12.06.09
Apple May Destroy Partner and Acquisition (Lala), Google “Crushes Etherpad” with Acquisition
Summary: When proprietary giants meet industry’s darlings and Bambis, bystanders grow weary
IT WAS only under a fortnight ago that we wrote about Apple going aggressive with trademarks. It threatened to kill “iPodRip” in Sydney and now it is threatening another Australian business, also using trademarks. The Age reports again:
Apple trying to rip out our core: Macpro boss
[...]
Apple attempted to register the “Macpro” and “Mac Pro” trademarks for computers in May 2006, which McRae swiftly opposed as he would have had to give up his company’s name if Apple was successful.
IP Australia, which handles disputes related to trademarks and patents in Australia, found in McRae’s favour but Apple has appealed against the decision to the Federal Court. The trial is set to run over three days in June next year.
Upon hearing the news about Apple’s intentions of buying Lala (reported with more certainty here), our reader Ryan remarked: “great, another good service ruined by a giant monopoly”
Apple has some serious issues.
“Free software licensing resolves some of the above issues.”Andre Rebentisch claims that “Google crushes Etherpad” and further he writes: “That is really a bad move. Google buys Etherpad just to close it down. I would argue that Etherpad is the best online tool I came across during the last 2 years. Why do they do that to me?”
Another reader of ours says: “Etherpad seems to be closing down.” Popey says that “Etherpad opensourcing collaborative web based text editor. Useful for free software projects to collab with like gobby.” He links to the news that “EtherPad is Back Online Until Open Sourced”
Maybe miscommunication after all? Either way, time will tell. Free software licensing resolves some of the above issues. █
your_friend said,
December 6, 2009 at 12:44 pm
The net result of Google’s acquisition is that Etherpad is still running and it is to be “open sourced” where it was non free before. If they make it free software, people will be able to run it themselves or chose to run Google’s wave instead. We shall see which way Google goes with this, it is hard to tell when people use the diluted term “open source” without referring to a specific license.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Sometimes there is a catch like “community edition”.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Andre has just posted this update (followup).