Thousands of Spaniards Leave Twitter for GNU Social - <AUTHOR> https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/thousands-of-spaniards-leave-twitter-for-gnu-social <comment><USER2> Something is going on in Spain. You can track the Indignados movement through Occupy and now Podemos. We're seeing a parallel movement in technology there to what's going on in politics with the Podemos movement [0] - decentralised, grassroots, bottom-up. It's deeply exciting to track these digital and cultural trends together and imagine a new paradigm emerging in society.

We make an open source tool for distributed collaboration, and our userbase is now overwhelmingly in Spain. This emerged organically. It seems to be very fertile ground right now for distributed communication and democracy. I would advise anyone making software in this space to get a Spanish version out there and join the wave. I wonder about how it will spread to the rest of the Spanish-speaking world and join up with related tools and movements coming out of South America, like DemocracyOS.

[0] [http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/spain-politics-via- re...](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/spain-politics-via-reddit)

<comment><USER3> The push for open source in Spain is often labelled as being about freedom.

Personally, I think it tends to be about money, especially in SMEs.

My friend uses an open source collaboration tool in his office of 20+ people, because even though everyone uses evernote personally, the plan with collaboration features is "too expensive". Might just be an anecdote, but I keep hearing lots of those.

Spain might be great for free software, but I would stay away from it in terms of starting an actual business.

Podemos' offer might be great for some people, but I don't think they will do much to change some of the deeper issues of the Spanish economy. I don't think I will be voting for them.

<comment><USER4> That's most probably a part of it, but it wouldn't explain why people migrate to GNU Social, because users don't need to pay for twitter.

<comment><USER5> > _That 's most probably a part of it, but it wouldn't explain why people > migrate to GNU Social_

Do they? I don't think the article is accurate to what's happening in any large degree. As another commenter puts it below:

> _I call shenanigans. Spaniard here, the story is completely wrong. Most of > the 6k registered users on Quitter Spain are inactive and it has nothing to > do with Podemos and the indignados movement (they use Twitter actively along > with Facebook). Even the user that started this "false migration" > (@barbijaputa) is using Twitter and is inactive on Quitter_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I call shenanigans. Spaniard here, the story is completely wrong.

Most of the 6k registered users on Quitter Spain are inactive and it has nothing to do with Podemos and the indignados movement (they use Twitter actively along with Facebook). Even the user that started this "false migration" (@barbijaputa) is using Twitter and is inactive on Quitter.

<comment><USER7> They are backup accounts, which will explode in usage if access to centralized social media is blocked, or down for scheduled maintenance while some kind of political emergency[1] is happening in Spain.

[1][http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/16/us-iran- election-t...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/16/us-iran-election- twitter-usa-idUSWBT01137420090616)

<comment><USER8> > They are backup accounts, which will explode in usage if access to > centralized social media is blocked

So pretty much ... never? There is no way a country in the EU will be allowed to block social media.

<comment><USER9> Spain has recently reintroduced some legislation that would've made Franco proud. That said, I doubt they'll block twitter. They'll monitor it, of course -- and they'll probably use radio jamming against demonstrations.

Free, distributed (mesh-net) solutions will only help there, if they can somehow get around the jamming (relatively easy if only cell phone networks are jammed, not sure how likely it is that bluetooth/wlan will/can be jammed as well).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems the title is a bit hyped.

"Quitter Spain now has 6,667 users"... apparently, from the reading, all users came from the followers from a Twitter user that has 167,000 followers. I'll let everyone do the math.

I'd really like to see the tweets in question, because I tend to see a lot of two-faced individuals using the "freedom of speech" argument to personally attack and harass others. There is a bunch of accusations in the post, but no mention of the specific tweets that caused "Thousands of Spaniards leave Twitter". The fact that no part of the "conversation" is published, makes me a bit worried about the article's integrity.

<comment><USER11> This tweet, but you can't see the image:

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HdDO5m...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HdDO5mEVACMJ:https://twitter.com/Barbijaputa/status/551875190771449856+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=es)

The user filed a complaint with Twitter that the tweet contained private information about him. He also mentioned that the person retweeted him and he started getting a bunch of death threats from the person's followers (I think, my Spanish sucks.) The complaining person, a conservative, was tweeting about a protest demanding public treatment for hepatitis C, saying that a large portion of people with hepatitis get it from intravenous drug use. this made some people mad and they apparently went after him. Someone correct me if I got any of this wrong.

<comment><USER10> > The user filed a complaint with Twitter that the tweet contained private > information about him.

Well, if that is the case, I don't see nothing wrong with the ban. Everyone has a right to privacy, regardless of their political views, so Twitter's decision to temporary suspension is certainly the right one.

<comment><USER11> The picture is gone, so it's difficult to say what was in it. Some people file retaliatory complaints to get people taken offline. The attacked guy seems like kind of a jerk, but at the same time, the suspended user seemed perfectly willing to user their followers to mob people with insults and threats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thousands? More like dozens. And I bet they will return to Twitter very soon when they realize they can't do their job effectively on a social network that's completely empty.

> The growth was so explosive that the some of the existing GNU social nodes > were unable to handle the traffic

This would be a lot more impressive with actual numbers. Without numbers, it just feels like the numbers went from 100 to 200 and the network is so underpowered and badly implemented that it just collapsed.

Remember: always be suspicious of people who cite growth numbers instead of absolute ones, they are hiding the fact that these absolute numbers are bad, otherwise, they would be using them.

Edit: looks like it already happened. The only account named in this puff piece tweeted just three hours ago:

[https://twitter.com/barbijaputa](https://twitter.com/barbijaputa)

and he's pretty much inactive on Quitter.

</comment><comment><USER13> You had me at "federated"!

The "inter" "net" started as a federation of networks, then servers using published protocols.

It's been said a thousand times before, but poeple use to make fun of proprietary "emails", yet don't hesitate to use twitter, hangout etc...

xmpp is one of the saddest example, there were a lot of servers to chose from (or run your own), it was not a bad protocol, yet the big IM providers just abandonned it (google!) or never federated (facebook!).

I'm going to give this a try!

<comment><USER14> > _It 's been said a thousand times before, but poeple use to make fun of > proprietary "emails", yet don't hesitate to use twitter, hangout etc..._

The problem is that back in those days you basically had the choice between old school unixy internet power, and dumbed-down crippleware designed for joe sixpack who had never seen a computer before (ie. AOL). It was definitely worth the pain of learning to configure client apps for email, news, irc because that's where all the interesting online activity was happening anyway.

But since then two things happened: the majority of people in developed countries got online and became familiar with it, and the new generation of walled gardens was created on top of the internet rather than as a bizarro parallel universe.

The result is that things like Twitter succeed because A) that's where all the people are and B) they can leverage that to create a UX that is unattainable to distributed protocols.

This is not in the spirit of the creators of the internet, but their creation is no longer governed by the counter-cultural geek ideals of the late 60s either. The sad truth is the internet is market-driven now, and no amount of principled reasoning will put the cat back in the bag. The pendulum may swing back in the future due to political and cultural events, but mark my words, no federated Twitter replacement is going to gain any traction any time soon.

<comment><USER15> My prediction is that a few years from now, the big email providers' spam systems will have made sending email from smaller independent servers sufficiently unreliable that few people will want to do it anymore. At that point federated email will be a minority concern and everybody will get migrated to email 2.0, a new and improved system with no smelly sub-billion dollar participants allowed. Nobody will care or notice except a few out of touch nerds from the past.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would like to give some context.

As a Spaniard I don't know what this article talks about. I didn't know about Quitter.es and I consider myself someone informed. Even more, the Twitter user that originated the "revolution" (@Barbijaputa... translated as @Beard-Bitch, no comment) is no longer using Quitter.es anymore from what I can read.

edit: fix typo.

<comment><USER17> FWIW, @barbijaputa is a contraction for "Barbie hija puta", which would be literally translated as "Barbie, daughter of a whore", although it's best understood as "Barbie the bastard". See her profile pic:

[https://twitter.com/barbijaputa](https://twitter.com/barbijaputa)

<comment><USER18> "Bastard Barbie" or "Evil Barbie".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is cool - I like reading about these sorts of open platforms having success. It always reminds me of a thought I've had bopping around in the back of my head for awhile: do we really need to develop new technology to emulate what social networks have become? It seems to me that the core of social networks are: (a) a profile/posts/wall that is a glorified RSS feed, (b) a home/feed/stream that is a glorified (and proprietary) RSS reader, and (c) a (proprietary) messaging system that could be filled by email or XMPP. (in fact, your facebook messenger IS an email account[0].)

So do we really need new technologies like GNU Social/Twister to accomplish this, or can we just repackage the above tools to look like facebook/twitter/g+/ello, and have decentralized social platforms. The biggest hurdle I can imagine is non technical users not knowing what in the hell to do with an XML page when trying to follow a person, so I'd propose that a new link type similar to  be established -- perhaps something like  \-- which would open the feed in the follower's default RSS reader. And I could sort my feed into circles/groups, which are really just folders in a feed. I think this could be prettied up to look the same as and be just about as easy as twitter, with no new technologies needed. A service could host each of these components, and thus look just like a full social network as we've come to know them.

The fact that it's so often referred to as "microblogging" makes me wonder why this sort of set up isn't discussed more often (unless I'm missing it). It would also then be trivial to host your own, because really all you'd be doing is hosting a blog, and using an RSS reader. It seems so obvious to me that I feel like I might be overlooking something.

