This reminds me of a recent experience I had disputing some parking tickets in federal court. I did some research ahead of time and going in I was certain that if the case went to trial I would win based on the facts alone.
To avoid a trial the prosecutor first offered me 50% off my two tickets which I politely declined citing that I was certain I would win based on certain facts which I laid out.
30 minutes later while I was waiting for my trial to begin he came and offered to drop one ticket and give me 50% off on the other. I again politely declined stating that I was certain I would win based on the facts I had laid out earlier.
Then right before the trial was about to begin the prosecutor came in and dropped both tickets. I know many other people who got a ticket under the exact same circumstances and just paid it.
Point being whether a dispute is about millions of dollars of software patents or 160 dollars in parking tickets it pays to know the facts well and stand your ground convincingly and unemotionally.
This wouldn't happen to be a city in Connecticut? I called the bluff and drove 4 hours to fight the ticket instead of mailing it in. It cost me 2-days work plus gas, but I got off free and clear. And visited some friends who went to school in the area.
But if the prosecutor didn't drop the fines and took me to trial I would be screwed. Sometimes just putting up a fight, even a small one, can reap big rewards.
It also depends on the locality. I've found it a lot easier to get rid of tickets/citations in larger cities than in smaller towns. The smaller towns like the revenue, and maybe depend on it more.
You got lucky. I went before a traffic judge with photos and printouts of the relevant statues with the critical phrases highlighted, and he told me right to my face that it didn't matter, he was upholding my fine.
This is an utter minefield for any startup. While the big companies find themselves in a state of mutually assured destruction, new companies can be attacked by a billion dollars worth of lawyers if they start to compete.
I agree with PG: just ignore patents when you're small. If you ever get big enough for it to matter than things are looking really good and you'll have more bargaining options.
This is a copout. If you are in a competitive space with one of these major players you're basically going to be forced into a buyout on their terms or a lawsuit. That's not bargaining.
The thing is, if Nokia had previously been "coding around" Apple's UI, it's not surprising that their UI sucked.
It's easy to imagine that the more timid an organization, the more willing they are to be pushed around by an over broad claim.
Altogether, It would be a good thing to provoke Apple into actually suing someone for violating "their" UI controls: Threats people back away from put a bully in a more powerful position than threats carried through.
"It would be a good thing to provoke Apple into actually suing someone for violating "their" UI controls"
When HTC started selling Android smartphones, I think Apple considered that provocation. So they sued HTC. [0]
Apple has sued other cell phone manufacturers as well, but those are all countersuits [1] -- AFAIK, the HTC lawsuit is the first in which Apple went on the offensive.
"The thing is, it seems there are examples of open source companies or developers folding when presented with the "whiff" of a patent suit."
Well, carry the logic out a bit further. $COMPANY threatens $TARGET vaguely with a patent lawsuit. There's two ways this can go: 1. $TARGET has patents important to $COMPANY 2. $TARGET does not. The post is about case 1. This has little relevance to case 2. The next step after threatening the open source developer is to file a suit, and even the slightest legal interaction will drain a disproportionate amount of time from an individual.
Apple takes quite a lot from the open-source community, starting at the kernel, continuing with the user-space utilities, up to the HTML rendering engine.
And at the same time they threaten open-source developers with lawsuites and/or leave patent situations deliberately unclarified (such as in the case of the patents against Freetype).
I don't think it's open-source projects specifically, but anyone that threatens there "innovations" in user experience - open-source and commercial alike. Saying it's an attack against open-source developers doesn't fit considering how much they backed open projects which are heavily utilized by the competition such as WebKit and LLVM.
The android operating system and UI is a direct ripoff of the iPhone. Before the iPhone was announced, Android was a blackberry styled UI.
Apple contributes very significantly to the open source community. Yet for doing so they are constantly accused of "taking" from the community and never recognized for contributing. For instance, you claim they "took" the kernel, but the reality is the kernel was developed by them based on easrly university research, and they gave the kernel to the community.
