171–180 of 216 posts
People passing cynical comments at Google need to understand that at a big co like Google, something like this doesn't 'just happen'. It probably happened because some passionate L6/L7 engineer wanted to do it and pushed through the bureaucracy to get approvals for it, probably largely on their own time (by which I mean that this was at best a side-project for them and at worst a distraction that was losing them favo…
They could consider open source everything you have killed ( https://killedbygoogle.com ) over the years. May be the whole design and development process from the start should be everything they do could one day be open sourced. So be aware what you do and what you comment.
Pebble, on the other hand, was built fully outside Google and only ended up there via a circuitous route (the Fitbit acquisition), so this is not a concern.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> wonder how they successfully justified this to the higher ups Commoditise your complements. Injecting competition into the watch market reduces the chances one of the majors, e.g. Apple or Altman, runs away with the wearables sector if it takes off again in respect of AI.
This is not exactly what is meant by Commoditise your complements. "Commoditise your complements" in this setting would mean making watch OSs free for everyone in order to make demand for watches go up.
You're right. The strict interpretation would be the more people who wear smartwatches, the wider Google's surveillance net.
Is there a commercial strategic term for denying your adversaries oxygen?
To somebody who's completely out of the loop, hears about Pebble for the first time—why is this big news? Are we going to see novel software written for defunct hardware, or is the hardware going to evolve now that the software is open?
People really like their Pebble watches, and this will help keep them alive into the future. In some future, we may see new hardware produced that could use some derivative of the resulting operating system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For that to be an issue here, there would have to be revenue from the Pebble line of products. Otherwise how would they show monetary loss?
They have had revenue as pebble sold their smartwatches. Acquisition includes liability. You do not need revenue to be liable though.
The plaintiff would have to show actual financial loss due to the infringement. In the case of the pebble assets, that seems exceedingly unlikely.
Generously assume for the sake of argument that the entire codebase is a straight up copy of Samsung and Apple’s IP. What damages have been caused by that IP sitting dormant on Google’s hard drives for the past six years?
Give credit where credit is due, at least Google gives back to the community. Well done.
Well, better would have been investing in it and making it better. At least they didn't produce some awful spy on you thing that had nothing to do with p and called it pebble
They've open sourced what they can, but these third party bits had to be stripped out: - All of the system fonts - The Bluetooth stack, except for a stub that will function in an emulator - The STM peripheral library - The voice codec - ARM CMSIS - For the Pebble 2 HR, the heart rate monitor driver
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have had revenue as pebble sold their smartwatches. Acquisition includes liability. You do not need revenue to be liable though.
The statute of limitations is 3 years for copyright infringement and 6 years for patents. The plaintiff would have to show actual financial loss due to the infringement. In the case of the pebble assets, that seems exceedingly unlikely. Generously assume for the sake of argument that the entire codebase is a straight up copy of Samsung and Apple’s IP. What damages have been caused by that IP sitting dormant on Google…
... nope. Not even in the US, where "3 years" as you claim is from the possible discovery date, not the infrigment date (https://www.michaelbest.com/Newsroom/340003/US-Supreme-Court...), and this would probably only accrue when the source code is released (as it can be argued that it would be difficult to see a more subtle copyright infrigment on object code).
Also statutory damages exists, so even for no revenue there is a reasonable possibility that they will be sued for that alone (similar to how game and music piracy lawsuits work).
> and 6 years for patents
Other jurisdictions like Germany (no limits) exists.