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Techrights Recommends An Apple Boycott
walterbyrd writes with a quote from an article at Techrights: "Given the latest actions from Apple we cannot help recommending that people buy nothing from Apple. Boycott the company for being a threat to the IT landscape and also to common sense."
More from the article: "...Apple has been working hard to embargo — not just sue — the competition. Apple disregards the notion of fair competition..."
Could this be any more biased? Why is Slashdot posting this crap?
The article claims that "Apple fan sites celebrate Apple patents," but all he does is link to one site, Patently Apple. That site exists to track Apple patent applications "in search of future features and secrets," as the site puts it. It's not celebrating patents; it's just reporting on them in hopes of predicting upcoming product plans.
It also repeats the old troll meme about PARC, claiming that "Apple disregards the notion of fair competition, which takes a lot of nerve for a company that built itself on knockoffs (e.g. Xerox PARC)." Overlapping windows and pulldown menus did come from PARC, but Apple is the one who invented the File-Edit-View-Window-Help standard menu layout, the phrase "cut-and-paste," and several other common GUI paradigms that are taken for granted today. Not to mention that many of those Xerox PARC employees went on to work on the Macintosh project at Apple!
If we're throwing around knock-off accusations, Android used to look like this until the iPhone came out, and then Android suddenly started looking and behaving a lot more like iOS, right down to the pinch-zoom gestures that originated with the iPhone. For crying out loud, Samsung outright stole Apple's icon artwork and used it in their stores. TechRights, of course, ignores all this. It's no surprise at all that Apple is going to try to hinder competitors' efforts to ride the coattails of its design work. It went through this before with Windows in the 1980s and only lost its court case against Microsoft because of a previous licensing agreement.
Obnoxious Android fanboyism has reached a fever pitch. Android fanboys are now officially more annoying than Apple fanboys. They've adopted this idea that they are freedom fighters and that their tribe is under threat from evil. It's embarrassing and is a resurrection of the worst elements of the desktop Linux movement from 10 years ago.
Exploring the rest of the site, it calls itself "a progressive site which supports software freedom and advocates digital diversity through standardisation." Most of its stories are anti-Microsoft, pro-Linux, and present a one-sided view of tech news that's intended to rile up its readers (not unlike Slashdot, to be honest). It also claims to be against monopolies but says nothing about Google's monopoly in web advertising nor the fact it's using its monopoly revenues to pump a new market with a free product (Android), just like Microsoft did with Windows and Internet Explorer in the 1990s. For some reason, Android advocates
For crying out loud, Techrights' Twitter account is called @boycottnovell. Boycott Novell is associated with Roy Schestowitz, an infamous Usenet troll who spams the advocacy newsgroups with pro-Linux news links and used to astroturf Slashdot with multiple accounts.
If nerds on Tech Rights and Slashdot want to boycott Apple, go ahead. None of them were using Apple products anyway--they are Linux advocacy sites. Apple wouldn't even notice.
Can we get some actual tech news? Or is Slashdot forever lost to its current role of flamboyant baiting for ad views? Ugh.
Are boycotts ever really effective anymore? There's too much clout huge companies carry with their flashy advertising to reach consumers that are willing to break principle. People are not principled enough to rigourously hold to boycotts. I tell people not to bother with them, and focus on positive buying instead of negative buying. Don't avoid buying what you don't want to support, try to actively spend your available spending money with people and companies who support your vision of the world.
Oh You POS
What about the other patent/IP assholes, such as Microsoft, Sony, and Oracle? Why target just one?
Table-ized A.I.
Apple is asserting its patent rights.
This is how the system works. Ask T. Edison.
The purpose for patents is not to protect the invention any more. It's to protect against ANY invention. And that's not what patents are for.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
This article is 100% troll.
Apple is as much a producer as anyone, and there are lots of arguments to be made that they are for more producers currently of innovations in hardware and software than many other companies.
I find the patent activities Apple is engaging in absurd and evil also. But the whole industry is doing the same thing all over, Apple's actions just get elevated above others because it brings page views and Apple Haters push an anti-Apple agenda whenever possible.
The solution is not to boycott Apple, for that helps no-one - the solution is to continue to battle absurd software patents however it is possible to do so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't use apple products because I don't believe in their "walled garden" philosophy. I was a big fan of apple back in the old hypercard and basic days when apple wanted to bring their users CLOSER to the computing experience and really make their users more powerful.
But apple has done a complete 180 on that and won't ever come back to it. so for that reason, I won't buy their products. It isn't a boycott.
