221–230 of 393 posts
I always wonder: Wouldn't it be much cheaper to just spend a few billions to buy some new patent legislation from congress?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://mediacenter.motorola.com/Press-Releases/Motorola-Mobi... http://www.unwiredview.com/2011/08/01/did-motorola-just-hint... ~24,500 (~17000 Granted and ~7000 Pending)
That number of patents is "proof" that the patent system is broken. I have nothing against patents, but they need to describe actual innovations. I have problems believing they had 24500 real innovations. If a company can produce 24500 patents, then most are not what I think of as innovations but just a result of standard engineering work.
What's the worst case scenario vis-a-vis Android openness and competitiveness? Google can't take back the code it's already released other than the non-open source apps like Google Mail. But it can stop releasing new code. HTC et al are making too much money from Android, I doubt they'd stop investing in the platform, resulting in slow platform divergence a la Unix in the 80s and 90s. 3.2 hasn't been fully released t…
> The first litmus test will be the release of Honeycomb. You mean Ice Cream Sandwich? Google has made it clear that they won't be making a Honeycomb source drop. Instead, ICS would contain the 'converged' codebase from their phone (Gingerbread) and tablet (Honeycomb) trees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To add: a) there will be at least 1 company focused on android which will be protected with the cloth that is Google's legal team. b) Google can make Motorola better c) Google can make hardware to go with their software. d) Google can finally make Motorola phones running android open. e) We can finally see what it means for a hardware company to exist with a motto: "Don't be Evil". Sure Google is not perfect, but all…
Sure Google is not perfect, but all other companies have the motto: "Money first, morals second." You're kidding, right? By law, this is the modus operandi of any publicly-traded company. If you think any different, you've simply fallen for their rhetoric.
Fiduciary duty is an abstract concept that basically means a duty of trust. If shareholders are told that profits are secondary, you don't violate trust by not putting them first.
Interestingly, this means the only manufacturer-neutral smartphone OS is now Windows Phone 7. iOS is on Apple, Android is on Motorola/Google, Blackberry on RIM, and webOS on HP/Palm. I wonder if this means we'll see an increase in WP7-based phones from HTC, Samsung, and LG...
Android is platform neutral in a way no other can aspire to: it's open-source. What Google did was to gain access to Motorola Mobility's patent portfolio in order to defend HTC and Samsung from Apple and Microsoft. Google will own the company, but it will not become Google Mobility - it'll continue to exist as a separate entity. They will probably manufacture the reference implementations. In order to reassure other…
Additionally, vanilla Android on a consumer device is fairly rare. Most are molested with Sense or BLUR or whatever tragic "vendor-added experience" Samsung inflicts. So in reality, most consumer Android phones aren't really that open source at all, holistically.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? I see this bandied about as truth, especially by Linux fans and the anti-MS folk, but he was given charge of a sinking ship and is trying to do the best for the company. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b42320567...
> trying to do the best for the company. By adopting the mobile OS nobody wants? By burying the one that was actually good (and whose kernel could power an Android device easily)?
You're dissing an OS that's not even out for a full year, and has MORE customer satisfaction than Android phones.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/wp7-ahead-of-android-and-...
How is that something that nobody wants?
>By burying the one that was actually good (and whose kernel could power an Android device easily)
Did you even read the article I linked?
Meego/Maemo was not ready on time. Even though the N9 may look okay, there's a lot of things missing that will make it very hard for Nokia to push the OS to devs etc. and have it on enough devices to make a difference in Eurasia.
And what advantage will having a kernel that could power an Android device do? It's not as if Android's kernel sucks or something. It's Linux underneath too. I don't get your point. Also, Google told them to take a hike during Nokia's discussions about switching to Android.
Anyway what happened to WebOS? It's a decent OS built on Linux but there's no uptake because of lack of a ecosystem and people wondering if it will be around in a few years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Also, "open" in name only. "open" as in: $ repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git
unless you want the latest version...
This is a continual gripe in the Android developer/hacker community. Has all of the Android 3.0/3.2 source finally been posted to android.git.kernel.org? Ice Cream Sandwich?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but Larry said in the call that Moto will have to bid to become the halo device each year on an equal footing
"My son is going to have to bid to get the contract to build the new city building, just like anybody else. He will be on equal footing." I won't believe it until I see a regular pattern of Moto not getting picked. That goes against too much human nature.
Google's more likely to throw Motorola under the bus to advance Android than vice versa. Having Android on 80% of all devices is worth it.
Seems odd that nobody is mentioning spectrum ownership. Maybe now we could start to see some areas with open/free access to high-bandwidth wireless data networks.
MM holds spectrum?
I guess things are unclear at best, but there is enough content to keep me curious about the possibilities.