[0] [https://www.facebook.com/help/224049364288051](https://www.facebook.com/help/224049364288051)

<comment><USER20> There are two pieces missing from what you describe: one is ease of deployment, and within that I can lump operating costs. This is the less difficult problem to overcome.

The second, much more important problem: discovery. This is the only user- focused service Twitter actually provides (the ability to find the accounts you want to follow). The 'network effects' people love to throw out as excuses for using shitty services like Facebook is not as big a deal as people around here pretend. Email works just fine and there's no 'network effect' preventing me from running my own mail server. Discovery is so important that just about everyone reading this post would rather have a lock on discovery (and the accordant ad revenue) than promote any kind of federated system. Discovery is search, and search is hard, and searching across a federated service is damn- near impossible, which is why there's no email whitepages any more. Much simpler (and more profitable) to hash everyone's email addresses, or let them pick a cute username -- whatever, so long as you hold the keys and can sell ad space on the results pages.

Nothing like what you're describing is possible any more. There are no more federated open standards; the IETF is merely propped up to rubberstamp whatever Google or Microsoft wants to do next.

<comment><USER21> Well, it's the same reason have both chose to write our comments here instead of self-hosting it on our blogs, I suppose.

I would like to add the spam problem to your explanation. A distributed system needs a distributed solution for spam, which is much harder.

But we also need to add a little complexity to the description. There is a difference between decentralized and distributed systems, with email the former and usenet or irc the latter.

Both discoverability and search are trivial with distributed systems, but also offers the possibility of competing networks. It is interesting to note that the open protocols actually faired worse in those cases, as it lends itself to competititon, and a someone with access to deep pockets can leverage that against you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Email was a success because it predated the commercial providers. AOL started out with a closed email network, but eventually they added support for SMTP on the server side because it was in their best interest to join the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, subsequent federated systems (IM / microblogging) have largely failed because they were too late to the game. Big companies had already established a foothold with proprietary solutions before the open federated protocols existed. Unlike email, open IM/etc systems were never big enough to make them worth tapping into.

The reason the big services don't federate is political, not technical. Speaking as a developer, this is incredibly frustrating because it means no matter how awesome your new open protocol/service/platform is, the game is unwinnable.

Long ago, the FCC tried to force AOL to open up AIM to outsiders, by forbidding them to add videoconferencing capability until they complied. Did they open up their network? Of course not. Instead they waited years and years until the FCC dropped the issue.

Google was the first to do something right by supporting XMPP. I can only imagine this was due to the good will of the developers at the time. What's astounding is that none of the other big companies tried to federate with them. In the old days, you sometimes saw explicit partnerships between companies that allowed federation (like when MSN and Yahoo became compatible). Of course these no doubt involved meetings and contracts to put in place. And then there was Google, with port 5269 just plain open to the world. No contracts needed, yet nobody was compelled enough to take advantage of it.

All we needed was _one_ of the other big services to federate and cause a domino effect, incentivizing the rest to join. I always had my hopes on Yahoo. They were in last place, but with enough incentive to join Google and enough size to create a formidable network in aggregate. To whoever was in charge of Yahoo messenger in 2006: Thanks for blowing our one chance at IM standardization. The opportunity is gone now. These days, there are so many proprietary IM systems that it's easy to lose count.

Reflecting on all of this, I think the only way we're ever going to get out of this mess is if the big companies start doing what's right. Like when Google did the right thing 9 years ago, except we need more than one big company doing it at the same time. If you're at Facebook, Twitter, etc, and you're reading this message: we're depending on _you_.

</comment><comment><USER23> There are dozens of us! Dozens!

<comment><USER24> This was the first thing that popped into my head, but it felt gratuitously negative despite being a reference to a joke.

That makes me wonder if I'm interpreting the guidelines correctly

<comment><USER25> To me the previous comment sounded gratuitously hilarious, in a positive sense. Not mean, just poking fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good for them. Twitter and Facebook are no longer "social" networks, they are "advertising" networks. I think that's the trajectory of every publicly-traded "social" network: to eventually become an advertising network, driven by the never-ending demand of increasing revenues and profits.

<comment><USER27> Sounds like any social company that has an IPO.

<comment><USER28> Kind of begs the question... can any new social network exist and be successful without devolving into that?

<comment><USER29> Well StatusNet exists, and has not devolved into anything.

What you want is to somehow have the tremendous amount of money to force people onto your platform (ie, what Google did with G+, but failed) without the profit motive to eventually turn the service into advertising media. Which basically means you want someone or some people with a lot of money to just throw it at userbase.

StatusNet is not "popular" for the same reason a lot of the FSF movements efforts are not popular - there is no advertising. Firefox and VLC are probably the most popular end user facing free software projects and they only exist in their current form because of word of mouth. They _did_ have some substantial advertising efforts throughout the years, more than desktop Linux or other free software like Mumble ever has, and it takes that and just organic growth of userbase to become popular.

And even then, they were popular due to features, not freedom, though a lot of the features came from the freedom, and they were superior to their competition often because of contributions from the community.

Point is, you won't have a for profit social network get popular any other way, because your monetization options are limited when you are making it for profit, and you can only pump the absurd amount of advertising money into it to get a userbase by being for profit. The other alternative is StatusNet.

<comment><USER30> Firefox and VLC are popular because they had a superior UX compared to the proprietary competition. Firefox had plugins,tabs,and had more web features than IE. VLC,well, you don't need to care about installing codec A or B with VLC to read video files, it just works.

A opensource solution or free software, in order to win,must not only be free, but beat the competition in terms of user experience,ease of use,design...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Anybody knows what happened/is happening to tent.io? (I just google it and found a github repo updated as late as 15 days ago but no blog or timeline.)

</comment><comment><USER32> I had not heard of GNU Social before. Apparently it's the continuation of StatusNet, picked up by GNU after identi.ca stopped developing it?

<comment><USER11> That's exactly right. status.net switched to a new engine, pump.io, which was supposed to be more api and mobile friendly and easier to maintain. But work on that is moving really, really slow, I don't see any activity on their github for 10 months now. Really disappointing because pump.io is cool.

<comment><USER33> pump.io has lots of servers active and seems to have many users.

<comment><USER11> It does, but it's not nearly done if it's going to hope to compete with Twitter and Facebook, which I think it could do someday. For instance I would really like to see better embedding code for images, videos, etc. and a better default theme. One of the most exciting things about pump.io was that it used oauth to integrate with a couple web games (openfarmgame) so the game could put updates on your feed. Ton of potential.

I may sound like I'm complaining, but it's really just because I think it's so great. I don't feel entitled to EvanP's time, it looks like he's busy with a startup so I don't blame him at all.

<comment><USER31> Late but still want to add: looks like premium kickstarter idea to me if someone had time and skills

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Thousands of my fellow spaniards signed on Quitter for the first time, missed they political arch-enemies from the enemy front and went back to Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER35> Literally thousands!

Seriously though, it's good news for the FOSS world, and for privacy- and individuality-minded folks. Baby steps.

</comment><comment><USER36> It would be great is someone with some neat design skills could help them make their homepage be less bootstrappy! Especially since, you know... bootstrap comes from twitter :P

</comment><comment><USER37> I think eventually we will see something like GNU social or GNU communicator or some type of app that runs peer-to-peer rather than requiring you to set up a server to do things along the lines of Tweeting.

Projects like that already exist, they just aren't really popular yet.

I think we should promote content-centric/named-data p2p networking protocols.

<comment><USER38> Twister is an example.

<comment><USER39> Gilgamesh is also similar, but works directly between Android devices over Bluetooth (not Internet).

[https://github.com/n8fr8/gilgamesh](https://github.com/n8fr8/gilgamesh)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I joined a few months ago. It's not terribly active, but a lot of the active users are FOSS people, which makes for a very high signal to noise ratio. It's the only network nowadays where I don't just autopost from the blog and completely ignore it otherwise.

<comment><USER41> I don't understand the SnR concept here where you can follow who you want only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> That's fascinating. How's it working out technically? How well does GNU Social scale, and how does it deal with spam? Those are the two big problems such a system faces once it gets users.

</comment><comment><USER43> This probably isn't a movement. But my gut tells me somebody is going to create a truly open and free network. And once it's established it will feel like it was inevitable.

<comment><USER15> My gut tells me that people are going to continue to flock towards less open and free networks, and we will wonder why we ever expected it to be any different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> There seems to be an SSL issue with Vinilox.

I got Chrome's "Your connection is not private" warning page when I clicked it.

<comment><USER45> That's because they use a certificate from Cacert, whose root certificate is not included in the major browsers.

(See also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAcert.org#Inclusion_status](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAcert.org#Inclusion_status))</comment></comment>


Welcome new YC team members - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-scott-dalton-adora-brett-nicole-alexis-and-qasar <comment><USER2> Of the partners announced today, a lot of people know Alexis and Dalton, but my guess is that few know Qasar. I worked for him for over two years at Google. He was one of the product leads I respected the most because he was really good at product management and managing people. He'll definitely be missed.

But the truth is that I've always thought of him as a coach. I've grown so much since my time as a fresh new grad and Qasar was a huge part of that. It's crazy to think about how many hours he spent listening to my problems and I'll always be thankful for that (it's funny to think that in retrospect he was just doing office hours).

Of course he's good at what he does, but his genuine helpfulness and energy is what I've always respected and appreciated most about him. And it's that energy that finally gave me the confidence to quit and finally try out all the things I learned from him. The cycle continues...