Meanwhile, Google steals Apple's work, makes it "open source", steals Sun's work, and you don't care about this theft, because they released it as "open source".
Open source is a two way street, and it is hypocritical to talk about apple "taking" when they've contributed a hell of a lot more than they've received, and then ignore the theft by google, simply because after stealing the goods they "shared" them by making them open source.
This is why I don't contribute to open source project. So many of the advocates of open source disrespect anyone using open source code who also sells proprietary code. (Except google, who gets a pass for some reason)
When the open source community starts giving the respect for rights that they demand from others, then you'll find you get a lot more support.
This is also why Apache 2.0 is on the rise and GPL is in decline, though unfortunately, people seem to steal code from Apache products and then put it in GPL products. (Another example of not respecting the very rights you demand others respect on your code.)
The android operating system and UI is a direct ripoff of the iPhone.
Because having shortcuts on the main screen and a toolbar was never, ever, ever done before on the desktop.
Also, what will happen when iOS will add screen widgets? Will that be a ripoff of Android?
Adding virtual screens in OS X, was that a ripoff of XWindows, Gnome, KDE?
Apple contributes very significantly to the open source community.
I love them for WebKit; but that wasn't even original work, as it's a fork of KHTML. It's also debatable if they would have released it if KHTML wasn't LGPL. It is an achievement nobody can take away from them, but often in big companies the right hand is not aware of what the left hand does, and this release had benefits for them much bigger than for you or me.
you claim they "took" the kernel, but the reality is the kernel
was developed by them based on easrly university research,
While Darwin is based on XNU, it is also dependent on critical pieces taken from BSD / various BSD libraries. Not a bad thing, but you're making a broad statement there that's not accurate.
Google .... steals Sun's work, and you don't care about this theft,
because they released it as "open source".
It is not theft.
Unless you mean that implementing a supposedly "open standard" is theft; or that reverse-engineering (which is perfectly legal) is theft; or that Java is in fact not a standard and Sun just lied about it and we, like "Ovis aries", believe anything instead of reading the fine-print.
I dare you to make a complete analysis of the claims made by Oracle, and tell me what Google stole.
This is why I don't contribute to open source project.
So many of the advocates of open source disrespect anyone ...
Loud mouths don't contribute in general.
The people actually working on open-source aren't the same people that bitch about other people's usage of said open-source software.
When the open source community starts giving the
respect for rights that they demand from others,
then you'll find you get a lot more support.
I always look forward to such pieces of insight. Brightens up my Tuesday morning.
people seem to steal code from Apache products
and then put it in GPL products
You can't make such claims without providing citations.
PS: I have nothing against Apple's usage of open-source, that's what open-source should be about: the freedom to use it / modify it. I also don't like GPL and prefer (such as yourself and Google) Apache 2.0. I also think the parent's remarks are way off mark. That's not the point of my post.
From the Apple page: "Apple uses software created by the Open Source community, such as the HTML rendering engine for Safari, and returns its enhancements to the community."
Similar with contributions to the kernel, afaik? Didn't Apple buy CUPS, hire the main developer -- and let it continue be open source? And so on.
Corporations, like countries, are a bit above (or, if you want, below) the concepts of good/evil. But Apple is hardly Microsoft.
Edit: I checked, the HTML rendering is under LGPL/BSD licenses! A bit ridiculous to complain about that, since it now is used by direct competitors of Apple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit
"WebKit was originally derived by Apple Inc. from the Konqueror browser’s KHTML software library for use as the engine of Mac OS X’s Safari web browser and has now been further developed by individuals from the KDE project, Apple Inc., Nokia, Google, Bitstream, Torch Mobile and others.[4]"
I think gst's point was not that Apple contributes back to the open source community or not in terms of code, it's that Apple reaps the benefits of the open source software and community and then attacks open source projects and contributors with patent threats. While they are good citizens on the code contribution front, they are not all around good citizens on the plays-wells-with-others front.
