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The Silencing of Maya

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Re: The Silencing of Maya

#181

Post by fpgeek »

mbreese wrote: post #155
pgeorgi wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How comes that the VFAT patent (held my Microsoft) is not considered FRAND? After all, it's part of the UEFI specs, SD card specs, and so on. And what about the new exFAT stuff (required for some of the newer SD specs, SDXC or something like that)? Microsoft certainly leverages those (esp. the VFAT stuff) against Linux in general, and Android specifically.

It is all about the dtandards body. I don't know which orgs are responsible for UEFI specs and SD format specs. It's up to the standards body to demand FRAND licensing. There aren't any international standards that demand a vfat file system, are there? Are the vfat patents still in force, because I haven't payed anyone for those on any of my Linux systems. Is SD an ISO standard or just a consortium standard? (I don't…

Quoting from Wikipedia (they link to the lawsuit):

"In October 2010, Microsoft filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola alleging several patents (including two of the FAT32 file system patents) were not licensed for use in the Android operating system."

If you think these patents are valid and that Microsoft should be permitted to demand licensing for them despite the direct connection to the monopoly they abused... well, I hope you don't use FAT32 on any of your Linux systems or that you're planning to call up someone in Redmond ASAP.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#182

Post by savramescu »

masklinn wrote: post #137
jemfinch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They don't have any obligation to do so, but in most case you'll probably want them to: you built an application on your own, over 6 months of your life, and a guy cracked, replicated and uploaded it. Surely you'll want his app thrown out even without having to go through court won't you?

But this is being handled in court. Apple was notified of this and did nothing for a while and then removed it.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#183

Post by gbog »

adrianN wrote: post #163
gbog wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a weak workaround. There real solution is to fully recognize that information is power, and to have a separation of powers similar to the three powers of Montesquieu's. Hardware companies should no be allowed to make or sell or control software. Software companies should not be allowed to produce, sell or control hardware. The same way we, user, citizen, forbade our physicians to sell us the drug they prescri…

Where does hardware end where does software start? Is the code in your BIOS still hardware? How about the driver for your graphics card? Is it still hardware if the processor only executes code signed by its manufacturer? Forbidding hardware companies like Apple to sell software is not sufficient to prevent them from only running things they approve. And besides, a law like that would likely cripple a large part of t…

I am sure there have been many objections against separation of executive, legislative and judiciary powers, also in the name of efficiency.

> a law like that

I don't see it as a law. I think it should be to the constitutional level. Laws, if necessary, would get into details on how to enforce the constitution, and these details may vary with place and time.

> would likely cripple a large part of the industry and stifle innovation

On the opposite, I think it would in long term be better enforced by such a separation of (information) powers. One of the reason could be that it would require open formats for any communication between hardware and software. Then any other company could compete in the field, and innovate in directions either not allowed or not deemed interesting by the bigger companies.

> not sufficient to prevent [Apple] from only running things they approve

I do not think Apple or any other hardware provider is the least entitled to prevent me, the owner of the device I bought, from using any software I like. In my mind, current users of these devices when not unlocked do not own them, they rent them really, and should be aware of this.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#184

Post by vidarh »

jeffool wrote: post #141
anamax wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pharmaceutical companies make minimal changes and get patent extensions. These changes can include the color or flavor of medicine. So? Other companies are free to make the unchanged version after the original patent expires. If some companies are unwilling to make drugs unless there's some sort of monopoly, what does that tell you about what they'll do if there's no way to get a monopoly?

>So? Other companies are free to make the unchanged version after the original patent expires. No they're not. You misunderstand; the original patent doesn't expire. It's EXTENDED. The original drug does not go into any public domain to be manufactured or built on by other companies. Many drug manufacturers make generic drugs, but that number has decreased, which has led to behavior like the larger original drug manu…

> the original patent doesn't expire. It's EXTENDED.

Really? I can find no indication that US patent law allows for extension of patents at all except as a result of delays caused by the USPTO or regulatory delays (e.g. reviews by the FDA).

Everything I've seen about evergreening has been tied to filing new patents covering things like delivery systems to make it harder to produce a generic that doesn't infringe, and frustrating competitors by threats of lawsuits over trademarks, marketing, packaging etc.. None of that would be necessary if they were able to just obtain an extension on the original patent.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#185

Post by bambax »

pjmlp wrote: post #173
jaysonelliot wrote: post #127

The biggest culprit here, in my view, isn't Apple, PRC, or the patent system. It's the death of physical media and the rise of the "app store" model. I have programs for my Apple //e computer that are over 30 years old. Most of the companies that made the software have long since disappeared, and the computer hasn't been supported since the '80s, but I can still use them. That software is my property. I own it, and I…

> The biggest culprit here, in my view, isn't Apple, PRC, or the patent system. The biggest culprit are the customers that blindly accept this model to buy applications and give to such companies money to pursue their practices.

