and would
continue do so as long as there is nopatent abuse associated
with this (I certainly understand Dave Winer's concern; their track
record isn't great re. this matter).
I should have an OpenSearch variant of this
dynamic
collection of Amazon and patentsrelated blog posts in the
coming days (you will see a new OpenSearch gem alongside
RSS/Atom/RDF).
BTW -
Here is the dynamic collection of all my Amazon.com posts to
date.