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Google Reaffirms Stance Against Software Patents
An anonymous reader writes "Google has again publicly affirmed its stance against software patents during an announcement over a potential defensive acquisition. These days, when Microsoft, Apple, and others are abusing software patents, it's nice to see one large company calling them junk."
Nice to see yet another twisted summary. As everyone knows, Microsoft doesn't really abuse their patent portfolio. They have never used it to patent troll. Only times they've used their patents is when defending against patent trolls themself. Otherwise Microsoft never has attacked other companies.
Many governments already have this stance. Maybe not the USA government, but many other countries around the world have rejected software patents.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
pontificating about the evils of software patents. Then he turned around and sued his biggest competitor, Barnes and Noble for infringing his one-click patent. Because when push comes to shove, those who have the weapons will use them.
The proper reaction to Google's statement is a collective eye roll.
Google keeps all of it's software entirely secret, so they don't really have any use for software patents. It's all upside for them.
Not saying I like software patents, though.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Nowhere in the article does it say that Google is against software patents. I only see them pushing for patent reform.
Because if they didn't file them, clearly nobody else would. Which is the problem, patents are both offensive and defensive tools depending upon the situation.
Sorry, I just saw some irony in it is all.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
There are some things to like about Google's statement, but let's be realistic: this isn't a clear statement against all software patents including their own PageRank and Google Doodle patents. They complain about "low-quality software patents". That's absolutely not the same as being against all software patents. It means that they just believe many of those patents aren't good enough. However, the answer that politicians give then is to provide more funding to the patent offices of the world, not to abolish software patents.
I've done a lot of work on patent policy (with my NoSoftwarePatents campaign in 2004/05 and otherwise) and I know that the difference between saying "some [or even 'many'] software patents are bad" and saying that "all software patents must be abolished" is like a difference between night and day. Actually, lobbying entities working for Microsoft also call for more patent quality all the time. That's definitely not a sufficient statement to be interpreted as a call for the abolition of all software patents no matter how "good" they may be relative to other software patents.
It's like saying "we are against unjust wars" as opposed to saying "we should never go to war."
I also analyzed Google's amicus curiae brief in the Bilski case and found that it advocated higher patent quality and raised issues but didn't go far enough to really demand the abolition of software patents.
Don't be so naive.
Even if you don't like the playing field, you have to utilize it the same as your competitors or be left behind.
Then we'd be left with no one to champion the cause.
Wake me up when a government says the same thing.
In other words, when Google takes over?
Is it a new age, were a company is willing to burn 900 million dolars, on pattents that will not enforce copyrigths?
At least we have a chance of Google being a benevolent dictatorship.
We are the government. By 'we' I mean us corporate interests who want to securitize every activity the public engages in. And have the money to convince Congress to pass laws to that effect.
'You' are just a bunch of peasants who need to learn your place and shut the hell up.
Have gnu, will travel.
not really, if you can prove prior art then the patent is worthless. google just needs to announce whatever they patent without patenting it
It's easy for Google to call software patents junk when their primary source of income is advertising. They can afford to give all their software away (or provide access to it online, whatever) for free. Microsoft, on the other hand, relies on its software to make money.
It would be nice to take them at their word. Maybe they truly will keep them in a defensive war-chest.
Of course, if they really wanted to demonstrate their commitment to patent reform, they could cede their patents to an independent foundation mandated with the administration of patents, and the expressly forbidden from suing anyone for infringement.
Sure, they'll be benevolent, right up until you refuse to let them access some aspect of your personal data to tailor your 24x7 in-home ad display in your own "best interests."
Because they want to copy and profit from every good idea that anyone else has. Don't be evil, my ass.
Didn't read the article, did you? They are rebelling within the system. The best defense is a good offense.
Except prior art can be tricky to prove. Patent gives you documented evidence to point to which can quickly invalidate other patent claims.
Their core business is kept in secret so no software patent issues there. They are actually harmed by patents without gaining anything since they want to push into markets where patents does count.