But what are they to do...?!?

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#186

Post by vidarh »

masklinn wrote: post #137
jemfinch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They don't have any obligation to do so, but in most case you'll probably want them to: you built an application on your own, over 6 months of your life, and a guy cracked, replicated and uploaded it. Surely you'll want his app thrown out even without having to go through court won't you?

Of course I'd love to have the other guys app taken down if it copied mine. But I'd also want to know that I'm safe against spurious claims of copying from someone else.

If I have to choose one of the two, I'd choose the latter.

I'd not want Apple to be judge, jury and executioner, because they have no legal obligation to ensure a fair, transparent and equitable process, and so the more willing they are to take unilateral action, the greater the risk for me of relying on them for income is.

In fact, given stuff like this, I'm very happy not to be dependent on any income from the app store that can be just yanked away at a moments notice without any real recourse.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#187

Post by gaius »

omegaworks wrote: post #153
jaysonelliot wrote: post #127

The biggest culprit here, in my view, isn't Apple, PRC, or the patent system. It's the death of physical media and the rise of the "app store" model. I have programs for my Apple //e computer that are over 30 years old. Most of the companies that made the software have long since disappeared, and the computer hasn't been supported since the '80s, but I can still use them. That software is my property. I own it, and I…

Are we really blaming the technology here? You're neglecting the reality: that a person--a living, breathing, thinking person--is behind the switch or lever that eliminates access. Connected computing is the inevitable future. We will always hold less physical computing capability in our hands then can be beamed to us from afar on-demand. What is ridiculous is the systems--the people systems--we have built that foste…

a living, breathing, thinking person--is behind the switch or lever that eliminates access.

A living, breathing, thinking person also did the research that this technology is based on, possibly risking their own capital (livelihood) to do so. Are they not entitled to earn anything? Should all researchers be starving artists in garrets?

Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#188

Post by vidarh »

mbreese wrote: post #145
air wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really feel you are grasping straws there. Motorola is only defending itself against Microsoft's patent attack.

Except, as far as I know, Motorola is leveraging FRAND, standards necessary patents and Microsoft wasn't. There is a large difference.

There might be a difference legally, but that doesn't mean Microsofts behavior still isn't far more disgusting.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#189

Post by vidarh »

risratorn wrote: post #132
aiscott wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you did come across as a dick. Go read the whole article this time, and look at the picture of their kid at the end. I think your post was longer than the article. That makes you a dick and an imbecile.

Well call me a dick too then. I can totally sympathize with the parents and how they feel when something like this happens to your family but to be honest, if PRC has a rightfull claim to a patent infringement it's their right to protect their intellectual property, and it's not that there aren't any other apps that might facilitate maya to express herself. Maybe not in the exact same way as SfY does but there are ot…

Did you read the article? The part that expressly points out they've tried a number of other options, including PRC's, and it didn't work well for her? They part about how using this app has significantly increased her communications abilities where other solutions failed?

PRC might have a rightful claim and a right to protect it, but that's not what the issue is about here.

The issue is that the way they are going about it is having a substantial negative effect on innocent third parties, and that Apple is complicit in that by unilaterally deciding to remove the app without waiting for an injunction or for the case to be decided.

Never mind the broken patent system. It's possible to be in the right and still act like total assholes.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#190

Post by gaius »

creamyhorror wrote: post #147
kvnn wrote: post #40

The following is from PRC's Facebook page [1]. Most of it is in defense of their lawsuit, while the last paragraph is in defense of their request to remove the app from the Apple store. Last week Prentke Romich Company (PRC) learned that Apple removed a language assistance app from its iTunes® store pending the outcome of a patent infringement lawsuit filed against the company that developed the iPad® app. PRC and th…

>>> There’s a reason patents are in place, to protect decades of hard work and research that go into our devices. To take someone’s life work and market it as your own is simply wrong. This appears to be the crux of it: is the technology that SfY 'copied' actually the direct results of decades of effort, or could it have been created by a few designers and developers looking at the problem of assisting disabled child…

the technology that SfY 'copied' actually the direct results of decades of effort, or could it have been created by a few designers and developers looking at the problem of assisting disabled children over a few months?

You are making the classical developer mistake of thinking that programming is the hard part. Generally programming is the easy part. Domain knowledge is the hard part.

Let me give you an example, anyone could write an app to calculate e=mc^2. It took Einstein years to come up with that formula in the first place. Do you think because you could write that app in 5 minutes, you're as smart as Einstein?

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