<comment><USER3> Agree with this 100%. Qasar is one of the most dedicated and hardworking people I have ever known. I recall first meeting Qasar several years ago. We were introduced by a mutual friend and met at Google. Within a year of that meeting, Qasar put together a team, applied and successfully got into YC, and sold TalkBin to Google.

While at Google Qasar was one if the sharpest Product Managers on the team. I joined his team within a few weeks after the TalkBin acquisition. As the team, product, and scope grew, Qasar focused on building excellent product, never compromising quality. As a result he quickly rose the ranks because of his unique ability to balance product and business objectives. All the while he took great care of the people on his team.

It's truly sad to see him leave Google but he will be an incredible force of nature at YC. His passion and energy has always been on helping startups and founders succeed. He spent a tremendous amount of time mentoring and coaching his team at Google and will bring this same enthusiasm to YC. Above all else, Qasar is the quintessential example of someone that has more grit than anyone I know.

He's a no bullshit kind of person that's always helping getting things done. YC is very fortunate to have him. Even if you are not in his batch, Qasar is someone you want to get to know.

<comment><USER4> Alexis just told me about these comments. You guys know that I can't impact your careers anymore right! :) Jokes aside, thank you for the kind words. It was an amazing few years.

<comment><USER5> Hey Qasar, how do you recommend someone become a better product manager?

<comment><USER4> That's very broad question like "how do you become good at basketball?". I emailed you some starting points. We can continue the conversation there.

<comment><USER6> I'd love to receive some advice on this topic, Qasar, any chance you could forward me your pointers, too? Plenty of specifics I'd like to know, if there's potential for follow-up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone who recently came through YC (W2014) - I can say that Alexis and Dalton have been two of the most helpful people within the YC community for us at Beacon.

In particular, Dalton is someone that helped us when we got rejected after our first interview, stayed supportive, and always has actionable insight and advice. He's also just a legend.

As to Alexis, I honestly don't understand how he does all the things he does - he's just going at like a million miles a minute. As high profile as he is, I actually think his value is underrated in the YC community.

<comment><USER8> I wanted to quickly chime in here and second these thoughts. Dalton and Alexis have also been very helpful to 7 Cups of Tea.

Dalton is always super fast to respond to emails. I've gone back and forth with him, asking lots of questions, and really drilling down to make sure I understand what he is suggesting. Without fail, he'll get back to me within a matter of hours and respond in-depth to my questions. I think his background in psychology and experience working with younger populations gives him very insightful perspectives. He is also very honest and supportive.

Alexis is one of the people I most admire. The guy has real integrity. I think he understands what is truly important in life and lives in a manner that holds up these values. They are implicit in how he relates to others. He is also an amazing worker. I remember asking him for a consult on a Saturday morning. I was thinking we'd connect later on that next week. He got right back to me and called me on a Saturday morning. I apologized for bugging him and he said not to worry that if I'm working he is working. Then, to take things a step further, he connected me with Ashley Dawkins (his Outreach Director). She is also awesome, quick to respond, and very helpful. The last point I'll highlight is Alexis is really hopeful. Hope is pretty damn powerful and I think he gets that in manner that few people understand.

<comment><USER9> Fantastic insight into what makes Alexis so uniquely great. I think this is spot on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congrats to Alexis! That dude not only created one of the greatest communities on the internet, but also does some amazing things. He's right up there with Elon Musk in my list of inspirational people.

<comment><USER11> Thanks, killswitch. There's no reddit without Steve Huffman (now hipmunk CTO+cofounder) but I will gladly accept my spot on your list, albeit undeserved, so now I need to earn it!

<comment><USER12>
      "There's no reddit without Steve Huffman"

Or Aaron Swartz of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So who is going to be the YC ambassador to the East coast now that Alexis is full time?

<comment><USER11> I'll still be holding it down in Brooklyn when I'm not helping the batches in MV.

<comment><USER13> Maybe you can expand to DC as well - or bring on one of us in the DC area as your proxy.

<comment><USER11> I come back for every home game I can when NFL is in season...

That and I'm really excited to be a voice for Y Combinator (and startups) in D.C. -- in addition to just being an advocate for the open internet as a citizen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What does the YC software team hack on? Internal tools other than HN?

<comment><AUTHOR> roughly: HN, internal tools, and (soon) external tools

<comment><USER15> Any hints as to what we can expect in the last category?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sorry, but I thought Dalton was already a partner? Did he join YC as another position and I'm mixing them up?

edit: looks like he was part time, is he full time now?

<comment><USER17> that is correct, I went from part-time partner to fulltime partner

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Do YC partners invest their own money into the batch, or do they just help to allocate a pool of YC money? "Partner" generally means that the person gets a share of the profits but I know the term is now used more loosely than that definition.

<comment><AUTHOR> all YC partners get a share of the profits, and they help allocate the YC pool of money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great adds for YC. I've worked for Dalton and can attest that he is one of the best product minds around — a real visionary. Psychology and systems thinking are some of the last uncommodotized tools in this industry and he has them.

</comment><comment><USER20> Can anyone explain how does YC's business model works? They seem to keep adding several more partners often. I would guess the current toll should be more than 50. Do these partners also invest their own money in YC or no?

<comment><USER21> Not sure where you got the number 50 from. There's a list of all of the full- time partners on the site[1], adding the ones today for 17, plus another handful of part-time partners (6 or so?).

As far as I know, the partners help choose the startups to fund and advise them. I don't think they invest their own money (except maybe after Demo Day[2]), but choose how to invest YC's money at the start of each batch.

[1] [http://www.ycombinator.com/partners/](http://www.ycombinator.com/partners/)

[2] [http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-yc-partner-investment- policy](http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-yc-partner-investment-policy)

<comment><USER20> Got it, yeah 50 was just a total guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Great job Alexis, although I thought you were already a partner :)

<comment><USER11> Thanks. Nope - was Ambassador to the East! [http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/reddit-cofounder-alexis- oha...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/reddit-cofounder-alexis-ohanian-to- join-y-combinator/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Since HN is a site where _one of the things that people learn_ through transparency is how different business models operate, it would be interesting to know (even roughly) how partners fit into the profits or payout from YC companies that succeed. In other words how profits are allocated.

</comment><comment><USER21> Weren't Dalton, Alexis, and Qasar already part-time partners? Little confusing... Awesome nonetheless.

<comment><USER24> They're transitioning from part time to full time :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you get around question deflection when interviewing? - <AUTHOR> I'm new to interviewing. At this point, I've interviewed 5 candidates for the small startup I work at. I like to hear about projects the candidate worked on previously and then ask them to get into the technical details on a component of it. For example, let's say the candidate was scraping web pages for photos of cats. I'd ask them to tell me about it and the candidate starts with an overview of the system. Something like - "We built a process to scrape a set of webpages looking for cat photos. We then store the photos in an s3 bucket and retrieve them later via an api we built out". I'd then ask, "How are you identifying photos of cats on these webpages?". I'll get a fairly generic response, "Deep Learning", or "Photo Titles". I respond to this with, "That's interesting, tell me about the challenges you faced trying to implement that?". This is where I've received a deflection twice in the five interviews I've done. The first time this happened, the candidate responded, "That's too complicated". The second time the candidate responded, "I don't want to bore you with the details".<p>This is starting to concern me. When this happens in an interview, how do you get around it so the candidate will talk about the technical aspects of their project? Should this be an immediate red flag? Could I be doing something which leads to candidates not wanting to get into technical details? <comment><USER2> I wouldn't "red flag" a dodged answer, but "yellow flag" it.

One of the most useful tactics in interviewing, or in any conversation, is to use silence as a tool. In your example, if they say "Deep learning", instead of responding with "that's interesting,..." stay silent for a few momenths. They will subconsciously jump to fill the gap in conversation, often revealing even more about themselves with the "unprepared" response you promted with your silence.

Another tact to take is being more "strong-armed". If they "dont want to bore you with the details", simply say "I would like to hear the details, break it down for me".

Simply don't allow them to deflect. If they deflect and haven't answered your question to your satisfaction, be straight forward and ask them to elaborate.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think some candidates don't know what is IP for their current company and don't want to get in trouble discussing that. The other one sounded like he didn't fully understand it.

If you circle back and say something like, please bore me with the details it sounds interesting and they refuse that would be a deal breaker for me. It is in my mind a huge red flag.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't thought about IP at all. Thanks for bringing that up! I really appreciate the feedback.

<comment><USER2> Keep in mind, if it's an IP issue they should be replying upfront with "I'm not sure I can discuss that, IP blah blah" not dodging the question.

If they are an honest candidate, at least.

<comment><USER4> If they are a dishonest candidate they should be deflecting in this way too.

It shuts down the interviewer's chance to strong arm them, without the interviewer coming off as aggressive.

It also signals to the interviewer that the candidate is trustworthy, and isn't going to go off interviewing for other companies sharing their IP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "That's too complicated"

> "I don't want to bore you with the details".

Response: "Try me."

Dig for the details and if the candidate can't provide them, then either someone else did the work, they used a library and don't actually understand it, or they made it up altogether. This is assuming, of course, that they did the work relatively recently (<5 years).

If they deflect by mentioning either IP agreements or NDA's, then remain on topic but discuss something else under the same umbrella. For example, if the candidate deflects a question concerning k-means clustering, then ask about k-nearest-neighbors. If they continue to deflect, that's a red flag.

