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The Silencing of Maya

niederfamily.blogspot.be

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Re: The Silencing of Maya

#91

Post by kika »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #62

There seem to be three parts: 1) Are PRC and Apple morally wrong for enforcing and not fighting patent claims? 2) Should patents work in a way that incentivizes PRC and Apple to behave this way? 3) Irrespective of (1) or (2) what can be done? (1) The answer to this is somewhat ambiguous for any company with investors. Sure, I want my companies to behave in morally responsible ways. On the other hand, there are hundre…

I don't know exactly how patents work for drugs, but I don't believe that you can patent an already existing (generic) drug, but in pills colored red and blue, for example. And another patent for yellow pills. And another and another. Alas, in the software industry this is very much possible (and being done every day).

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#92

Post by Jtsummers »

hetman wrote: post #84
kvnn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesn't obstruct her from using Android. Again, I vote that the app stays up. But you are being silly by portraying Apple as evil.

But then Microsoft never obstructed anyone from using Macs instead. That line of argumentation didn't seem to interest the courts much.

Microsoft had a monopoly, >95% market share at the time of the anti-trust suit. They deliberately blocked other OSes from manufacturers' PCs (BeOS, for instance, from Compaq's lineup). Apple may have the largest single share, but they are not in a monopoly position.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#93

Post by tsunamifury »

I am a developer who has had a company maliciously file a patent claim against one of my apps, simply to try to take it out of competition from their own. They have never filed a case or intend to (since they don't even have one) but Apple has gone along with them and removed my app.

If you want to get rid of a competing app, all you have to do is make up lies about your competitor, threaten that you'll sue then and tell Apple. The iTunes store will take care of the rest.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#94

Post by MaysonL »

Note that the Lite version of Speak for Yourself is still up on the App Store: I would urge everyone reading this to rate it and review it as quickly as possible.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#95

Post by incongruity »

jemfinch wrote: post #50
kvnn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, take a look at this quote: The founders of the company marketing this app are speech-language pathologists who were trained by PRC, and who used their knowledge of the Unity system to develop a Unity-like app of their own and market it in the Apple iTunes store. If PRC was able to prove that to Apple, you hadn't read the OP but PRC had posted something about how people they trained stole their technology, wou…

Absent a court-ordered injuction, Apple has no obligation to read, let alone give credence to anyone's claims in this matter, and that's exactly what they should have done: let the courts sort it out. Make PRC get the injuction, don't just give it to them for free.

Exactly this. Apple is, IMHO, in the wrong here because they have acted in advance of a court decision, thereby making themselves the arbiter of a patent claim, not the courts.

Actions like this only serve to highlight the dangers with the walled-garden approach... or maybe, better said, by acting in this way, Apple makes the walled-garden of iOS a less attractive environment for developers and reduces the motivation to innovate using their platform.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#96

Post by billpatrianakos »

kvnn wrote: post #45
MBlume wrote: post #29

I've said this before and I'll say it again. One of the villains in this piece is Apple. Many of the people reading this comment are talented engineers. What Apple needs to survive, more than anything, are talented engineers. So don't work at Apple. Don't work for companies that compromise ethics in this way. There's a reason Microsoft has been failing to compete for a while. It's because its practices got so evil th…

I mean, take a look at this quote: The founders of the company marketing this app are speech-language pathologists who were trained by PRC, and who used their knowledge of the Unity system to develop a Unity-like app of their own and market it in the Apple iTunes store. If PRC was able to prove that to Apple, you hadn't read the OP but PRC had posted something about how people they trained stole their technology, wou…

It is important to keep a cool head and consider things objectively. That's why I think it's manipulative to inject emotion into this like the post does. It's one thing to empathize with this poor mother and quite another to consider the facts and have an honest, serious discussion. What has happened to this family is awful. There's no question about that and I feel just as bad for them as anyone. But now we can't expect anyone to keep a cool head because of the way the issue was presented. Injecting emotion into the discussion is manipulative and effectively halts any critical thinking that might have gone on otherwise.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#97

Post by ekianjo »

kika wrote: post #91
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #62

There seem to be three parts: 1) Are PRC and Apple morally wrong for enforcing and not fighting patent claims? 2) Should patents work in a way that incentivizes PRC and Apple to behave this way? 3) Irrespective of (1) or (2) what can be done? (1) The answer to this is somewhat ambiguous for any company with investors. Sure, I want my companies to behave in morally responsible ways. On the other hand, there are hundre…

I don't know exactly how patents work for drugs, but I don't believe that you can patent an already existing (generic) drug, but in pills colored red and blue, for example. And another patent for yellow pills. And another and another. Alas, in the software industry this is very much possible (and being done every day).

It's been a long time the patent game is not about innovation anymore. The review process for granting patent fails to be transparent. And patents should never be made to last so long in the first place.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#98

Post by rurounijones »

The one thing that stuck out from this article for me was that Apple removed the application because the dispute had not been resolved after X time.

WTF?! That is all kinds of arse-backwards. If the patent dispute had not yet been resolved then you should not have removed the application, simple as that. The courts do not march to Apple's timetables.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#99

Post by SoftwareMaven »

shuzchen wrote: post #82
jsprinkles wrote: post #6

Best solution here would appear to be never sync that iPad again, back it up to iTunes, disable its Wi-Fi, and consider it her speech appliance. Don't update the OS, don't sync to iTunes, never do anything with it again aside from using it for this essential purpose. If you have to buy another one, restore it from your iTunes backup. These are the 'legal' avenues, clearly with jailbreaking it's simpler. Unfortunate t…

I think the best solution is to port the code over to android. You might be disallowed from selling your app on any marketplaces, but there's nothing preventing you from running it on your own device.

There's nothing to stop them putting the app on their Apple device if they had the source.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#100

Post by btbuilder »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #96
kvnn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, take a look at this quote: The founders of the company marketing this app are speech-language pathologists who were trained by PRC, and who used their knowledge of the Unity system to develop a Unity-like app of their own and market it in the Apple iTunes store. If PRC was able to prove that to Apple, you hadn't read the OP but PRC had posted something about how people they trained stole their technology, wou…

It is important to keep a cool head and consider things objectively. That's why I think it's manipulative to inject emotion into this like the post does. It's one thing to empathize with this poor mother and quite another to consider the facts and have an honest, serious discussion. What has happened to this family is awful. There's no question about that and I feel just as bad for them as anyone. But now we can't ex…

I think the emotional price paid by this family is part of the discussion, however.
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