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#BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

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Re: #BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

#71
post #5

Just started http://www.reddit.com/r/boycottapple/ It's about time.

It's about time someone made a subreddit where all the links and almost all the comments are submitted by themselves.

Not to mention most of the links are months old and hyperbolic rather than factual.

Re: #BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

#72
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the other ways to protest? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.

On a small scale, petitions will work better than a hash tag on a Google-owned website. The person that made the decision is the judge. So a rational way to protest is to protest the decision itself. On a large scale, make something disruptively innovative to fight back. #BoycottApple may work by alarming and reminding Apple of their unethical act (to the crowd). But the effect is small because it has nothing to do w…

Has petitioning or protesting a judicial decision ever affected change? I think I would lose faith in the judicial system in such a thing worked.

Re: #BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

#73
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the other ways to protest? I don't mean that as a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.

On a small scale, petitions will work better than a hash tag on a Google-owned website. The person that made the decision is the judge. So a rational way to protest is to protest the decision itself. On a large scale, make something disruptively innovative to fight back. #BoycottApple may work by alarming and reminding Apple of their unethical act (to the crowd). But the effect is small because it has nothing to do w…

The problem here is that we're trying to apply social pressure to a legal problem. Being intensely social creatures, our instincts tell us it should work, or that it's at least worth a shot.

What we're trying to fix is that companies can even get injunctions for stupid reasons, and that patents are used as warfare rather than for encouraging innovation. Boycotting every single company that abuses patents is simply not going to fix the problem, especially since some of those companies don't even sell products.

Look at Righthaven -- a boycott would have been meaningless, but the right case came along and Righthaven lost its teeth. And this only involved two branches of the government! Imagine what you could accomplish if you could actually pass laws to fix the patent system...

Re: #BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

#74
post #8

Not surprising. If it was trending on Twitter that would be news.

I agree. This is a trending topic on a Google property, to protest a court ordered injunction on another Google product. Unless this trends on Twitter or reaches Reddit front page, it is of no consequence.

The injunction (but not boycotting Apple in response) made the front page via /r/technology fairly recently [1]. Judging from the comments, Redditors hate Apple's behavior fairly uniformly. However, Reddit (especially /r/technology) has a fairly well-known and pervasive bias against Apple, so do keep that in mind if drawing any conclusions.

Re: #BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

#75
post #69
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrolling down a bit doesn't help at all. Where's the pause button? That is unusable.

There's a big pause button at the very top right of the stream. Once paused, scrolling works great. How is that at all unusable?

~ Because the pause button doesn't show up until a new entry is added to the list. Which happens after you've already scrolled down the page, so the pause button isn't even visible when it is rendered.

~ Because the pause button is light gray on white.

~ Because scrolling down the page, which in almost every other scrolling interface prevents any updates from affecting your scroll position (terminal, chat, twitter, etc.) didn't help.

~ Because the page just moves in weird, small jumps and feels like it's broken not like new content is rolling in. (They're actually accounting for huge jumps! and chose instead of move it in tiny glitches...)

Re: #BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually looked at the four patents used in this litigation? I think it's highly arguable whether Apple really invented any of those concepts.

There is a clear and well understood process for invalidating those patents - prior art. If you don't believe Apple invented them then come forward and provide some evidence. I would imagine Google and the Android OEMs would throw a few million your way for the trouble.

But that's the problem, isn't it? Even if Google produces prior art, and I wouldn't be surprised if they did (although I haven't actually looked at the patents so I can't be 100% certain), the injunction would still exist.

So yes, there is a well understood process for invalidating patents. And that is, no doubt, going to play a major role in the case. But all that comes after the problem itself--the injunction lasts while people are showing prior art and forwarding any other arguments they have.

So my complete understanding is as follows: the fundamental problem here is the patent system. The issue is that Apple was able to get weak patents and then is able to use those patents to get an injunction on a product before the patents can get tested in court. This lets them leverage a weak hand and ~$100m to weaken their competition, regardless of the patents' actual validity. This, combined with a bunch of other problems with the patent system (oh, let's patent math as long as it's run on some computer!) is why there is a call for patent reform. The reason people are annoyed with Apple is that, instead of being nice, they're abusing a broken system to damage their competition.

Of course, I'm certainly no lawyer and have been following this case only superficially. This is a good summary of what I think is going on, but could have no bearing on reality whatsoever.

Re: #BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

#79
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big pause button at the very top right of the stream. Once paused, scrolling works great. How is that at all unusable?

~ Because the pause button doesn't show up until a new entry is added to the list. Which happens after you've already scrolled down the page, so the pause button isn't even visible when it is rendered. ~ Because the pause button is light gray on white. ~ Because scrolling down the page, which in almost every other scrolling interface prevents any updates from affecting your scroll position (terminal, chat, twitter, e…

Could be a browser thing. On chrome I can see pause button as black on light gray. When I scroll down the auto add affect reduces, scrolling down further the content is pretty much stable. I think its a pretty good reading experience on Chrome..

Re: #BoycottApple trending on Google plus due to Galaxy Nexus ban

#80

I don't understand why #BoycottSomething should be used for protests. Boycotting an influential company is extremely hard. I'm sure that there are more rational ways to protest, instead of trying to boycott a company that actually delivers some of the best products. No company is perfect and Apple's case is just a tip of an iceberg in the whole industry. http://www.dontmakemesteal.com/ is a good example. We know the…

The group of people that use Android and the group of people that are vehemently against Apple overlaps quite a bit, so this boycott costs them nothing. It's a bit of sound and fury slacktivism that makes them all happy but accomplishes nothing.
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