I'm a pessimist when it comes to hiring, but there are a lot of imposters claiming undue credit in this industry.

I recommend finding the best bullshitter at your company and having that person interview the candidates with you. A good bullshitter can always spot another bullshitter.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interviewing requires a lot of experience and you have to be extremely humble. You may fail at capturing excellent candidates in only 30 minutes based off your own judgement. The more curious and patient you are, the better. In the scenario you've described, flagging the candidate means you didn't get the exact answer you were expecting after you asked a question, which is a terrible judgement. The red flag should be on the interviewer side.

Your role as an interviewer is to extract the information out of a candidate, otherwise we'd be using programs to do that for us because it's not just a 'yes' or 'no' answer. What I would do if I were you is to ask a follow up question - "I'm actually interested in learning more about that deep learning piece you mentioned, could you elaborate more on that, for example, is it using xyz technique or abc?". If the candidate can't answer your follow up question then follow up with "do you have experience in deep learning?". Only then, you'll get an accurate answer to your question. There's no guessing nor red flagging. If it's a yes then dig more until you get to understand the level of exposure to deep learning for this candidate. As you can tell, it involves 2 things from you: 1. be on top of deep learning if it's a requirement for this role, 2. being curious and ready to triple check your judgement. It's not a "I know, you don't know" type of situations, it's about trying to understand the level of a candidate within certain topics, while pushing the conversion in the right direction. That is your role as an interviewer.

Last but not least, it's totally fine if the answer you get is "I don't know anything about this topic". Try to find out if the candidate would be willing to learn deep learning and the reason why he/she would be interested in learning that. You may not have a deep learning expert in front of you, but maybe this person has the potential to become the next DL guru based on other things that could highlight excellent problem solving. You have to bridge the gaps as an interviewer by staying positive until the end - I'm sure this candidate has something to offer, let's try to find out what is that super power!

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd probably consider it a "red" flag.

In the past, when i was asked about details of projects (non confidential) that i _actually_ was working on - it always was fun for me to go into details and have conversation of equals instead of _being interrogated_.</comment>


Unused Arguments Aren't a Problem When Recursing Right? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nullterminatedstrings.com/c++/recursive-warning/ <comment><USER2> ok my brain is running on empty right now but I don't really see any explanation about what the problem actually is... I get that something related to some scripting language you're using for your game isn't working, but you never actually explained what is broken.

Are unused arguments a problem when recursing? I can imagine they are if they're taking up stack space and you're doing an awful lot of recursing (I don't really use recursion enough in my C++ code to really run into issues like this, so I am a little ignorant on the side effects of recursing deeply).

Anyway it's time for bed and I'm sure this article is going to be giving me nightmares tonight.

<comment><USER3> I think the problem the author is trying to bring up is that if the only place the variable is used is in a recursive call, this should be the same warning as if its not used at all. There's no way it can impact the return value (or side effects) of the function.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> gcc also doesn't _detect_ the unused variable. Looking at the -Wunused warning description it does so correctly since a variable is considered unused if it is declared only. In this case it is also used as a parameter.

To detect it, split the recursive function into two, one that recurses and one that does the job at the end. Both can take the same relevant arguments and the latter function will _detect_ any unused parameters.

</comment><comment><USER5> Of course, to "really" solve this problem you'd have to recognize "mutually unused" arguments: foo(a,b) calls foo(b,a) and doesn't otherwise use the arguments. But foo(x,a) which uses x and calls foo(a,x) uses both. Not difficult to solve, and a few seconds' thought puts it in O(m*n) with m recursive calls and n parameters... but probably not worth the trouble.

<comment><USER6> Even worse, foo(a,b) could call bar(a,b,c) which calls foo(b,a), all without otherwise looking at a or b. This could get really bad really fast.

But that feels like the wrong way to analyze this. Even though a full solution isn't practical, a limited one may be.

<comment><USER4> There is no way of fully detecting it, because of function pointers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just a gut feeling. Properly solving this might require solving the halting problem: you don't know the variable is unused until you actually evaluate the code. Otherwise you can only aim for detecting very trivial cases.

<comment><USER4> Yes. See my comment below. The bug is trivially avoided by adhering to a coding standard that actually makes the code better. See my other comment below.</comment></comment>


Grub2 Authentication 0-Day - <AUTHOR> http://hmarco.org/bugs/CVE-2015-8370-Grub2-authentication-bypass.html <comment><USER2> seriously.... yay for much easier bootloader tinkering in embedded devices, boo for more crappy exploitable embedded devices.</comment>


Clojure: It's About the Libraries - <AUTHOR> http://stuartsierra.com/2009/02/22/its-about-the-libraries <comment><USER2> Clojure revolts me.

It is the most explicit to date abandonment of the age-old Lispers' Dream, which was "Lisp All The Way Down." Clojure is the antithesis of the Lisp Machine. Rather than a crystalline pyramid of _comprehensible_ mutually- interlocking concepts, behind every Clojure primitive there lurks Black Magic. The Clojure user who is missing some routine or other will run crying to Java for help, rather than implementing the feature himself _correctly_ \- that is, as a natural part of the entire language, built on the same concepts. Clojure pisses on everything I've ever loved about Lisp. It rejects even what little consistency and intellectual rigor there is to be found in an abomination like Common Lisp.

Clojure is the False Lisp, which Reeketh of the Cube Farm.

I don't care if everybody really _is_ more productive in Clojure than in Common Lisp. The latter is not my standard of comparison (Symbolics Genera, the state of the art, is. Or, if you want something that is distinctly inferior but is currently available on the market: Mathematica.) Clojure is the gutted corpse of a dream.

I am tired of this abomination being hailed as the future of Lisp. Users of _real_ Lisps, such as myself, will keep hoping, dreaming, and working on systems which do not betray the original virtues of the language.

<comment><USER3> Please tell me this is a parody. A programming language is a tool, not a religion.

<comment><USER4> No, a language is a way of communicating ideas, and hence, of thinking about them. (I wouldn't call English or kuchi shoga or tensor diagram notation "tools", even though they can be incredibly useful.) A programming language implementation can be used as a tool.

I think this is the core of our differences. Lisp has traditionally been used mostly as a language -- as Dijkstra put it, it "has assisted a number of our most gifted fellow humans in thinking previously impossible thoughts". Most other programming languages have been used as tools.

Clojure looks like a perfectly competent Lisp-on-JVM (with immutability!), but I don't see it changing how I think about anything. It's thoroughly on the "tool" side of things, which understandably leads to people in the "language" camp being miffed that anybody thinks it's comparable to classic Lisps from the "language" camp.

The Lisp engine in Abuse was a tool, too, and highly productive for its uses, but at least nobody claimed it was a successor to the Lisp line.

<comment><USER3> I dislike arguments over semantics. Saying something is a tool does not mean it is not also a language. For instance, mathematics can be considered both a tool and a language.

It's true that Clojure is a programming language designed to be practical, but I fail to see why this would make it any less useful as a language for communicating ideas, or any less able to change how people think about things.

Could you provide an example of an idea that is more easily communicated in another Lisp, rather than in Clojure?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _'Cause if it's ever been done, anywhere, by anyone, someone's done it in Java. Twice._

If only. If I could get something like Python's Numpy on the JVM, I'd be using Clojure on my current project(s).

<comment><USER6> I don't know how useful this is to you, but here is a list of Java numerics libraries (and assorted other information):

<http://math.nist.gov/javanumerics/>

<comment><USER5> I mean, "something as good".

<comment><USER7> It's always good to do your research before making a statement on a topic you might not have a complete picture of:

Colt: <http://acs.lbl.gov/~hoschek/colt/> Parallel Colt: [http://sites.google.com/site/piotrwendykier/software/paralle...](http://sites.google.com/site/piotrwendykier/software/parallelcolt)

There's been talk about integrating this functionality into Clojure. Incanter is an example of a project by someone who wanted to get primitive support for matrix math and has had quite a bit of success.

<comment><USER5> Wow, Incanter looks great. I've got to look into this more.

How do you know I don't do my research by making provocative statements on public fora?

<comment><USER8> "How do you know I don't do my research by making provocative statements on public fora?"

There is something to be said for that. I would not have thought to Google for "R-like interactive environment, built with Clojure and Java charting and numerics libraries." But now that I know it exists, I'm pretty excited about the possibilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The impedance mismatch between Scheme and the JVM is a lot less than what the writer thinks. Here's the comment I just added to the post:

You don't need primitive-static-method in Kawa as of several years ago. It's just there for backward compatibility. Newer syntax for calling Java methods is much easier:

<http://www.gnu.org/software/kawa/Method-operations.html>

<comment><USER2> > The impedance mismatch between Scheme and the JVM is a lot less than what > the writer thinks

Tail call optimization? Scheme is a cruel parody of itself without it.

<comment><USER9> I can only remember two cases where I had to turn on the full-tail-call option to the Kawa compiler, and even then performance wasn't a problem. The SISC Scheme interpreter does reasonably well too, and it has full tail call optimization all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Using Java libraries from a non-Java language on the JVM is one of the happiest parts of my day, every day.

However that being said, the real reason why Clojure is going to become the most important Lisp is the same reason why Java has been displacing the theoretically-faster C++: multicore.

<comment><USER11> You're claiming that (a) Java is better at multicore than C++; and (b) Java has been displacing C++; and (c) that the former is due to the latter. I haven't heard this idea before. Can you elaborate please?