I am not liking patents, but google's stance on patents is not something they do to not be evil, they do it cause that serves their interest the most.
The only way to avoid being assimilated by the Borg is to become Borg ourselves.
After spending miilons in "defense", how much willing you will be in trying that it bercomes obsolete?
this is a quote from a soon to be released book by Paul Allen, "Idea Man". looks to be very interesting reading. "In building our homegrown basic, we borrowed bits and pieces of our design from previous versions, a long-standing software tradition. Languages evolve; ideas blend together; in computer technology, we all stand on others’ shoulders." the full excerpt from the book can be found at http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/05/paul-allen-201105?currentPage=all I wonder what would have happened to Micro-Soft (it's first name) had the "borrowed bits and pieces" were covered by a patent. Maybe the patent holder would have sued them out of existence. I am against software patents. I think they are protecting only ideas (which I understand cannot be patented), when they should only protect the implementation. In software engineering, there are a myriad of ways to implement an idea, so patents would be a waste of time. I may be mistaken but I do remember when Fox Pro was first released they had developed a search technique which was very advanced for the day and it was protected as a trade secret not a patent. This is how software IP should be protected, by trade secret, not patent. Patents require that the solution be published, trade secret are not published. If someone comes up with an identically coded solution then it seems obvious to me that the idea was not a very original piece of work. I am against patent trolls as they are not bringing any value to any industry. they just sit on their patents until they see someone implement something that closely approximates their IP and it's off to court. Down with Software Patents.
RTFA; Google's not trying to stifle that detail
...we’ve decided to bid for Nortel’s patent portfolio...In the absence of meaningful reform, we believe it's the best long-term solution for Google, our users and our partners.
These days, when Microsoft, Apple, and others are abusing software patents, it's nice to see one large company calling them junk.
Before you call them 'junk' in the courts of law, where it matters, things might not be in agreement with your line of view.
I will quote Gosling...
"In Sun's early history, we didn't think much of patents. While there's a kernel of good sense in the reasoning for patents, the system itself has gotten goofy. Sun didn't file many patents initially. But then we got sued by IBM for violating the "RISC patent" - a patent that essentially said "if you make something simpler, it'll go faster". Seemed like a blindingly obvious notion that shouldn't have been patentable, but we got sued, and lost. The penalty was huge. Nearly put us out of business. We survived, but to help protect us from future suits we went on a patenting binge."
So it's not over yet...not even close.
And yet no corporation would ever dare say this publicly because they fear the public's reaction and backlash against them because we the public actually are the government when we aren't lazy and apathetic.
Okay, going against the flow a bit, I think that those people who take the time, effort, money and energy to create complicated software algorithms should be rewarded. Surely, the potential compensation is partially what motivated them to create it in the first place (as would be the case with in-house company research anyway).
Granted, really stupid, short patents should be given a miss entirely, though thankfully, often there's prior art to the rescue to invalidate those.
And it should also be a lot easier to use another company's patent easily and cheaply when appropriate. But they still deserve something, no matter how small.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Come on Google. Create a YouPatent.com site for the little guy to flood the world with frivolous software patents. (They also need your expertise and money to file them too, hint, hint.).
Please mod me 1 or troll. It's where the truth is these days, even on Slashdot. Beware the power of moderators everywh
When the anonymous submitter of this item refers to companies "abusing" software patents, what he really means is companies that use software patents in accordance with current law. If the idiot who wrote that submission would like to change the law, that's fine. He ought to work to get the law changed. But companies reasonably work within the framework of the law as its written. Google can make all the noises it wants to in order to try to make the open source fanboys happy, but Google has to work within the SAME framework. It's idiocy to pretend that companies don't have the right (and the responsibility to their shareholders) to protect their intellectual property in ways that are specified in the law.
Unfortunately 'prior art' only holds in the US. You're fucked if you try that in the EU.
Software patents?
