Meanwhile in Taipei...

Summary: Foxconn and other Taiwan-based corporations seem to be grouping against Android, which has mostly benefited the Koreans

Foxconn, which sold Linux down the river (to Microsoft), does not self-brand devices it makes, so adding it to the list of companies to avoid for Linux patent tax would be hard. But there are other issues to consider.

The other day we saw Microsoft seeding some new types of FUD against Android; I heard some of those lies repeated by salesmen at a store when I bought Android devices. The reality is, Google is much more secure than Microsoft and when Google got cracked it was Windows' fault (thereafter it got banned for internal use). There is still some FUD about everything Google, but Microsoft is always behind it. The Foxconn patent deal may in fact involve nothing but FUD; we don't know if Microsoft is really being paid and we cannot check due to secrecy. This secrecy should be challenged by government officials; it's detrimental to everyone but the conspirators, that's why they insist on it.

Upon the signing of this deal Pamela Jones wrote: "I hope Foxconn loses all that business, then, followed by the FTC and DOJ investigating antitrust issues." Wishful thinking. Microsoft has got the government in its pocket. It is one of its biggest sponsors (Obama's top technology funder when he got elected).

Recently it turned out that the home of Foxconn liaised against Android. To quote a pro-Apple site:

Apple is also believed to be playing a key anti-Samsung role for Taiwanese companies over display panels. Last year, device manufacturer Foxconn attempted to buy a 10 percent stake in panel maker Sharp Corp., a move that the AP noted was believed to have been spurred by Apple as the company expressed "eagerness to find an alternative supplier to Samsung."

"Well, well," wrote Jones. "This puts the Foxconn-Microsoft patent deal into an interesting context, wouldn't you say?"

Pamela Jones separately added: "Remember when SCO Group complained to the courts that the GPL, the license on Linux, was UnConstitutional? No one, Darl McBride, told them can compete with free. And Microsoft helped to fund SCO. So did Sun, now belonging to Oracle. And here we go again. How pitiful.

"Evidently the first complaint against Google didn't go the way they hoped, so they regroup and try a new angle. Here's the problem: Google isn't guilty of anything like what they claim. You can just modify you phone any way you want, including removing Android altogether and using Linux, purely, instead. Or you can fork Android, without any consequences, as Amazon has done, without consequences and without having to prominently display a thing for Google. You have freedom of choice. So this new complaint is, frankly, ludicrous. It's actually offensive, because it's cynical. Here's how I read their complaints: they are saying to me, "We can't compete with Google as far as products are concerned. We are accustomed to gouging our customers on price, and with a free offering in the market, we can't keep doing that." Is that really something antitrust agencies like the EU Commission should be helping them with? And how about the EU Commission look into how come the same companies keep suing and complaining about Google? Any antitrust implications if the old guard plots together to kill off the new guy trying to compete with something better than the world has fallen in love with? I do want to commend Apple for apparently not joining in this."

The European authorities have been too weak for effective action recently. They also helped ligitimise software patents after they had rejected them in 2005. US law keeps spreading. As noted recently in relation to the CFAA, that's how it goes (and thus we cover a lot of US news):

How can all of us non-US people help with this? Just by mentioning "Your senseless laws will create dangerous precedents and will "inspire" other law-makers around the world!"?

In relation to Android a new petition was set up, stating:

As can be seen in the Oracle v Google lawsuit, legacy vendors are getting together to try to overturn a court ruling that APIs are NOT copyrightable. If successful in their appeal, the ruling would prevent competitive implementations of the same API, resulting in a new kind of lock-in that reduces competition and set a precedent that affects all APIs and programming languages

Oracle is a member of the CPTN conspiracy (as in conspiracy to harm common rivals, using patents), which received Novell's patents. A "Novell exec plots company's return," says this article which states/quotes claims as follows:

"Since the Attachmate acquisition, Novell has been asleep at the wheel in several competitive markets," said Hyoun Park, principal analyst at IT research firm Nucleus Research

Well, Nokia is the same. Microsoft destroyed it just for its patents. A pattern is emerging here, with Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Nokia, and even some manufacturers in Taiwan seeking to use their patent-stacking tactics to destroy the market leader, Linux/Android. Apathy from the public is the greatest thing the conspirators could hope for. ⬆