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Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

arstechnica.com

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Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#191

Post by cromwellian »

realcul wrote: post #168
panarky wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There really are good guys and bad guys here. Lumping them all together is false equivalence. Google isn't "dumping" by giving Android away for free. They have a different business model, and it makes money. It also keeps the competition sharp. Nothing wrong with that. What's shitty is that Microsoft and Apple are doing everything in their power to delay and destroy innovation for their own benefit. Google's actions…

yes, Google/Motorola suing Microsoft/Apple for standards essentials patent was to foster innovation..LOL

Innovation happens when people can build on the efforts of others, and has been so for the entire history of man. Any system that puts up road blocks to sharing and propagating ideas inhibits innovation.

The justification for patents in software as providing shelter for inventors to work on their inventions while releasing the details of how they work is complete and utter bullshit and has been so for a long time. First, the way people share inventions in software is by publishing papers in journals, at conferences, or by shipping software, so that their peers benefit. No I know of has ever used a patent database or patent pending database as a search engine for knowledge sharing.

Secondly, software is shipped and revised so fast, and the time for patents to be granted, and successfully litigated in court, is so long, that more than enough time already exists for inventors to recoup their investments. It could take a decade or more to go from software patent application to successful litigation, so the idea that the patent protection is needed to shelter you while your startup executes is nonsense.

As far as I can tell, software patents serve one purpose and one purpose only: to inhibit and restrict competitors, or to shakedown successful companies with deep pockets.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#192

Post by zurn »

x0x0 wrote: post #178
pg wrote: post #61

It's a little early to say for sure, but I predict this will do more to hurt Apple's reputation in the tech community than anything they've done before. And that is not a good community to alienate. I would not be surprised if they look back on this move one day and feel that they ended up net worse off as a result. Apple used to be careful not to alienate hackers. And Microsoft has been gradually digging itself out…

but say I want a smartphone, what is my alternative? google, who works harder and harder to sell everything I do to advertisers (now you can't even rate apps w/o a google+ account), and who just shut off transmitting search data so they can screw site owners for more $? microsoft, who is a party to this and actively worked to make the internet worse (and succeeded!) for the better part of a decade? or apple, who at l…

Firefox OS and Jolla.

Firefox OS + ZTE Open: cheap and good battery life (70€ / $80, 2-7 days).

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#193

Post by eridius »

panarky wrote: post #158
ekianjo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't buy Macs" is not going to work well around here. Most HNers develop software on Mac and see it as the ideal development platform. I'd say they don't care about what Apple does (it's not the first time Apple does that either).

Macs may be better, but this has gone beyond healthy competition. This is not right, and we must do what we can to stop it. Deploying this patent portfolio offensively can only postpone innovation. It's bad for customers, it's bad for the industry, and I'd argue it's bad for humanity. Coincidentally, Google released Android 4.4 today. It brings a modern browser with much improved battery life to older, less capable h…

Google's been abusing patents for a while (notably FRAND patents). Where was the outrage then? Why is it suddenly horrible for other companies to use patents against a company that has a history of abusing them?

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#194

Post by m_mueller »

cheald wrote: post #167
redthrowaway wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The amount of pain involved in setting up a coherent development environment in OS X is almost comical after setting up an equivalent in Ubuntu or Fedora. For what kind of development? Web dev is pretty damn straightforward and pain-free.

Well, setting up a working Rails install involves, among other things, installing homebrew, xcode, xcode command tools, apple-gcc42, and then manually symlinking all your gcc binaries to the homebrew versions rather than the xcode versions, for example, then making sure that you get certain binaries compiled with certain compilers, lest everything just break horribly down the road, at which point you have to manually…

I have a different approach: Every project gets a clean slate in the form of a fresh VM with the most compatible linux distribution (usually Ubuntu server). OSX is not great as a POSIX developlment environment, but it's a good host because of its hardware integration / support. For the project I'm working on now I even went a step further and created a docker image to run inside the VM, in order to get it ready for rollout.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#195

Post by eridius »

csense wrote: post #177
ekianjo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't buy Macs" is not going to work well around here. Most HNers develop software on Mac and see it as the ideal development platform. I'd say they don't care about what Apple does (it's not the first time Apple does that either).