Patent/copyright abuse goes way beyond that including the genes in your own body which may be the property of some corporation. And how can a corporation copyright a 400 year old music score and extort money from those who simply want a look? And when taxpayers fund a discovery made by university employees and students, why does a corporation get to take the patent and all the profit?
Patents and copyrights are critical to drive research and new ideas but there has to be a sensible limit. With software patents in particular and the outrageous lawsuits, patents are serving to stifle innovation. Only a very well funded corporation can afford to cope with the problems, and the small inventor/programmer is at the mercy of attorneys.
I defer to Don Lancaster, an early protester of patents who offers thought provoking ideas on the subject:
http://www.tinaja.com/patnt01.asp
Thanks for your patience with this rant
...omphaloskepsis often...
I almost didn't bother to read the article because the summary is non-news. I'm as glad as anybody that at least one large company out there speaks against software patents but until Google owns as many congressmen and judges as the rest of the industry together it really doesn't matter.
The real story here is Google stepping up it's own patent portfolio. Is this Google about to swoop down and rescue Android? The article I want to read now is just what are these Nortel patents? What kind of stuff do they cover? Will this be sufficient to stop the attack? Does this mean that Google will have to be evil and sue the 'little guys' in order to keep their patents valid? What are Google's chances of winning the auction? They only have the starting bid now, are they determined enough to keep upping it or is this all just for show?
pure intentions are unstoppable. real math, physics, & soon to be improved history.
Here is the evidence:
Buy the portfolio and make all patents public domain.
Add a clause that makes them unavailable to companies that sue over software patents.
Unless they're made freely available and public, they're not helping the situation.
.. on Nortel’s patent portfolio. The hypocrisy of Google fanboiis and Google itself knows no limits. You can spin the news this and that way indeed.
Summary is exaggerating. Google are not calling software patents 'junk'. They want "patent reform", as the current system is broken, but that's not quite the same thing is it.
This below paragraph quoted from their previous entry summarizes their position much better and is also interesting in and of itself, because it seems like a big factor of exactly HOW the software patent system is so brain-deadingly broken:
The most pressing of those is ensuring fair damage awards. The current system too easily allows damages to be assessed based on the value of the whole product often containing many features — not just the value of the innovation of the allegedly infringed patent — which means the threat of potentially massive awards forces defendants to settle. Balance should be restored by requiring damages to be based on the value of the innovation's contribution to the product.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Exactly. "Hey Google, we want to ship a new location API inside your open OS, you mind?" "Sure, thats cool, go ahead, and we will even certify the devices since it passes our tests. Oh, wait, you convinced two manufacturer to ship this? STOP SHIP!!!!"
Every single smart phone violates patents for which the manufacturer and network has failed to license. This situation will never change either, if you look at the patent thicket involved, and all the lawsuits currently in play.
You want patent reform, then pass a law that no lawmaker can use a product that the lawmaker knows infringes on a patent. This would either result in patent reform, or the removal of all smart phones, tablet computers, laptops, and desktops from Washington D.C. No matter how unlikely the government might be to reform patents, even that is possible if that's what it takes to keep their electronic lifeline to their champaign contributors.
Under the USA's first to invent system, some other company can still claim they invented whatever product before Google announced it even though they only filed the application after Google announced it. I'm sure there's lots of incentive to lie and make the invention date earlier in order to defeat prior art, or even steal prior art.
Under the S.23 reform to change us to first to file, prior art can be considered from the filing date, rather than the invention date, and publishing instead of patenting will be more effective at establishing prior art.
Under the USA's first to invent system, some other company can still claim they invented whatever product before Google announced it even though they only filed the application after Google announced it. I'm sure there's lots of incentive to lie and make the invention date earlier in order to defeat prior art, or even steal prior art.
You can't simply lie to get an earlier date of invention, you have to be able to show some evidence to support your claim. There may be incentive to fabricate such evidence, but the penalty for getting caught would be pretty substantial.
... we the public actually are the government when we aren't lazy and apathetic.
Woahhh. When did all this happen?
Too bad they haven't bought Sun when time was right. It would solve most problems with both Oracle and Microsoft at once.