Threading the locks have been integrated into Java from the beginning, with every object having a monitor and functions like _wait()_ and _notify()_ , and a _synchronized_ keyword. These are nice, and do help, but they don't solve the problem. I've heard that Java fixed up some problems with these in version 1.5 or 1.6, but haven't looked at the details.

My understanding is that none of the imperative languages are very good at multicore. Erlang is said to be effective at it (because of pure message passing); and some people claim FP will help because it overcomes the problem of shared state by making it immutable (while this is true, I'm not convinced it's particularly helpful in large projects, in practice).

So I'm interested in your reasoning.

<comment><USER10> As limited as the threading model of synchronization is, it can be used to fairly easily write programs that scale up to some reasonable number of threads (10-100). This is less to do with the convenience of having keywords like 'synchronized' and more to with the fact that modern Java has a proper memory model. The C++ people are trying to put together a memory model, but it's not here yet and there's some doubt about the ability to integrate it successfully with existing (pthreads etc.) code.

Without a memory model you're going to be writing more code that is less correct at a substantially higher cost. If you're interested in this google for a Google Tech Talk by Josh Bloch on 'Java Memory Model'. This basically comes down to my ability to get at architecture specific stuff (CAS, fencing) in a platform independent way and have it work. Cliff Click has a really neat tech talk on writing a lock-free hash table in Java, don't bother trying to write it in C++.

Ultimately we will need a better model for concurrency, which will be some combination of functional programming and lightweight processes (actors). Erlang/Scala/Clojure/Haskell are in the right neighborhood (maybe Gambit Scheme, don't know much about it), but Erlang and Haskell are really hard to teach to mere mortals like myself. I don't know enough category theory to understand 'hello world' in Haskell, but I can write Scala and Clojure programs that work (and leverage my existing investment in the JVM).

edit: i left off something imporant. if anything saves imperative programming it will be transactional memory, which is _exremely_ hard. hardware TM and code written for TM are in a chicken-and-egg situation. the answer is hybrid hardware/software TM and the sun guys are way ahead on this too.

<comment><USER12> _if anything saves imperative programming it will be transactional memory, which is exremely hard. hardware TM and code written for TM are in a chicken- and-egg situation. the answer is hybrid hardware/software TM and the sun guys are way ahead on this too._

What's interesting is STM is only hard in imperative languages. It's relatively straightforward in Clojure and Haskell. See [http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/the-problem-with- stm-...](http://enfranchisedmind.com/blog/posts/the-problem-with-stm-your- languages-still-suck/)

<comment><USER13> Also recently there was a very interesting article in Communications of the ACM about STM vs HTM and the problems with both in a general sense.

[http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1410000/1400228/p40-cascaval...](http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1410000/1400228/p40-cascaval.html?key1=1400228&key2=9950411421&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=33768312&CFTOKEN=64607598)

Edit: Prettier version [http://mags.acm.org/communications/200811/?folio=40&CFID...](http://mags.acm.org/communications/200811/?folio=40&CFID=33768312&CFTOKEN=64607598)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's also that AFAIK, it's the first major lisp in a while to be completely redesigned without regard to compatibility with CL. There's a ton of stuff that was just waiting to be done, but couldn't because people kept using car and cdr instead of first and rest.

<comment><USER15> No, Common Lisp has both sets of operators; it has car, cdr and all the combinations of c(a|d)+r you can handle, it also has the ordinal number words, first, second .. tenth, and rest.

The difference is that first, rest et al. are used when the data being handled are _proper_ lists. A list of items terminated by nil.

Car, cdr and others can be used with lists as well, but they're more primitive operations that mean _cons_ cells; a pair data structure that has two parts. You can view a proper list as "a primitive pair data structure that has the first item of the list as its first cell, and has its second items a pointer to rest of the list" .. and construct the rest inductively.

You can't use first and rest to operate on associative lists, graph structures cyclical or otherwise and a host of other data structures.

Some programmers decide to make their intent clear when operating on proper lists, while others prefer to stick to car and cdr out of habit, nostalgia, not-knowing better, street cred, or as a _cheap_ _way_ _to_ _advance_ _pointers_ with one compact operation.

CAR and CDR are less relevant now that people use CLOS, CL's Object System, and to a lesser extent structures. Defstruct gives you the accessor FREE, it constructs the accessor functions as classname-slotname for the reader and (setf classname-slotname) for the update/write function. With CLOS you can choose the name for it with an initialization argument (:initarg :accessor, :reader, or :writer)

Please update your Common Lisp prejudice check-list.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: linux sysadmin considering going the consulting route - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I am a senior Linux systems admin, >10 years experience and have worked for high volume dotcoms.  I'm looking for my next challenge and I am considering being a consultant.  The thing that I am not certain about is the demand for Linux sysadmins on a per project basis.  I know plenty of people doing consulting as software developers (and they seem very happy,) but don't really know anyone doing it as a sysadmin.
I suspect that some smaller companies or even startups might be interested because they don't have the funds or need to have a senior sysadmin on staff, but could use expertise on a per project basis.
While I'm based in the Boston area, I would consider doing projects around the world.
Any advice or thoughts?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> First stop: Steve Friedl's _So you want to be a consultant...?_

<http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html>

Steve does a lot of sysadmin consulting work (in addition to software development). Here are some of his shared tidbits:

<http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/>

He's also the brother of Jeffrey Friedl, author of _Mastering Regular Expressions_ :

<http://regex.info/>

<comment><AUTHOR> nice, looks like some informative stuff. thanks</comment></comment>


Briar Project - <AUTHOR> https://briarproject.org/how-it-works.html <comment><USER2> There are things you wonder why they don't exist. Then there are things where you wonder why only bad implementations exits. I'd so far refused to install messenger apps on my phone. Briar changed that. It looks like they know what they want to exist and are not taking shortcuts.

So far my contact list has exactly one entry: The dude who showed me Briar exists :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish the Briar project well and congrats to them on this milestone. With that said, here is an essay I wrote in 2015 on "Why Encryption Use Is Problematical When Advocating For Social Change" (prompted from thinking about working for the Briar project): [https://pdfernhout.net/why-encryption-use-is- problematical-w...](https://pdfernhout.net/why-encryption-use-is- problematical-when-advocating-for-social-change.html) "I believe decentralized knowledge sharing is important, especially for disaster preparedness. I also believe encryption is important in practice, the same way as many people have locks on their doors. Such things do affect a balance between state power and individual power, which is important in a democracy, and they also make it harder for vandals and criminals to operate. So, a project like Briar that supports decentralized communications and encryption is important for those and other reasons. Still, as my father (a machinist among other things) used to say, "Locks only keep honest people honest." Here is a partial list of all the ways a tool like Briar can fail when being used by activists engaged in controversial political actions. ..."

In short, there are many ways that your privacy can be compromised when using networked computers even if your software works perfectly at the application level --- from the hardware, to the firmware, to the OS, to the network stack, to user error, to people you communicate with being untrustworthy.

The conclusion: "If you want to build a mass movement, at some point, you need to engage people. In practice, for social psychology reasons, engaging people is very difficult, if not impossible, to do completely anonymously in an untraceable way. People have historically built mass movements without computers or the internet. It's not clear if the internet really makes this easier for activists or instead just for the status quo who wants to monitor them. If you work in public, you don't have to fear loss of secure communications because you never structure your movement to rely on them. If you rely on "secure" communications, then you may set yourself up to fail when such communications are compromised. If your point is to build a mass movement, then where should your focus be?"

</comment><comment><USER4> How does this compare to Tox and Ring?

<comment><USER5> the main dev of tox is kinda toxic to it's own project with kneejerk responses like these: [https://github.com/TokTok/c-toxcore/issues/426](https://github.com/TokTok/c-toxcore/issues/426) and [https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/121](https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/issues/121) showing much more enthusiasm than competence when it comes to security and crypto. while the people behind briar i got to know as reasonable and deliberate people.

can't say much about ring, but a few years back i looked at the crypto and it was boring, which some people argue is good, i was not sure about that in this case. dunno how much they evolved since then.

<comment><USER6> I thought Toxcore was forked and it was going better. As a packager I never had any issue with them, they are helpful in the fork.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 2 cents: \- love the fact you have to meet contact in person to add \- forbidding screenshots is great as well \- why trust your own repo more than f-droid repo?

</comment><comment><USER8> I tried to install it on my Chromebook from Google Play and was unable to do so because Google Play indicated "Your device isn't compatible with this version." :-(

<comment><USER9> This should be fixed in the next release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Congrats on the v1.0 release, team. Awesome!</comment>


Ask HN: Is there an algorithm to generate coherent color palettes? - <AUTHOR> Designers come up with a collection of colors that are aesthetically pleasing.
Colors on electronic screens are just numbers. So by first principles, designers are in fact picking some numbers from an infinite set.
This selection process is certainly not random. It's common knowledge that blue works well with red on flags.
My question is: can a computer come up with a color palette (ie hex codes) that will work well together?
Is there any literature around this topic?
PS: I'm working on a side project that needs to generate color palettes and I have no clue about it.
Thanks <comment><USER2> There's the standard color theory.

You look at a color wheel. Colors on the opposite side of the wheel look good. It's just opposite (complementary), but also tertiary, and so on.

You can also cut out a block from a color wheel. There's some nice examples here: [https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=25396.0](https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=25396.0)

Hex code might seem tough, better to look at it from HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) and focus on only Hue.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a fan of [https://paletton.com/](https://paletton.com/) but someone has tried to apply AI to the problem: [http://colormind.io/](http://colormind.io/) though beauty as ever remains in the eye of the beholder...