> Most HNers develop software on Mac I've never owned a Mac, and the last time I used one was in 2004. > ideal development platform The other day I wanted to apply the hqx filtering algorithm to some images, with proper handling of transparency. The code I found for this [1] uses the DeVIL image library. After some apt-cache searching, I found that I could do this: sudo apt-get install libdevil-dev libdevil1c2 I chal…

> I challenge you to compile this program on a Mac.

  brew install devil

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#196

Post by eridius »

ekianjo wrote: post #69
bstar77 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is ridiculous. The big players have been playing a patent chess game since 2007. Don't forget Google bid for these patents as well and it's completely ignorant to think they would have not exercised their billion $+ purchase. Google took the initiative a year ago with their Motorola patent portfolio, Samsung took the initiative with their FRAND patents, Apple took the initiative with their design portfol…

If I remember correctly, Google has always said they would only use these patents in a defensive manner if they ever get them. http://www.androidcentral.com/google-pledges-only-use-open-s... That's very different from Apple or Microsoft.

Google says a lot of things. But they've shown time and time again that they're willing to ignore their past promises and do whatever they feel is in their best interests at the moment. Remember "Don't be evil"?

Even if they were sincere when they said that, I fully expect that they would have changed their minds within a few years of actually winning. Remember, they've already shown a willingness to use patents offensively.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#197

Post by Ygg2 »

axman6 wrote: post #123
interpol_p wrote: post #112

This article is very emotionally loaded. Containing a lot of phrases designed to evoke an emotional response: 'Nuclear', 'DEFCON 1', 'Attack', 'Shocking'. It actually doesn't mention what Rockstar is suing Google for (i.e., whether it's monetary compensation, banning the sale of products, etc.) The article seems designed to get fans of these companies to react. I think this will play out as a much more boring, length…

But OH MY GOD it's APPLE and MICROSOFT, didn't you see that? It's literally the devil incorporate trying to DESTROY GOOGLE who have NEVER done anything wrong ever!!! How dare they use the law to their own advantage! and besides, APPLE have never invented anything at all and stole it all from Google even before Google released it!

You are making guilt relative. Stop that.

It's like saying. Person A murdered person B, but person B did something shady in the past (maybe murder, maybe he stole a dishwasher or maybe he was jaywalking), so it's all Ok for B to get murdered. He had it coming.

Patent racketing is always bad. I don't care who gets fucked over by patent racket, even if it was the Devil himself, the snake from Eden, he still needs a fair trial.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#198

Post by tracker1 »

I would think that 4.4 billion could effectively fund congressional campaigns in a number of key districts.. which may be more effective use of said funds for Google at this point. If I were Google, I'd be funding an all out war on technology patents.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#199

Post by jemeshsu »

throwaway98604 wrote: post #121
jemeshsu wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be kidding if you think iOS 7 is just aesthetic changes. So Apple iOS engineers took one year leave and left their designer colleges update iOS 6 to new look?

Significant consumer-facing iOS 7 Changes: UI Inter-app audio Background fetch P2P (arguably, this isn't a new feature, it's essentially a wrapper to dns_sd) Airdrop Significant KitKat changes: *Actual* SMS/MMS API Storage access framework Printing framework Plus, Inter-app audio and Airdrop are essentially wrappers to P2P (which is also a wrapper to dns_sd), so the only real added feature was background fetch. You c…

Both are mature OS, ground breaking features are not expected. I'm not familiar with Android, but iOS tends to introduce new and improved API in each release that makes app development easier, there is lesser need to go down to core OS to develop your app. Beside what you mentioned, new in iOS 7: TextKit for fine typography control makes it easier to write text layout and editor; SpriteKit which is higher level framework for writing 2/2.5D games; game controller framework for standardise interface to game controller; 64-bit support; Open GL ES 3.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#200

Post by cromwellian »

sbuk wrote: post #190
cromwellian wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because most hackers perceive Google's FRAND suits as a justified defensive counter-attack brought on by Microsoft and Apple's patent abuse, so they are given slack.

The truth is actually cognitive dissonance. No matter what you say none of the parties deserve slack of any kind.

You can be anti-gun person, yet if someone invades your home with a gun, I'd cut them slack of they shot them.

You can be for nuclear disarmament, yet still support mutually assured destruction until that happens. The point of Google using patents is that unless they apply pain to Apple and Microsoft, they will continue abusing the system. The only leverage to bring about reform or a peace treaty is to fight back.

Yeah, I don't like Google using patents to sue people, but let's not kid ourselves why they are doing it, or who fired the first patent attacks.

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