Microsoft reaffirms stance against web ads: "The web should be clean and free of these obtrusive, virus laden, obnoxious commercials"
All I'm trying to say is that's easy to attack something that is not part of your own business model. Google doesn't sell software for a living. Of course they don't care about software patents. Even more so, they profit the most if everything is "free". Well not really free, but paid through ads.
Really, any argument you make for the physical analogy...i.e. physical patents are for specific implementations can be applied to software equivalents.
The problem is that software patents are not screened and are granted without any process...eg granting a one click purchase patent...that was not something that was invented or a problem solved. Software patents themselves however are not a bad thing. If an AV company comes up with an amazing heuristic to negate malware they should be able to protect and license their solution if they want, something copyright and trade secrets don't allow.
An Algorithm is a specific implementation of a solution to a problem. To use an example in my previous post, if an AV company comes up with an amazing methodology to preemptive detect viruses and remove them, then they should be allowed to protect and license this. copyright and trade secrets are simply not enough.
The problem is where to draw the line. At the least, a certain level of complexity should be enforced. This would prevent people getting patents on things that inevitably have been thought of and used by many other people, i.e. QuickSort.
It is not enough with a software patent to patent a specific implementation of the algorithm, as this could be easily bypassed by making some modifications. Of course the current system is far too abstract, there needs to be some compromise.
Another example, RAR archives. AFAIK know the format and algorithms were the work on one guy, but even if not lets assume it was. The format is sufficiently unique that the work done was not negligible, and is complex enough that someone inventing the same thing by accident are unlikely. So, that guy should not be allowed to license and profit of the fruit of his labors? Nonsense.
A complicated software patent is not simply a mathematical equation. It can simply be reduced to that, but any digital TV show can also be reduced to math,you would hardly say it is just math however. A lot of work goes into an advanced program, and the fact that it *can* be reduced to just math is basically irrelevant. A main point of consideration is that it is much easier to program things than it is to actually physically invent them, so we have a higher occurrence of people trying out ideas and coming up with implementations than we do in the real world. The main difference this would make in my mind is only that there should be a much shorter time period for a patents lifetime. Maybe 7 years as opposed to 20 for physical patents.
As per your last point....I don't see how that has anything to do with software patents. That is something that affects inventors in the real world two...., all the time. History is full of people who invented the same thing at near the same time, but didn't realize they got beat to it or didn't get to the patent office first(which is meaningless in the US, which is a first to invent not first to file country). As above though...ensuring a minimum level of complexity and uniqueness for software patents along with a shorter period of enforcement to compensate for the much greater number of developers and ease of development would be a start.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-04/google-enters-pact-to-buy-nortel-networks-patents-for-900-mln.html
Relevant quote:
“One of a company’s best defenses against this kind of litigation is (ironically) to have a formidable patent portfolio, as this helps maintain your freedom to develop new products and services,” Google General Counsel Kent Walker said in a blog post today.
I wonder if Google plans on establishing their own political part any time in the near future.
When I was young patents were issued to people who built something, presented a model (real piece as in my granddad's dripless molasses pitcher). Then came the software patent which - to me - is the epitome of stupid ideas. It doesn't really impact me but that's NOT what the patent system was supposed to be about.
Citation needed.
..as "we give up and will participate in doing evil", then yes.
My take on the whole software patent debate is that the law allows such actions to take place, and that is the problem. If you can create something and make money off it, why would you not? Unless you are a good Samaritan type person. There have been a myriad of articles detailing all types of ridiculous patents that have been granted. Next up- "A process to determine the amount of licks needed to get to the middle of a Tootsie roll." It's a broken system, but since it makes money for the gov, no one in power really cares.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Meanwhile in other headlines today, Google Bids $900 Million for 6,000 Telecommunications Patents http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/knVFgPmoWxM/
At the basic level, software is very very closely related to mathematics. Every program can be rewritten in mathematical symbols. Since programs are largely highly deterministic, they should be all regarded as mathematical, and thus, ineligible to be patented. American Big Business(tm) has conned the USPTO, and bribed too many elected public officials into believing that software patents are something else. Sun boffins hated patents, but got sued by IBM over something very obvious (the suit was for a lot of money, and nearly killed the company), and started getting a lot of their own patents. At various times Microsoft hates and loves patents. Google hates patents, but has had to get some because Oracle is suing them over Android/Java/Sun patents and alleged infringement. The Free Software Foundation and Electronic Frontier Foundation both abhor software patents, but due to potential law suits, are stuck getting as many as possible to fend off lawsuits. Patents are an artificial contrivance, primarily designed to create as much money as possible for lawyers.
