Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 51 posts

Re: Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

#21

Post by babebridou »

barrkel wrote: post #16
babebridou wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just false. Just to clear things up: - a state with lower-case S is a subdivision of a Federal Country. - a State with upper-case S is a synonym of Country. - All members of the EU are States/Countries. Some of these countries are Federal (Germany for instance) and are subdivised into states (Länder in the case of Germany). - Some States of the EU include multiple Nations. UK is one of these. Scotland is neit…

That's an amusing taxonomy, but don't fool yourself into thinking this stuff can be so precisely and unambiguously delineated. There's a continuum between a province with some autonomy to fully-fledged independent nation state, and the application of various English words to refer to particular entities that lie in different places on the continuum is governed primarily by history and culture, not by legal and politi…

I was merely trying to disambiguate the notion of state (as in United States of America) and the notion of State (as in Member State of the European Union), but you're right in putting a big warning sign on my taxonomy, since it's easily the kind of things that could (and actually has) lead to wars.

Oh and good thing my terms are German-centric, since I'm French. We don't even have the notion of state here in our civic system (but we do have tons of others of course).

Re: Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

#22

Post by cezar_sl »

mrich wrote: post #6
CaveTech wrote: post #2

Pretty big piece of FUD here. Title is "secures Europe-wide sales ban", yet the article is littered with bits like "could be barred from sale" and "whether Germany can enforce a Europe-wide ban on 3G-enabled iOS devices is unclear".

It's a substantial win for sure. Of course it is unlikely that Motorola will try to enforce the ban, but it gives them an excellent bargaining position.

Agreed. This will turn out to be just about money, not principle or, you know, what the consumer wants.

Re: Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

#23

Post by jarofgreen »

This is brilliant - but not because I hate Apple or have anything against someone choosing to use Apple, even tho I don't myself.

But hopefully a ban on such a popular product (right before Christmas to) will bring software patents and all the issues around them fully into the public attention and debate.

In the past it's been really hard to explain to non-geeks why they should care about such issues ...

Or am I being optimistic in hoping it would be reasonable debate and not just an "Evil Motorola/Google!" hate fest?

Re: Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

#24

Post by krzyk »

sipefree wrote: post #18
zachgreen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he was simply implying that Germany doesn't control the rest of the countries in Europe like the US government controls its states.

They don't control the rest of Europe (though right now with the Euro situation they probably just about do), however there are provisions for legal precedent in one Member State to apply in every. I have no idea how it works and when it applies, though. It's definitely not so direct as in the U.S.

Courts in Europe are not precedence-based. At least not in all countries. Here (Poland) there is no such thing as precedence in courts, not to mention basing a verdict on precedence in foreign court.

Re: Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

#25

Post by anonmouse »

jarofgreen wrote: post #23

This is brilliant - but not because I hate Apple or have anything against someone choosing to use Apple, even tho I don't myself. But hopefully a ban on such a popular product (right before Christmas to) will bring software patents and all the issues around them fully into the public attention and debate. In the past it's been really hard to explain to non-geeks why they should care about such issues ... Or am I bein…

I downvoted you. Here's why: It's hard to take anyone seriously when they misspell "though" "tho". You may have made a good point, but I didn't read past your first sentence. I'm not trying to be a dick about it-- and I hate to clog up the comments section with a garbage comment like this one-- but you would really be doing yourself a favor to use somewhat correct spelling and grammar. It really sucks when people ignore what you have to say, not because of the message, but because of the delivery.

Re: Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

#26

Post by johnbatch »

anonmouse wrote: post #25
jarofgreen wrote: post #23

This is brilliant - but not because I hate Apple or have anything against someone choosing to use Apple, even tho I don't myself. But hopefully a ban on such a popular product (right before Christmas to) will bring software patents and all the issues around them fully into the public attention and debate. In the past it's been really hard to explain to non-geeks why they should care about such issues ... Or am I bein…

I downvoted you. Here's why: It's hard to take anyone seriously when they misspell "though" "tho". You may have made a good point, but I didn't read past your first sentence. I'm not trying to be a dick about it-- and I hate to clog up the comments section with a garbage comment like this one-- but you would really be doing yourself a favor to use somewhat correct spelling and grammar. It really sucks when people ign…

"Tho" is in the dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tho

Re: Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

#27

Post by edu »

anonmouse wrote: post #25
jarofgreen wrote: post #23

This is brilliant - but not because I hate Apple or have anything against someone choosing to use Apple, even tho I don't myself. But hopefully a ban on such a popular product (right before Christmas to) will bring software patents and all the issues around them fully into the public attention and debate. In the past it's been really hard to explain to non-geeks why they should care about such issues ... Or am I bein…

I downvoted you. Here's why: It's hard to take anyone seriously when they misspell "though" "tho". You may have made a good point, but I didn't read past your first sentence. I'm not trying to be a dick about it-- and I hate to clog up the comments section with a garbage comment like this one-- but you would really be doing yourself a favor to use somewhat correct spelling and grammar. It really sucks when people ign…

And I down-voted you for an ad-hominen, and for not checking your dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tho

Re: Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

#28

Post by urbanautomaton »

anonmouse wrote: post #25
jarofgreen wrote: post #23

This is brilliant - but not because I hate Apple or have anything against someone choosing to use Apple, even tho I don't myself. But hopefully a ban on such a popular product (right before Christmas to) will bring software patents and all the issues around them fully into the public attention and debate. In the past it's been really hard to explain to non-geeks why they should care about such issues ... Or am I bein…

I downvoted you. Here's why: It's hard to take anyone seriously when they misspell "though" "tho". You may have made a good point, but I didn't read past your first sentence. I'm not trying to be a dick about it-- and I hate to clog up the comments section with a garbage comment like this one-- but you would really be doing yourself a favor to use somewhat correct spelling and grammar. It really sucks when people ign…

Is it common practice to register anonymous accounts to explain why you've downvoted someone? "anonmouse" doesn't have sufficient karma to downvote anything, so clearly isn't your regular account. You appear willing to downvote others over inconsequential nonsense, but won't risk your own karma over it. This doesn't seem entirely in the spirit of things, I have to say.

> I'm not trying to be a dick about it-- and I hate to clog up the comments section with a garbage comment like this one...

Next time, then, consider doing neither.

Re: Motorola secures Europe-wide sales ban on iPhone, iPad

#29

Post by cygwin98 »

Ironically, these kinds of law suits remind me of a book I read long time ago about in late nineteen century how American railroad tycoons bribed judges against each other: one day the judge bought by Vanderbilt would ban his opponents from operating, while a week later another judge bribed by his opponents would side-track the order. Heck, policemen bribed by each side even open fired against each other.

Of course, nowadays, we replace bribery with lobbying and "influence". The same game is still on-going.

Post reply on HN