Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by fpgeek » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:14 AM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #244

cloudwalking wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doesn't have >80% of the market. Android has >80% of the market. Google does not control Android. Yes, Google provides a lot of services for Android users, but Android works fine without Google services. Everybody is so quick to forget about "Android fragmentation," but fragmentation is a clear indicator of Google's lack of control over Android.

You can fork android and not license the google services, but it means doing without youtube, maps and chrome. That's a horrible experience. In reality almost everyone nicely complies with google's compatibility definition, constraining how far they can fork android, just in order to get access to google's closed source apps: https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Google%20Inc... Only amazon has managed to m…

> You can fork android and not license the google services, but it means doing without youtube, maps and chrome. That's a horrible experience.

Not to hundreds of millions of Chinese Android users.

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

#272

Post by DanBC » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:15 AM UTC

CmonDev wrote: post #261

Well, it is lawful - just like Google's tax evasion.

minor point: evasion is not legal, avoidance is legal. So, Google does tax avoidance, not tax evasion.

And Google has lawyers and accountants telling them that what they're doing is legal, but if the UK tax authorities disagree it goes to a court. So it's possible that what Google is doing isn't legal, because it hasn't been tested in court.

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

#273

Post by subsection1h » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:16 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #234

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…

Yet hackers will continue to vote with their wallets, buying Apple products and perpetuating this continuous pattern of bad behavior. Of course the pragmatic alternative, Microsoft, isn't exactly know for being the good behaving kid on the block either. And mucking around with home-built PCs running some Linux distro doesn't have the same appeal to me it had 10 years ago. So what to do?

  > mucking around with home-built PCs running some Linux distro

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/

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

#274

Post by cromwellian » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:16 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #247

cromwellian wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Google wanted a platform that prevented Microsoft and Apple from completely controlling and owning the onramp to the mobile web with two dominant proprietary operating systems that prevent third party software installs without approval, a huge huge reduction in freedom even comparing it to Microsoft in the 90s. And in that regard, they did the world a favor, regardless of whether it was selfish or altruistic. It…

Not to go all meme on you, but let me FTFY: Google wanted a platform that prevented Microsoft and Apple from beating them to control of the next big advertising platform. Nothing more, nothing less. "Open" has been shown conclusively to take a back seat to monetization. It is as much a marketing tactic (in the sense that it's useful to promote the platform, but can and will be discarded, with spin to explain why, whe…

I give Apple props for for their contributions to LLVM or WebKit (and OpenCL, and Darwin), no one is saying they haven't done any good things for the ecosystem, but that doesn't erase the egregious damage that the iOS T&C impose on the ability of people to do what they want with their devices. To me, that ranks them lower. That, and the aggressive "thermonuclear" offensive litigiousness they have, not just on patents, but even going back to the Look-and-Feel lawsuit of the 90s. I'm an Apple fan boy when it comes to their hardware, I've owned every Apple device, I own an iPhone 5S, the A7 is remarkable. I love the hardware, I hate the closed nature of the platform, the fact that I need to jailbreak my device to have ownership of it.

For the average consumer, control of "the next big advertising platform" is a meaningless abstraction, it matters to people in the ad buying business, not consumers who generally don't like ads in the first place, and tolerate them mostly to get free stuff. And how does Android "control" mobile web advertising anyway?

But for the average consumer, telling them they can't install App X on their device that they spent $300 on because Apple censors don't like it is much more direct.

No company is perfect, but I can say as a Googler, your cynicism is basically wrong, that open source isn't just a marketing tactic, but that the rank and file at the lowest levels of the company, culturally believe in it. Google has disappointed in the past on the degree of openness, and there is much to improve, so I am not uncritical of it in this regard, but if you were to query the rank of file of Microsoft and Apple with regards to open source, and Googlers, you'd find a lot more zealots at Google.

The world isn't black and white, it's shades of gray, and some are just a much brighter shade of gray than others.

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

#275

Post by hristiank » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:17 AM UTC

"The Rockstar consortium is an organization backed by Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Ericsson and Sony."

Out of all these companies RIM (BlackBerry) is the only one up for "sale".

How long until Google tries to buy itself a backdoor into the alliance?

I give them a couple of months.