to buy the patent portfolio of bankrupt Nortel .....
"The extensive patent portfolio touches nearly every aspect of telecommunications and additional markets as well, including internet search and social networking," Nortel said in a release.
No software patents there .....
Maybe it only works if it's Steve Ballmer.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Software patents aren't bad--they just last too long. 17 years is way too long for inventions that can be almost effortlessly integrated into a shippable product and will be obsolete in 10 years.
That's Steve Balljobs.
Remember to maintain your supply of
Why is Apple being called out as a patented abuser? My understanding is that they were known specifically for ONLY using their patents against people that sue them first.
Yep, just like how Apple does it, right?? Right!
Well there's also the "duh" fact that the people running corporations are also citizens... and they happen to the be effective ones with abilities and resources. Shock! They run things, not the lazy whiners who want everything handed to them. Crazy, I know.
>> Google keeps all of it's software entirely secret
Of course. All 442 articles listed on this blog are nothing but utter bullshit - http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/
Now if you are done with your ignorant google-whining, can you please fuck off?
patents are both offensive and defensive tools
if you can prove prior art then the patent is worthless.
Big companies often like to take the counter suit approach, where if you sue me for violating your patents I'll sue you for violating mine. (like http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/11/motorola_countersues_microsoft/) The mutually assured destruction is the deterrent to a lawsuit in the first place. Otherwise, the prosecuted company may have to spend hundreds of thousands on researchers and lawyers to try to prove prior art on the possibly dozens of frivolous patents they are accused of violating. So companies have to stockpile patents like missiles in the cold war. "For defense."
We had an article here recently from an employee of Sun about it, but I can't find it right now.
I'm sure you know that the objection was to the software (apparently intentionally) breaking the equivalent Google API, not to its being created or shipped on actual phones.
google just needs to announce whatever they patent without patenting it
The problem is that not all patents can be easily invalidated. If Microsoft sues Google over the FAT32 patents, Google isn't going to have any internal prior art -- they didn't even exist when Microsoft filed for that patent. But if they patent a bunch of search-related stuff, Bing will be infringing it. So then if Microsoft comes after them for FAT32, they can go after Microsoft for Bing, and in the end it all cancels out. And since both companies know that, they don't generally sue each other. But if Google didn't file for patents, they wouldn't be able to cancel out their competitors' patents and they would be in trouble -- unless we got rid of software patents, in which case all of these companies could fire their armies of patent lawyers, stop wasting engineers' time with patent filings and save everyone a huge pile of money.
google has decided to join the cartel of nuclear (patent) wielding states (large companies). It won't be long until google is starting their own nuclear (patent) wars.
They'll continue to deal with the terrorists (patent trolls), and we'll hear all about how patents need reform from the big companies, yet nobody is disarming (or even lobbying to make it possible, I mean what fraction of $900m has google spent lobbying for reform?).
All the while the small-time one man shop can keep on believing that patents protect their inventions. One day those inventors will get a clue and realize that they have to cross a thousand miles of heavily mined nuclear testing grounds to bring their products to market. Good luck to the idiots that believe patents help the little guy.
States have ICBMs and jets and submarines (lawyers) to deliver their weapons. The little guy doesn't have anything but his own pants to pee in before his company is wiped off the face of the planet by a threatening letter.