</comment><comment><USER4> Although there are general principles, there's no accurate theory for what looks good. But I think you could train a ML model on data, such as from [https://www.colourlovers.com/palettes](https://www.colourlovers.com/palettes).

</comment><comment><USER5> I like [https://coolors.co/](https://coolors.co/) for color palette generation. Not sure what their algorithm is.</comment>


GMail is not a business tool. Period. - <AUTHOR> http://www.formortals.com/gmail-is-not-a-business-tool-period/

<comment><USER2> To play Devil's Advocate:

> Problem #1: Over-aggressive spam filtering

In five years of using exclusively GMail (and GAfB, which has the same filters), I have never once missed a legitimate message (or, at least, noticed). A quick poll of my friends indicates they have had the same experience.

> Problem #2: "… sent on behalf of…"

This is already countered by #3.

> Problem #3: Fixing "… sent on behalf of …"

Just because this is a minor pain in the ass doesn't make it an illegitimate business tool. A few extra minutes to figure it out is certainly worth the productivity gains from all of GMail's other features.

> Problem #4: Calendars

Author should either cancel his GMail account, or read the email that gets sent to it. Either would solve this problem. This is not a valid complaint.

> Problem #5: Customer Service? What's that?

Semi-legitimate. Every time I (and anyone I've even heard of) have had an issue with GMail, it is fixed promptly with no action on my part. Google has monitoring for this and actively works to solve problems, rather than waiting for support requests. How is this not preferable in every sense?

Mainly what I take issue with here is that the author is claiming GMail to be completely unacceptable for "Business". Full stop. That's an absurd statement to make. I fully respect his decision that it's not suitable for _his_ business, but how he is putting this across is immensely arrogant.

<comment><USER3> re #1: I've had a few, and I have relatively low volumes of spam (a dozen a day or less). Strangely enough, most of them have been from major emailers - Borders, a couple tea sites, etc. A couple personal emails, but the last one was over a year ago.

The major business-problem I see with Gmail is the 10-connection limit with IMAP (a single client often has multiple connections). Totally screws over people with multiple devices, which seems to me to be more likely w/ business- oriented uses. I could be wrong, but I think it applies to apps-for-business as well as regular Gmail, which is a bit crippling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Gmail is a free personal email service and this guy complains about lack of customer service? Boohoo. Wish I could downvote links on HN.

</comment><comment><USER5> "The problem is, GMail is absolutely unacceptable for business usage, but the folks who use it don't see it that way."

Its odd you say that above. The people who use it are the ones that matter.? If its used for it, well its works for them for business. End of Story.</comment>


BBC-News/Imager.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/BBC-News/Imager.js <comment><USER2> There is no live demo on the github site. Here is a nice demo found on google: [http://firegoby.com/imager-cssbackgrounds](http://firegoby.com/imager- cssbackgrounds)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, but wouldn't work for our use case at onefinestay, for two reasons:

1 - We use thumbor for serving our images, so changing the width in the URL isn't enough, you also need to change the crop parameters and the anti-tamper signing part.

2 - We actually use different markup in places, some of our homepage slides use 2 or 4 images at desktop sizes, but only 1 at tablet and smaller.

What we're doing is using a modified version of picturefill.js, where we wrap each picture component in another component that controls what widths we load it at.

You can see it in play here: [http://www.onefinestay.com/](http://www.onefinestay.com/)

<comment><USER4> You should provide the feedback on the Github repository, it will be easier to address a solution for that :-)

1\. how do you indicate the crop/anti-tamper in your URL? What is the URL structure of your responsive images? 2\. you can finely control how Imager is targeting your images. So you could target different imager configurations for different classnames.

Have a look at the examples and let us know if something is missing and not addressing your needs :-)

<comment><USER3> It would actually be different configurations per image, see this example:

[http://cropper.onefinestay.com/s3NY9Z5QncGSnphA8QhOStz36wQ=/...](http://cropper.onefinestay.com/s3NY9Z5QncGSnphA8QhOStz36wQ=/80x19:4253x2801/fit- in/696x0/filters:quality\(85\)/https://ofs-media- production.s3.amazonaws.com/media- library/be3c3d92397a3a2af72662c1838885163c48c12f.jpg)

The segment immediately after the hostname is the signed part, which is generated based on all the other parameters (ie quality, dimensions, crop coordinates and source image url). If you change any part of the URL, the server will return a 404. There's no way of providing a set of client-side rules for how to generate the URLs for the different size images, without leaking our secret key. An option would be for the entire URL to be the configuration, but then all you've achieved is moving the config out of data attributes and into javascript config objects.

Essentially, this is what we're doing: [https://gist.github.com/AndrewIngram/7871392](https://gist.github.com/AndrewIngram/7871392)

<comment><USER4> Oh that's an interesting approach; glad you coined it :-)

Could you create another Gist with how you would see your URL built with Imager? And ping @oncletom in it.