That might be, but I don't see the logic in that. Everything Apple does is not open source. The closed source or patented stuff can't be used regardless if someone is part of the open source community. No one gets sued for using the open-source stuff, if I got this right.
I don't take any sides here, just pointing out, that as far as I can see open source has nothing to do with this.
The closed source or patented stuff can't be used regardless if someone is part of the open source community. No one gets sued for using the open-source stuff, if I got this right.
(IANAL) Patented stuff can be used as long as the owner of the patent doesn't seek to enforce their patent. Unlike trademarks, the owner of a patent doesn't lose it if they don't enforce it, and also unlike patents, the patent holder can choose to selectively enforce/seek damages from infringing parties. Does a company with as much market penetration and power as Apple really feel threatened by open source projects such that they need to threaten them with lawsuits, meanwhile not feeling threatened enough by them to use open source software? Patent holders, including Apple, could take the high road and say "While we own these patents, we're not going to attack or threaten open source products that use our patents because 1) we benefit from open source 2) we still have the advantage even if our competitors use the open source product that is using our patented technology". But they don't, I suspect because it's cheaper to set a precedent for the validity of their patent by attacking someone who can't fight back.
The direct quote in the reference was that they'd be sued if they "moved forward to commercialize it". To me, that doesn't imply that they'd sue if the project was kept open source?
Sure, I might be missing something (I've been writing stupid error checking code most of the night.)
"Commercial" is not the opposite of "open source" or "free software", "proprietary" is. And "proprietary" software can be sold or given away in a non-commercial, or non-profit making manner just like FLOSS. The two issues are almost entirely orthogonal.
Yes, but I would be surprised if they were the only ones developing it.
As for Webkit, I assume Apple does benefit from enhancements made by Google, Nokia and everybody else. They didn't make Webkit open because they are generous - they had to make it open because they based it on KHTML.
Well if the only allowing you to create software is a patent arsenal, there is trouble indeed...
Plus Red Hat did get sued eventually anyway by a troll claiming a patent on more or less any kind of GUI.
Sure, flinch against the patent mafia if you don't have a patent arsenal. Just don't be surprised if another troll walks through the door in five minutes asking for more money and/or more GUI crippling...
Edit: The most frustrating thing about all this is it difficult to determine if this is what has kept Linux GUIs lame or not; Information on the various decisions involved is spread in dribs and drabs around the web. You would think anti-patent organizers would at least keep a list of these actions.
Sun was a large commercial company that owns quite a portfolio of patents. It had the resources to fight back and tell Apple to go fuck itself. Your average open-source project, on the other hand, might not.
I've been observing Apple and Steve Jobs since the late 1970s. I'm guessing that many of you were born well after that point, and have grown up your whole lives with this mythology about Jobs.
It's a load of bunk. Jobs is charismatic, but he found early on that due to his charisma, reporters liked to tell tall tales about him. Always looking for the "human interest" side of things, or something to spice up their reporting they'd exaggerate. So he stopped giving interviews, figuring that would give them less to work with, and in doing so he overestimated their integrity. Instead they quickly figured out he wouldn't give them the additional attention of debunking them, so they just started spreading whatever rumor or gossip or fabrications sounded good.
Jonathan Schwartz is not a reporter, but he can say whatever he wants, knowing that Jobs is not going to waste time disproving it. Doing so only brings more attention to the faux controversy.
And of course, Apple haters, who really don't need much prompting anyway, will simply take it as the gospel truth.
I'm sure Apple's right and attempting to point out this is just silly, because those who believe will believe anyway because they want to.
Look at Job's stanford commencement speech. That's the real guy. Always has been.
Are you saying that you believe Jonathan Schwartz is lying in this post? If so, what evidence do you have and if not, why the effort to undermine him by attributing attention-seeking motives to him?
http://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/Concurrence.gif