I guess we're supposed to forget that they're a multi-billion dollar advertising company with a history of violating privacy rights
Google gets plenty of shit for privacy violations, and most of it is well deserved.
But most of the anti-Google propaganda, isn't. The WiFi data collection thing is a perfect example. The real privacy problems Google has are to do with collecting everything you do with their services, but all their main competitors do exactly the same thing so they have no room to complain. But as soon as Google does something that isn't anywhere near as serious, like capturing unencrypted WiFi traffic on unlicensed spectrum, all of a sudden there is this huge investigation -- because their competitors (mainly Microsoft) can point to something that Google did that they haven't, so they can complain about it without fearing that the investigation will get turned around and end up focusing on their own practices.
I also think a lot of the pro-Google comments come because the things people attack Google for are so inane, and you get lots of people defending them because the attacks are such blatant frivolous astroturf and sour grapes from competitors. Like the stories we keep getting from Florian Mueler, e.g. that they're distributing stripped Linux headers and claiming they aren't copyrightable so they're going to be in trouble, except that if you ask the free software people whose copyrights are allegedly being infringed they say that what Google is doing is not a violation and is common practice.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=apple-fanboy
Good enough?
...collect all the money so the rich capitalist bastards won't get their hands on them.
(s/money/patents/)
Love over Gold.
Yes, clearly the meritocracy is in good working order. Every CEO makes 100x what their entry level employees do because they work 100x as hard as those lazy whiners.
Google gets plenty of criticism on privacy issues (though lately Facebook seems to be the worst offender). But that's completely irrelevant on Google's stance on software patents, which is praiseworthy. Unless you love patents, of course, in which case I can understand you're upset that there's a big player that doesn't serve the Dark Side.
Nothing in this article stated that Google took some kind of stance AGAINST software patents. What was stated was that they believe that patent trolls are a problem. But that's okay, don't let your own (anonymous) feelings get in the way of a providing a summary that is actual based in reality.
My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
A prize to the first slashdotter who makes it as far as the third paragraph:
"So after a lot of thought, we’ve decided to bid for Nortel’s patent portfolio in the company’s bankruptcy auction. Today, Nortel selected our bid as the “stalking-horse bid," which is the starting point against which others will bid prior to the auction. If successful, we hope this portfolio will not only create a disincentive for others to sue Google, but also help us, our partners and the open source community—which is integrally involved in projects like Android and Chrome—continue to innovate. In the absence of meaningful reform, we believe it's the best long-term solution for Google, our users and our partners."
This is about a 900bn dollar bid for a patent portfolio.
It was intentionally replacing the Google location API, a component that was considered on the open side of the OS. The phones with Skyhook passed all of Google's certification procedures, and several phones have it today. Only over time did Google get pissy about it, likely because they wanted to own the location API for ad revenue reasons.
Just as Microsoft got pissy with OEMs for making deals to bundle Netscape Navigator, since it meant people might not use Internet Explorer.
Google is as much into patenting stuff as anybody else. They aproached me a few years ago to join. When I told them I would only do so if I had a term in my contract saying I had no obligation to assist in obtaining any software patents, they said they could not do that because they have a policy of protecting their developments with patents. I wasn't prepared to compromise my ethcs that much, so now I'm a lawyer. The pay's lower, but at least I have my self-respect.
in their fight against software patents. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/04/ammo-for-oracle-fight-google-spends-900m-on-nortel-patents.ars
The first problem is that you can file with a later date. The cost then is on Google that must invalidate the patent. This is risky because it first involves showing that Google's product actually *is* covered by the patent and then that it *was* covered by the patent at the time of the fiiling.
The second problem is that you can file a generic patent and "refine" it later, after Google releases a product that you want to target. This is effectively moving the official filing date way in the past, even if the patent is actually reverse engineered from a real product. Google still has to fight the patent in court to make it invalid and additionally they have to show that the patent did not cover their application *before* they released the product or that it was too broad and would not be granted before the final refinements.
Fixing this hole alone would be a giant leap forward in the patent business.