Maybe something like

``` [http://cropper.onefinestay.com/{secret_key}=/80x19:4253x2801...](http://cropper.onefinestay.com/{secret_key}=/80x19:4253x2801/fit- in/{width}x0/filters:quality\({quality}\)/https://ofs-media- production.s3.amazonaws.com/media- library/be3c3d92397a3a2af72662c1838885163c48c12f.jpg) ```

Thanks :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> BBC uses name of already existing npm package for their install instructions. And in issues one of the programmers I suppose suggests asking to madhums to rename original library :) Strange line of thought.

<comment><USER6> that's strange indeed. Not to mention the npm 'imager' is widely used in production.

<comment><USER4> Yes that's something that has been overlooked and which is going to be sorted. It will mostly be `imager-js` in npm and bower registries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looking through their resources the important images are all Jpegs, so I would have thought the overly compressed JPEG@2x solution would work for them. I also see a few individual PNGs, some of them individual icons, the other sprite sheets. Perhaps they'd be better off using webfonts for icons, or Base64 encoding images into the sprite sheets with SASS.

My gut feeling is that this solution might be more complicated than the problem.

<comment><USER8> BBC News does use webfonts for icons. The examples you see on the Imager.js Github repository are not exactly what BBC News uses in production, consider those as guidelines for using the plugin.

<comment><USER7> I was looking at the resources on the actual BBC news website. My point being, I wonder if the BEEB _might_ be better off using webfonts for icons since every other image can be a jpeg. And if it can be a JPEG, the aggressive compression technique might be a better approach since it doesn't require any JS or additional HTTP connections.

Are you saying that the BEEB has a policy of not using web fonts? If so, why?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A nice solution, but it still leaves me wanting a more native option. Word of warning, if you implement this, be sure to have a good image sitemap for search engines to digest.

Image Sitemap Schema: [https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/178636?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/178636?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER10> Between BBC and The Guardian both open sourcing components on the Hacker News homepage, this seems like a good trend. Thank you BBC.

</comment><comment><USER11> Seems like this is posted every few weeks or so.

</comment><comment><USER12> BBC-News team writes great code apparently!</comment>


Honeywell Files Patent Lawsuit Against Smart Thermostat Developer Nest - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/06/honeywell-files-patent-lawsuit-against-smart-thermostat-developer-nest/ <comment><USER2> Congratulations, Nest!

You're officially successful enough to be sued by entrenched non-innovators who took out overly broad patents so that they would be able to milk anyone who successfully built and marketed a product.

Honeywell makes damn near every wall thermostat I've ever seen, so it's not like they haven't had time to think about this application area.

<comment><USER3> Can you please tell me why you think Honeywell is a non-innovator? Is it because they don't make shiny boxes to put on the wall of your home? Honeywell is well established as an innovator in advanced HVAC command and control for commercial buildings.

<comment><USER4> Advanced HVAC for commercial buildings perhaps, but not for homes. Every thermostat I've seen that can do half of what Nest is doing is covered in about 50 buttons, and the ownership manual is a 70 page behemoth. It's like every thermostat manufacturer out there read The Design of Everyday Things and decided to do the exact opposite.

<comment><USER5> >Every thermostat I've seen that can do half of what Nest is doing is covered in about 50 buttons

Remove control and it's easy to remove buttons. There is no brilliant design or innovation there. Whether the removed control is logical or beneficial, however, is a completely different matter -- there is absolutely zero evidence that the Nest delivers on the farfetched promises it makes.

I personally can't believe it has gotten as much attention as it has. It is a non-solution for a non-problem. The single and only reason it got coverage was the Apple angle.

<comment><USER6> You sound like the slashdot review of the iPod: even if all of the features were possible before does not mean there's no benefit to producing a solid, high-quality implementation.

As for Nest's claims, I assume you're talking about energy savings and, if so, are so very, very wrong: I'm a software developer and rarely adjusted the program on my old Honeywell thermostat because it took a minimum of 7 * 3 button clicks (morning, evening, night for each day of the week) simply to navigate through the program. I'm rather confident that the average American is even less likely to put up with all of that clicking and simply leaves at anything which isn't uncomfortable, even if it does waste power.

<comment><USER5> _You sound like the slashdot review of the iPod_

Not really, unless your world is binary. There are a lot of extremely refined, slick implementations out there. You don't know about them because they couldn't be called the "ipod of thermostats" (with leading comparisons with the ugliest, most rudimentary thermostats, as if the giant industry doesn't exist).

 _As for Nest's claims, I assume you're talking about energy savings and, if so, are so very, very wrong_... _I'm rather confident that the average American_...

It is interesting how you arrived at such an energy claim with no clear avenue between the beginning and the end.

<comment><USER6> You asserted that it was "a non-solution for a non-problem" - the onus is on you to explain why the stated problems aren't real or how the Nest doesn't solve them.

As for the promise of saving energy, either reading Nest's citations or spending a second or two on Google might prove educational as to the current gap between what is technically possible and what people actually do:

[http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/03/21/do- programmable...](http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/03/21/do-programmable- thermostats-really-save-money/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a sign that Nest has found a great market. I don't mean smart thermostats, but in accessible premium home technology (as you can tell, their name is more general than thermostats).

There are many areas of technology in the home that are controlled by very old companies that are in markets that are very slow to innovate. The real proof of this is in these patents (q.v.), which detail seemingly near-archaic technology. Seriously, this is their state of the art? These are exactly the kind of competitors you want to have.

That is a byproduct of the fact that brands and design for home technology last a long, long time. Recently, I replaced my gas water heater valve and discovered that it's a part that's been around since the 1950's in its current design. Proven technology sticks around. Similarly, Honeywell has been in thermostats since forever.

Finally, the margins in this business can be pretty impressive. There are home appliances and technology products whose premium versions cost twice as much as the regular version even though they're not much different. Some people are just willing to spend a good bit more for the absolute best. Very much an Apple market strategy (i.e. high-capacity iPods).

I hope to see Nest introduce more devices like their learning thermostat soon, as well as a new way for them to communicate and be controlled which can hopefully improve on and replace the ancient X10 automation standard. Nest is in a great position right now.

</comment><comment><USER8> For reference, here are the seven patents in question.

7,634,504 - Natural Language Installer Set Up for Controller (<http://www.google.com/patents/US7634504>) - The claims really are as broad as the title implies, claiming to cover any system that presents the user questions in natural language, allows the user to select among multiple choices, and then modifies the HVAC settings based on their response.

7,142,948 - Controller Interface with Dynamic Schedule Display (<http://www.google.com/patents/US7142948>) - Claims to cover any controller that can change temperature from one temperature to a second temperature, while displaying an ETA for reaching the second temperature.

7,584,899 - HVAC Controller (<http://www.google.com/patents/US7584899>) - Claims the idea of having a movable housing over a display that, when rotated, changes an HVAC-system parameter that is reflected on that display.

7,159,789 - Thermostat with Mechanical User Interface (<http://www.google.com/patents/US7159789>) - A rotatable selector with several selectable positions, and a potentiometer. For an HVAC system.

7,159,790 - Thermostat with Offset Drive (<http://www.google.com/patents/US7159790>) - Some more rotatable-selector inventions, involving linking mechanical position and electrical signals.

7,476,988 - Power Stealing Control Devices (<http://www.google.com/patents/US7476988>) - Something to do with switching between primary and secondary power sources. My EE is too rusty to figure out exactly what this one is claiming without spending more time than I'd like on it.

6,975,958 - Profile Based Method for Deriving a Temperature Setpoint Using a 'Delta' Based On Cross-Indexing a Received Price-Point Level Signal (<http://www.google.com/patents/US6975958>) - Claim 1 is even broader than the title, claiming to have invented and patented the idea of adjusting an HVAC system's setpoints based on communicating with a remote host.

They strongly have the flavor of taking some standard control method (rotating knobs attached to potentiometers, 1950s-style feedback control & rate prediction), tacking on "for an HVAC system", and deeming the result, which applies standard control techniques in the obvious way to the domain, an "invention".

<comment><USER9> Goes to show that it's not just software patents that can be utterly ridiculous in their breadth... Here we seem to have half a dozen examples of the one-click patent applied to thermostats.

<comment><USER10> The sheer amount of obvious non-innovations that the patent office accepts is staggering.

Anecdotal personal experience being part of patent applications has showed me that almost any idea, as long as there are no _mainstream_ examples of prior art, can be patented given time (will take 4-5 years these days) and money. Most decently smart people will come up with patentable ideas all the time, just doing their job, but won't file because they don't have the desire or resources (and don't understand why their only somewhat-novel obvious-to-them idea is patentable).

"The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying." - John Carmack

<comment><USER11> It's as if patents serve to stop innovation from happening rather than help make it happen, more often than not.

<comment><USER12> Not sure if you are being sarcastic, but there is some research to back that claim ([http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/study_says_patents_hind...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/study_says_patents_hinder_innovation.php))

<comment><USER13> Will the America Invents Act change anything to this problem? Or should it require another reform?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Nest is an interesting piece of hardware.

They have over 100 people, and if rumours are true have quite significant backing. Which is particularly interesting as it's hard to see on the surface where their margins come from on a device most could consider as novel and expensive.

Though there are potentially gains to be had from a smarter thermostat, the headline figures in their white papers will most likely never be realised in the real world. Most reviews and bloggers seem to get caught up in focusing on the simple heating and cooling experience.

The company on makes sense once you look at it in the context of the larger market. The silent but important features are zigbee integration (current unused), and excessive processing power. We are just on the cusp of huge smart-grid rollouts in many western countries. British gas in the UK has decided on the zigbee standard and are starting to roll out over 1000 new meters a day; with government backing for an £11bn rollout to 27 million households by 2019.

In light of these rollouts, the energy companies will be looking to capitalize on their investment (which will be mostly funded by the consumer, via higher bills). The hardest part is figuring out what the consumer face of the smart grid should look like. Expensive 'home hubs' and touch screens are a red herring - the future is distributed (every household members phone etc), yet you still need a link between the rather 'dumb but integrated' meters, and devices in the house.

In my opinion nest's game plan is to become that link. Your thermostat controls around 50% of the energy usage in your house. Eventually it has the potential to control 100%. With smart GPS integration into your phones it becomes realistic to have houses that react silently to it's various inhabitants patterns and blend those needs with the energy grids demand levels; now this is a valuable proposition. If you're an energy company absorbing several billion because of government pressure, suddenly the hardware cost of a nest doesn't seem so bad, especially if it can be offset or laid off over time.

edit; footnote - All figures are rough (off the top of my head)

<comment><USER15> _Nest is an interesting piece of hardware._

I'm curious what you find so interesting about it. I've had an Ecobee thermostat (<http://www.ecobee.com/solutions/home/smart/>) for years and have even done silly hacks with it like integrating it with my wireless access point to detect when I'm home (<http://jcs.org/ecobee>) and making a SiriProxy plugin to be able control it with an iPhone (<http://flic.kr/p/aNuGaF>).

But even before the Ecobee, programmable and even WiFi-enabled thermostats have been around for many years and they have not gained any significant traction. My dad owns an HVAC company and they've only sold 1 or 2 Ecobee units in the years they've stocked them, with most people just opting for a schedule-based programmable thermostat.

What makes the Nest so much different? Is it just that it's pretty? Right now, their website says it costs $250. For the average person, that's probably at least a few years of energy savings needed to justify that cost.

<comment><USER16> I love logic like this.

You bought an Ecobee thermostat, integrated it with your access point, and made a SiriProxy plugin.

This is awesome but think about it for the general consumer. They just want shit to work.

This is what makes Nest different.

<comment><USER15> Where did I say that I expected anyone else to do any of that? By my own words, they were silly hacks. My question was why the Nest is different than the Ecobee or any other smart thermostat that has been around for years. They all do the same things: smartly adjust to the outside temperature and usage patterns, provide data to the user about energy use, and allow control from the Internet or wireless network.

