Quotes of the Week, August 25-29

"Maybe we're too busy worrying about more cerebral matters such as creating classic cinema and writing great plays." - AstraSoft's Martin Pickering on Negroponte's allegations of 'Europe's digital homeless'.

"If you look at Netscape as a company they're a very credible marketing organisation who have had stake in the technology for some time. But we went into about 40 companies with the Channel Definition Format (CDF) and they said 'yes' . Only Netscape opposed it and took a proprietary direction with Netcaster ... they did the same thing with JavaScript." - Microsoft's Martin Gregory.

"By the very terms of the encryption regulations, the most common expressive activities of scholars -- teaching a class, publishing their ideas, speaking at conferences, or writing to colleagues over the Internet -- are subject to a prior restraint by the export controls." - Legal ruling on encryption export.

"We're trying to position it as an evolutionary release. It's not a major change to the UI or architecture. From 95 to 98 is a similar move to that between Windows 3.1 and 3.11." - Microsoft's David Weeks turns down the Win 98 hype.

"We did a lot of research with focus groups and asked people whether they wanted Windows 97, 98, or Windows 9... they wanted 98." - Weeks again, this time on naming.

"[Novell] is not for sale." - CEO Eric Schmidt on the IBM buyout rumour.

"Standards are clearly a positive force in the industry, but the fact remains that this technology is not Marimba's to give away. Dragging the W3C and the Internet community unknowingly into the middle of the dispute is a particularly inappropriate tactic." - Albion Fitzgerald, CEO of Novadigm on disputed patent rights.