People need to stop thinking anyone gives a damn what they think about anything. Because the reality is that in the real world people just don't care. Corporations don't care. Politicians don't care. Your next door neighbor doesn't care. And they have every right to not care.
That said, you have the same right. So rather then trying to get some frothy public action thing together with promises to buy again if they change their ways. Just quietly buy what you believe in and let the marketing people figure out why sales dropped. Nothing preachy or pretentious. Just buy what you believe.
Apple products make lots of people happy. Good for them. They're welcome to it. I won't be one of them and wish one and all well.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
It's amusing that you think the "Haters" will just not let people use what they find suits them best, when that is precisely Apple's strategy (not letting people just use what they find suits them best) and the reason the majority of "Haters" exist.
Actually it is (check out Darwin sometime).
Darwin != iOS. Please point me to build instructions so I can make a new ROM for an iDevice which does NOT contain the iCal application. Hm?
Unlike Andorid the shell of a CarrierIQ system that shipped with iOS was never enabled, and did not contain ... (snip)
How do you know? Were you legally able to investigate this? Or did Steve whisper this into your ears?
FWIW, the cydia thing is totally uncomparable to the Android custom ROM scene. You obviously haven't looked into it and hence you are talking out of your buttocks.
When you stop and think about it it's pretty dumb to have to install a custom ROM
When you stop and think about it it's pretty dumb to make uninformed remarks about things you have demonstrated to have no knowledge on.
You seem to have forgotten that Apple is only suing Samsung, not other tablet makers.
How about HTC? Might not be tablet makers, but why limit yourself to tablet makers?
You can always tell the haters by the way they distort reality in any way possible (or frankly impossible) to make Apple the worst in any given comparison.
I wonder where the term Reality Distortion Field comes from.
Apple was one of the big players heavily pushing HTML-5
By banning Flash...
shipped the very first Intel macs with Bootcamp
While trying hard to make it impossible to run Mac OS X on any non-Apple device...
I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
Nothing, but it's also not wrong or illegal or morally wrong to point it out either.
The gate swings both ways.
Some of the Apple haters on here are just embarrassing, and are doing more to hurt their "cause" than help it. I mean, it's their choice to define themselves by hating a company, but much of the vitriol is getting silly. I may not be a personal fan of Android (although I have used some good Android handsets and can see why people like it) I'm not frothing about how Samsung and Google are some sort of Machiavellian evil for making things that people want to buy.
I think a lot of it stems from a feeling of sour grapes, that in the era of declining Microsoft dominance they were sure that "their" time (of Linux! On the Desktop!) would come, and that instead of year on year growth for Linux desktop/laptop marketshare, the eroded Windows share went to Apple instead, and then the entry into the phone market (predicted to be a *massive failure*) and the re-ignition of the tablet market (again, predicted to be a massive flop) was just rubbing salt in the wounds.
Certainly, Apple is no angel and has done some stupid things, but in the mind of an Apple Hater - defining themselves by their assured belief that Apple can Only Do Evil(tm), they forget many of the positive things Apple has done for the industry and consumers at large since its return from the brink of death.
This is exactly the tactics that Apple are using. The lawyers of nokia many many times tried to cross-licence with apple, as apple seems to be totally fine using others IP with a free hand. No ball, until it went to court. Many courts in many countries. When it's stupid and logical things like multi-touch, then this court-based stifling of innovation and usage is killing the industry slowly.
That has already been used to determine a price which is available to other customers. The non-discriminatory part of the obligation means Samsung (in this case) is required to offer that same price to Apple, i.e. not discriminate depending on the customer.
The people who are using these patents are all inside a particular group that share patents. So, as I said I above, if I want to use your patents, I have to let you use mine. All of the people using these patents agree this arrangement. All members of the group get value from using each others patents. There is no discrimination going on within the group.
Apple is the company that doesn't want to join the group and share it's patents. Which is perfectly fine--Apple has that right. But they cannot claim that they should receive the same benefits as those who share their patents. Those patents from other people have value and those are part of the "fee" for using the patents. If Apple does not want to contribute their patents, then they should have to pay the equivalent cash value.
For example, if I join the local supermarket's "grocery club," I give them something of value--namely information about me and my shopping habits. They, in return, give me a discount on the groceries that I buy. What you're saying is that you should be able to get the same discounts but you shouldn't have to join the "grocery club" and give them your personal information.
The patents that are being shared are part of the value that Samsung is receiving for it's patents. If Apple doesn't want to share, then it falls to Samsung to come up with a cash equivalent.