<comment><USER17> "My question was why the Nest is different than the Ecobee or any other smart thermostat that has been around for years."

That's like asking:

\- Why is the iPod different from all the mp3 players on the market?

\- Why is the iPhone different from all the smart phones on the market?

\- Why is the iPad different from all the tablets on the market?

None of these questions are easy to answer in full, if they were Apple would have more serious competition. The simple answer is:

Because the overall experience of owning them, for the average person, is better than with the alternatives.

<comment><USER18> None of those examples actually answer his question, they just belittle it a bit, but the original question, and in fact all of those, are very valid.

I suspect the current hype about the Nest is due to two reasons: 1) Apple people made it, and Apple is newsworthy right now; 2) it doesn't look like other thermostats, it looks easy to use and unique. I think that right now the Nest's aesthetic is getting it traction, time will tell if that's enough to get it sales.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just sent this through Honeywell's contact page and I mean every word of it:

I'm in the market for a programmable thermostat for my house. I had been considering several units, including yours and one from Nest Labs.

Apparently you've decided that it's more important to batter competitors with the legal system than actually, you know, put your supposed patents to use building a thermostat that your potential customers actually want to buy. You seem to be under the impression that suing other companies over patents on obvious ideas will make your own products look more attractive.

It's clear that you're out of touch with your market. I don't know what unit I'm going to buy for my house, but I can promise you that it won't be a Honeywell thermostat.

<comment><USER20> _I don't know what unit I'm going to buy for my house, but I can promise you that it won't be a Honeywell thermostat._

Doesn't matter much, if they are still able to shut down a competitor like Nest legally, especially seeing as millions of people will continue to buy their products.

Better join some action to abolish the stupid patent laws.

<comment><USER19> _Doesn't matter much, if they are still able to shut down a competitor like Nest legally, especially seeing as millions of people will continue to buy their products._

I can't do anything about millions of people, but I can do something about my own buying patterns. I can also tell others why I did so and hope they agree with me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm betting that any start-up company that comes out with a truly usable home robot in US will go out of business within its first year of operation. If a tiny thermostat can infringe on 7 patents, imagine how many patents will 'infringed' upon by a fully functional robot. If the same environment that we have now existed in 1970's I doubt if apple-2 would have been released.

</comment><comment><USER22> A couple of days ago I talked to a very gifted friend of mine who is spending his days finishing up a truckload of patent applications for his current company. Something I find very sad because I think patents are inherently bad and I wish he would spend his time doing more worthwhile things.

However, in the space they operate they need patents to ward off other companies with large patent portfolios. In fact, he likened what they do to creating mine-fields. To make it really, really dangerous for other companies to even try to compete with you. And to make sure that no challengers will get uppity with you.

In any case, what stuck with me was what he said about his next startup; in his next startup he would spend most of the money on patent lawyers. Because inventing, developing and bringing an invention to market is just too risky these days. The money is better spent on rigging whatever IPR you have with patents to "increase the number of possible exit strategies".

This makes me really sad.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not ready to cry for poor Nest just yet. The company has substantial funding, experienced backers/advisors, and is clearly aware of the patent environment they operate in. Heck, their About page touts how the founder Tony Fadell has authored more than 100 patents. They knew they were entering a well-covered market. If their patent work left them confident that there were OK, then the courts will see if they're right. If they chose to take a chance... this is what can happen.

Like another commenter mentioned, these are the rules of the game in the US. Complain about them and try to get them changed... I'm all for that because I think the rules are hurting innovation. But Nest is no victim here, and Honeywell isn't the devil. I'm more sympathetic to the garage shops that get hammered by big companies, but Nest is far from a garage shop. They knew what they were getting into.

<comment><USER24> Huh. I really thought the days of the _(she-was|they-were)-asking-for-it-I- mean-look-at-how-(she-was-dressed|well-covered-their-market-was)_ argument were over. Wonders never cease, I guess.

 _If their patent work left them confident that there were OK, then the courts will see if they're right. If they chose to take a chance... this is what can happen._

The only trouble with that statement is that it's completely incoherent. On the most charitable reading of it, there is no way not to "take a chance." This is, in fact, the very thing that you're obscuring, whether by accident or design. _If the patent system is a structural quagmire that stifles innovation, then that is the problem precisely because "due diligence" is impossible._

Incredibly, you continue:

 _But Nest is no victim here..._

Yes. Yes, they are. They may be an affluent victim. An able victim. But a victim nonetheless. And, as long as this kind of victimization is allowed to continue, innovation will continue to carry a market-altering penalty that retards human progress. And, lest you think I'm being grandiose in my assessment of this thermostat as an example of human progress, _it saves energy, and energy is one of the more pressing problems facing humanity._

 _They knew what they were getting into._

"But, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, look at how short that skirt was, and she decided to walk home on a Friday night! Drunk! Who's the real victim here? My client couldn't resist!"

<comment><USER25> _Yes. Yes, they are. They may be an affluent victim. An able victim._

... who, as the GP points out, played the game with the best of them. Live by the patent sword, die by the patent sword.

I like the idea someone posted on HN a few months ago; it should be possible to "opt out" of the patent system entirely. You can't be sued for patent infringement, but you also can't hold any patents yourself. Let's do that, and watch the market determine whether patents are really good for innovation or not.

<comment><USER26> It would be too simple to split a company into a subsidiary that owned and monetized patents and a parent that made real products.

<comment><USER27> Not if the punishment for doing that was execution of the board and all shareholders >5%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> As someone in the startup HVAC Optimization industry, it really pains me to see this. To be fair, Nest scares the crap out of me as the proverbial Goliath to our David, luckily we're not in the same markets (for now). If Honeywell is throwing these types of accusations at them, what chance does my company have?

I understand that tech patents are just a part of the business, but coming from the little guy here, how do I not get slapped with a lawsuit for having an idea?

</comment><comment><USER29> You can let this comment float to the bottom, but I just want to say that this makes me want to cry. When this product came out, it gave me so much hope for a few ideas that I've been working on related to tuning HVAC and lighting with better interfaces and control systems. Now I'm incredibly discouraged.

Thanks US patent system.

</comment><comment><USER30> They look pretty smart to me

[http://yourhome.honeywell.com/Home/Products/Thermostats/Summ...](http://yourhome.honeywell.com/Home/Products/Thermostats/SummaryList.htm)

seriously every time someone sues someone else about a patent the whole world screams bloody murder.

sure Honeywell's devices does not look like they come out of an apple lab but I think they have a right to protect their IP.

</comment><comment><USER31> I know we all want patents to die, but until then, perhaps a more palatable way to deal with the problem...

How about: If a patent is not implemented in a marketed product within two years (for a mechanical product) and 4 (or 5 years for a chemical product), the patent is void. In other words, no more patenting things and then sitting on them and suing others. Also, only certain entities would be able to patent something and then license it out (like the government, universities, legitimate research outfits, etc.).

Just thinking off the top of my head here.

<comment><USER32> > How about: If a patent is not implemented in a marketed product within two > years (for a mechanical product) and 4 (or 5 years for a chemical product), > the patent is void. In other words, no more patenting things and then > sitting on them and suing others. Also, only certain entities would be able > to patent something and then license it out (like the government, > universities, legitimate research outfits, etc.).

I think that cure would be worse than the disease. It'd be a major incentive for large companies to say "no thanks" to small inventors, knowing that they can just copy it two years later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The Nest is the thermostat that Honeywell should have made. I hope that the two parties can come to an agreement that allows the Nest to stay on the market and the Nest team to continue innovating.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is likely extremely naive: But would requiring a patent-filer to demonstrate a working implementation help mitigate this sort of thing? From what I can tell, Honeywell at least had the foresight to know where the tech was heading, but seemingly exerted no actual effort in getting there. Maybe I'm wrong about that - but this pattern seems to be true for patent trolls, at least.

If that's the case, they're basically building an artificial moat. So what now? Does Honeywell sue Nest out of existence? Require Nest license their patent? What are some likely goals and motives? What happens now?

There's a big difference between saying we WANT to go the moon, versus we WENT to the moon, or even we CAN go to the moon.

<comment><USER8> My guess is that they did actually have working prototypes; some of the patents have fairly detailed drawings. Some of the things being claimed in the patents aren't even particularly hard to build; standard feedback-control- system stuff that no doubt some Honeywell engineer could prototype. They just never brought them to market, which is a different issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is the sort of patent suit that I find revolting, and I suspect I'm not alone on HN in feeling that way.

But does anyone else see a continuum between this and the dustup over the 5-word already-derivative "stay focused & keep shipping" poster last week?

Should we be upset about this and not that?

<comment><USER36> US citizens at least, should be upset about the state of patents in the US. I don't begrudge companies playing the game--for them it is a fact of life in US business.

What I take issue with is the granting of such trivial patents in the first place.

edit: (non-trivial --> trivial)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> If you can't innovate, sue. Sad to think that this line of reasoning will persist.

<comment><USER38> I doubt they can't innovate so much as have no interest in spending the money needed to do so, and probably found that suing the new competitor is cheaper than working hard enough to compete with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm not a fan of patents at all, but at the very least we should make having a product in the market as an absolute minimum for defending it. No product in market === no patent for you.

<comment><USER40> How would that work exactly? You end up turning the patent from protecting an idea/invention into protecting who can get a product manufactured first. In particular, it seems trivial for your manufacturing partners to steal your patent by delaying delivery and putting your product on the market instead of you. The little guy is the one who loses.

Or did you think companies would follow the guidelines in good faith??

<comment><USER41> Defending it != acquiring it. It seems reasonable that if your going to sue for X$ in damages you need to have an actual product in the market, or at least licence your patent to someone who actually makes it.

<comment><USER42> Take this case for example. Honeywell would simply throw together a crappy product and sell a couple of hundred of them just so they could put Nest out of business. There needs to be greater reform IMO.

<comment><USER41> Honeywell has no choice but to licence their patents to Nest. The question is simply are the patents valid, did Nest infringe, and how much can Honeywell charge Nest. That said, if a company as large as Honeywell can only point to say 50,000$ in sales for their patent protected product it's hard for them to justify outrageous licencing fees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> If I were Honeywell...

1\. I sue Nest, freak them out. 2\. I offer to buy them out on the cheap. 3\. Nest sells themselves "gracefully". 4\. Techcrunch: "Honeywell acquires Nest for $1 million!" 5\. Honeywell says: "Nest acquisition will enhance our shareholders value." 6\. Honeywell sells a little bit of Nest product. 7\. End game: Honeywell decides that there's not enough demand for Nest product. Nest team is fired. Product dies.

<comment><USER44> Interesting theory, but unlikely (IMO).

Given the people involved in NEST, and the capital behind them, this isn't "two easily scared dorm-room occupants". Most likely patent lawsuits were anticipated, and potentially even budgeted for in terms of licensing costs being assumed at some point.

This is, IMO, another example of a company (Honeywell) with a book of patents they don't truly understand how to leverage on their own making a money-grab. I would wager a guess that this plays out very uninterestingly overall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Patents should be about encouraging inventors to reveal their inventions and methods that would otherwise remain secret and granting them the 20 years monopoly for that. It's not a license to choose any idea that is obvious to one skilled in the art after a purely superficial observation of the device in action.

</comment><comment><USER46> Ahh, the Streisand effect.

Show me where to buy one of these!</comment>