It was intentionally replacing the Google location API, a component that was considered on the open side of the OS.
There was no reason for them to have to remove the Google API instead of installing along side it, except that Skyhook wanted to harm their competitor by depriving them of location data. No one is even stopping them from doing that on a non-Google-branded phone, but they wanted to do it on a Google-branded phone. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Only over time did Google get pissy about it, likely because they wanted to own the location API for ad revenue reasons.
Google's entire business model is to supply ad supported services. All they're doing is saying that you can't have the services without the ads. I mean what are they supposed to do, continue to provide the services while competitors swap out the components that supply the revenue to pay for them?
Just as Microsoft got pissy with OEMs for making deals to bundle Netscape Navigator, since it meant people might not use Internet Explorer.
Microsoft didn't want them to include Netscape at all. Nobody was removing Internet Explorer from Windows, which would have been a far less Machiavellian thing to complain about.
More to the point, that would have been a whole different story if Microsoft's business model was to give away Windows for free and put ads in Internet Explorer to pay for it, and somebody was then taking the free Windows and distributing it having removed IE and replaced it with their own ad-supported browser.
Nah. We (corporate America) will just slip our astroturfers in groups like the Tea Party a few bucks to get the masses running off in a different direction screaming about something inconsequential.
Have gnu, will travel.
From a business standpoint, I can see why Google did what they did in regards to Skyhook. However, they could have handled the situation better. Instead of throwing a fit only after "Company X" in the complaint had already shipped phones, they could have raised the issue ahead of time. Their inaction earlier, and green light probably cost Company X a decent bit of engineering time. Their touting of "open" led Skyhook to believe they could replace the location API, and Motorola and "Company X" were also under this same impression.
From an "Open" standpoint, what Google did was just wrong. If they really want their OS to be open, then they need to let it be open even if it's not the exact result they intended. If they want to close things down, then fine. But they need to make a decision and hold to it, instead of trying to straddle the line. Their indecisiveness is harming more then just Skyhook, Motorola and "Company X". I'm sure Barnes & Noble picked Android for their Nook e-readers due to the promise of "open", and their engineers are now stuck maintaining the Nook Color on an OS that Google says is only for phones. The more appropriate tablet OS is closed off to them for now, possibly halting progress on a Nook Color 2.
And as far as Microsoft and the OEMs of the time, several did want to remove Internet Explorer. Microsoft prevented this by embedding it deeper into the OS then any other optional component. I don't remember which companies exactly wanted it out, but it's all in the findings of fact published from the antitrust case.
And yet there is ever more lobbying to shove software patents down other countries their throats. Remember ACTA?
If you want a preview of what those search results would be like, look in your spam folder.
I completely agree that they could have handled it better. I just feel like it was more of a stupid oversight mistake than some kind of intentional malice.
From an "Open" standpoint, what Google did was just wrong. If they really want their OS to be open, then they need to let it be open even if it's not the exact result they intended. If they want to close things down, then fine. But they need to make a decision and hold to it, instead of trying to straddle the line.
Trying to straddle the line is kind of the whole point. Android is open in the sense that you can do whatever you want; the Google services aren't. If you want the former, it's Apache licensed and you can do whatever you please with it. If you want the latter, it comes on different terms.
I'm sure Barnes & Noble picked Android for their Nook e-readers due to the promise of "open", and their engineers are now stuck maintaining the Nook Color on an OS that Google says is only for phones. The more appropriate tablet OS is closed off to them for now, possibly halting progress on a Nook Color 2.
The OS they used is the same OS it was when they decided to use it. The fact that Google is going to make something better adapted to tablets hasn't changed it. And they can still get earlier access to the "tablet OS" if they want to join the OHA.
Realistically the only reason they're holding it back is because they don't want to have a million Chinese junk tablets on the market running a development version of the OS and ruining their reputation. What I wish they would do is publish the development code but under a license that says you can't ship it on a device, and then once the final version is ready release it under the Apache license without that restriction. But I don't always get what I want.