07.01.12
Apple Bans Android/Linux Imports, Linux Foes Pretend to be FOSS Players
Summary: CPTN and SCO continue to openwash themselves while evidence piles up to show that they dislike FOSS
THE US-centric ITC deals a blow to Motorola, which fought back and recently used its patents to knock down Apple's litigation. Motorola is clearly the one company with the most vested interest in defending Android from litigation, owing to Google ownership.
Apple In the mean time is trying to ban yet more Android devices and as put by Sam Tuke (FSFE), “US patent protectionism is on a course for splendid isolation from international markets. Steady profits will continue to flow east regardless.”
Here is a fine example of how patents harm the public very directly; this link, “Samsung Galaxy Nexus banned in US”, was sent to me even by a friend who is not into technology (he is an avid Galaxy user and so is his girlfriend). The public is generally affected everywhere it is located and the news made it into the corporate press, too. “The story is also on slashdot,” wrote a reader of ours. “Here is comment from slashdot,” he added:
I work for Google and I’ve seen how my colleagues have consistently worked long hours to innovate and create new features. The Galaxy Nexus is an amazing phone. It’s thin, and light, and doesn’t even have any hardware buttons on the front at all – yet Apple still are not happy. If you can’t see why you’re blind.
Apples goal is not to get competitors to “design around” their patents. This has happened several times already, the Samsung Galaxy 3 has even been called out by tech review sites for having a “lawyer approved design” (it’s not rectangular, it does not have slide to unlock, etc). Apple keep coming, with newer and even more stupid patents, because their goal is not individuality, it is the utter destruction of all competitors. Steve Jobs himself said that in words so clear nobody can re-interpret them.
What’s more, it’s very hard to make an Android phone that doesn’t share design elements with the iPhone these days, because Apple has copied Android many times in the past few years, for example, its notifications tray is identical to the design that first shipped in Android 1.0, and inferior to the one shipping in Jellybean. Android 1.0 also shipped with a universal search box and pluggable API for it, it shipped with suspend
CNET covered the story and noteworthy is the following part:
Apple has posted the $2.6m bond requested by the courts when they won an injunction against Samsung to halt Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in the US. What does this mean? It means the injunction has now officially started, and if Samsung doesn’t immediately sales, they could be sanctioned for contempt.
Android has had CPTN members (Novell’s patents in the hands of Oracle, Apple, and Microsoft) go after it, but as we showed here before, they also use proxies like Nokia and MOSAID to fuel up the litigation frenzy. Red Hat apparently paid MOSAID, so just like SCO after it was openly paid by Microsoft, MOSAID can now go and assault other parties with identical claims, unless Red Hat signed a GPL-compatible deal (they won’t tell, which is a bad sign). In a post titled “Solaris, SCO, Linux, Open Source and Red Hat Summit” it gets pointed out that Oracle and SCO are still getting a seat in FOSS conferences, despite their bad behaviour:
Apparently it is still a (small) concern. I did the best I could to explain that SCO is now a zombie (they still exist, but does anyone take them seriously?) and of course every major enteprise Linux vendor provide indemnification. But still, simple truth is it was a concern and a question that led to some conversation.
Sometimes Microsoft buys such a seat too, despite attacking FOSS. They wish to remove the sting from FOSS by attacking it while pretending to be an ally. It is quite priceless when Apple fans point to Apple’s “open source” PR-esque page. █
walterbyrd said,
July 1, 2012 at 4:40 pm
FWIW: #BoycottApple is trending very strong on Google+. It has been the number two stream there for some time. #BoycottApple is also trending on Facebook, and Twitter.
Apparently, some people are finally getting fed up with Apple.