Using of parse tree externally

[Dupont, Michael]

Hello 
All,
 
I have just read an 
interesting article about Intentional Programming in the German computer 
magazine IX.
It has relevance to 
this discussion in a number of ways.
 
They 
(Microsoft) are talking about taking the AST 
of a program after the parsing and before the code generation, and 

storing it as a 
graph in a database. Of course the editing of a program is also very 
visual.
 
This can be done 
by indexing and storing the XML of the gcc external 
representation.
 
This will have a 
number of "Reductions" and "Enzymes" which can transform the tree to one more 
fit for compiling.
This could be done 
with XLST or JADE or even just Perl with DOM transformations on the 
tree.
 
Then a code 
generator will spit it out as object code.
This could be done 
by rereading the AST and converting it to RTL.
 
Of course there is a 
very visual editor for displaying these graphs in a Microsoft 
Style,
Emacs springs to 
mind......
 
This is all very 
nice, and good, but it is covered by *four* patents by the very intelligent Mr. 
Simonyi in the name of Microsoft.
 
My 
questions are : 
Do the Microsoft 
patents prevent the use of the GCC ASTS in a similar way?
Could GNU produce a 
similar free product?
Who would be sued by 
Microsoft if so?
Does anyone 
care?
 
Here is the 
Microsoft home page for IP :
http://www.research.microsoft.com/ip/
 
Here are links to 
the patent office  :

Part 
1:
http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=ft00&S1='Intentional+Programming'&OS="Intentional+Programming"&RS="Intentional+Programming "
 
Part 2: 

http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=2&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=ft00&S1='Intentional+Programming'&OS="Intentional+Programming"&RS="Intentional+Programming "
 
Part 
3:
http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=3&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=ft00&S1='Intentional+Programming'&OS="Intentional+Programming"&RS="Intentional+Programming "
 
Part 4 
:
http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=/netahtml/search-adv.htm&r=4&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=ft00&S1='Intentional+Programming'&OS="Intentional+Programming"&RS="Intentional+Programming "
 
 
Mike