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

#276

Post by Thirsty » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:19 AM UTC

IBM wrote: post #269

air wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think separating good guys and bad guys is pretty simple, if one is against (at least software) patents: Using patents aggressively makes you a bad guy. Google has not done this, Microsoft and Apple have.

They haven't done it because they don't have many patents. It's easy to act noble about how you'll use your patents when you don't have any. Other commenters have noted that Google is currently suing Apple and others over standards essential patents (no just because the lawsuit started before their acquisition closed doesn't mean anything, they could settle or withdraw their case). Google had the opportunity to join…

>"Google clearly wanted to control these patents themselves so that they could extract licensing deals from others..."

Has Google ever extracted licensing deals from others?

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

#277

Post by blumkvist » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:20 AM UTC

air wrote: post #251

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be true, but let's not get fooled into thinking that because "they" are the enemy, Google must be our friend. Google is playing a very dubious game here, and it has nothing to do with being on "our" side of the patent issue. They've tried to buy the same patents, refused to participate in a joint effort to safeguard those patents for all, and then knowingly violated those patents. All through this, they've b…

I think separating good guys and bad guys is pretty simple, if one is against (at least software) patents: Using patents aggressively makes you a bad guy. Google has not done this, Microsoft and Apple have.

This is according to some moral code or what? The world doesn't abide a set of moral rules. Rules are made by people who can't win without them. You can't tell everybody to stick it and start entering several industries at once. In the real world you have to be cooperative, as well as persistent, because you are not the only 800-pound gorilla.

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

#278

Post by honzzz » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:21 AM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #229

x0x0 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Microsoft earns $10 per android handset, they make more from android than windows phone. So regardless of whether you buy windows phone or android you're paying microsoft. Apple and microsoft have a long-standing patent sharing arrangement, so they don't pay each other money. So, you can pay apple or pay microsoft to get access to a smartphone. Given the amount of patents they hold, any smartphone os is either flying…

The problem is not these companies, it's the regulatory climate.

But why is the regulatory climate so problematic? I guess it's because our current form of democracy is highly inefficient - politicians have much stronger incentives to do what rich entities represented by lobbying firms want than they have incentives to do what is beneficial for the general public. Bad laws are basically written by those who benefit from them and that's why it takes so long to change the bad laws and that's why the new laws are always half-assed and full of loopholes. This is not going to change any time soon.

The more I think about it the more I think that government regulation is neither fair nor efficient and I wonder... how difficult would it be to partially escape government regulation by creating a distributed company? Think of Linux on Bitcoins. No single entity to sue. Some kind of self-regulation based on millions of stakeholders carefully disconnected from their real-world identities voting with their money or something.

This is just a very vague idea - I am not sure it could solve anything and I am pretty sure that it would create a lot of new problems but I feel it is useful to think about this stuff because we cannot expect governments to efficiently regulate society in a way beneficial to general public. Democracy needs to improve in order to keep up.

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

#279

Post by fpgeek » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:22 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #134

haberman wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple threw down the gauntlet when they made it clear that their devices would be a walled garden where they would have absolute control over what apps you can run. Prior to Android, your choice was between your carrier overlords and the Apple overlord. Not only was that limiting for users, it was a vulnerability for Google business-wise to have their direct competitors as gatekeepers between their services and their…

But with Android, the choice is between your OEM overlords and the Google anti-fragmentation efforts overlord. Yes; you can flash your own ROM and switch to CyanogenMod or Replicant. That is the freedom you are guaranteed in Android. But how many people actually take advantage of it?

You forget about "Unknown sources". In practical terms that is substantial freedom (see: Amazon and other app stores) that makes Android phones qualitatively different from phones with an overload (OEM, carrier or otherwise).

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

#280

Post by fpgeek » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 9:28 AM UTC

waqf wrote: post #144

ekianjo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing you realize it now. Better now than later. Do take action if you are serious about the philosophical implications of your work. Anyway, we can see that even in the absence of Steve Jobs, Apple is certainly serious about "going nuclear on Android". They'll follow their former leader's thinking even beyond the grave. That's sad.

"even" beyond the grave? They're onto the desperate measures now because without Steve they can't hit their revenue targets through actually making better products.

The groundwork for these measures was laid a long, long time ago. Many of the patents Apple has used against Android OEMs have gone back to the mid-90s - when Apple v Microsoft was recent history and their inability to get "patent-like protection" from UI copyrights was fresh in Apple's mind.