Google: Patently Absurd - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2011/08/google_patently_absurd <comment><USER2> It's weird to me that Gruber claims, like he did in a recent episode of his podcast with Dan Benjamin, that he's not anti-Google. I mean, why deny something that's so self-evident?

His arguments here are just so disingenuous.

"So if Google had acquired the rights to these patents, that would have been OK."

Yes, because Google isn't forming a cartel to stifle competition.

"It's OK for Google to undermine Microsoft's for-pay OS licensing business by giving Android away for free, but it's not OK for Microsoft to undermine Google's attempts to give away for free an OS that violates patents belonging to Microsoft?"

Yes, because Google isn't using an artificial barrier (the patent system). And because those patents are bogus. Because most, if not all, software patents are bogus. That's pretty clearly Google's stated position.

"First, the "estimate" of $1 billion was partially set by Google itself."

But there's no denying that this is by several times the largest amount ever paid for a patent portfolio.

"They're effectively arguing against the idea of the patent system itself, simply because Android violates a bunch of patents held by Google's competitors."

Yes they are arguing against the patent system, at least for software, as do many in the industry. There's nothing hypocritical about that.

"Google supporters claim that Google only wants to use patents defensively. But what exactly does Google need to defend against, if not actual patents Android actually violates?"

This argument betrays either a very weak understanding of how defensive patents work or a deep dishonesty of argumentation. Maybe both. This argument can be applied to the very idea of defensive patents.

It's conflicting that someone who's so obviously intelligent and often terribly insightful (not to mention witty) can be so willfully dishonest.

I'm going to back to only reading Gruber's writing on Apple, and ignoring his writing on anything else.

<comment><USER3> "Yes, because Google isn't forming a cartel to stifle competition."

Hmm. I'm not so sure. There's a way to see Google's behavior where what they're doing is _precisely_ that.

Predatory pricing exists when you try to take over a market by selling something so cheap, other competitors are driven out – or prevented from entering, since they couldn't recoup the costs involved in developing a product.

In league with their manufacturing partners, Google has their own cartel, attempting to homogenize the smartphone landscape under a single, free OS.

The incentives are obvious: it's much easier for Google to make its ad money if it controls the next big platform.

They may have dressed it up as pious and open – but for their purposes, it's a land grab. Is it anticompetitive? I'm not sure. My antitrust scholarship began and ended with _The Microsoft File_ back in the 90's. But I'm also not sure it's any better than whatever satanic pact they are intimating has been formed by Apple and Microsoft.

Google's argument here is summed up as "You could trust _us_ with those patents. But we didn't get them. You can't trust the guys who did get them." I'm pretty sure at this scale, with this much cash on the line, business just doesn't work that way. Google will run over anyone to keep their ad money flowing, just as Microsoft will run over anyone to keep their license money flowing. Why should we side with one cause over the other?

<comment><USER4> > Predatory pricing exists when you try to take over a market by selling > something so cheap, other competitors are driven out

This is what happens when innovation threatens dinosaurs. Phrases such as "predatory pricing" exemplifies a fundamental misunderstanding of how pricing works, or markets in general.

People forget the whole point of the market is to serve the consumer. The point of the market is not to protect the interests of old tech giants because they can't compete with free. They're willing to prevent consumers from enjoying the satisfaction that Android has to offer because they want money for doing what Google offers for free. By this logic I should start a search engine that charges $10 a search, then sue google for anti-competitive practice.

Everything about business is predatory. Every time a company releases a better product it is predatory to their competition. Offering an edge your competitors can't handle is kind of the point. If Google's pricing is so "predatory", why doesn't the competition do the same? Because they're ethical?

<comment><USER3> > Everything about business is predatory.

By that reasoning, Google should have either bought the patents or taken their lumps when they lost, right? If business is inherently predatory, whatever predatory groups wish to form are free to do so in the advancement of their own interests. Why is it for Google to bandy about anticompetitive concerns, crying "DOJ!" but not their competitors?

<comment><USER4> Anti-competition isn't an empirically observable phenomena. In theory it was supposed to serve the consumer, but there is a disconnect between the alleged intention and reality. Kind of a big problem. Preventing a company from offering a free product in no way serves the consumer.

I don't want to imply google is more ethical than the competition, but in this instance calling for an abolition of patents is in line with my personal views, which is markets should serve the consumer. I have no unconditional support for any of these companies.

<comment><USER5> _Preventing a company from offering a free product in no way serves the consumer._

In a general context, a company practicing 'predatory pricing' may do so to drive the other competitors out of business. Once that happens, it's free to raise prices to monopolistic levels which would end up hurting consumers eventually.

<comment><USER4> > Once that happens, it's free to raise prices to monopolistic levels

These fears are not based on evidence. When has someone released a free product _only_ until they wiped out all the competition, proceeding to jack up prices? I mean, once they jack up the prices there is an established market ripe to pick customers from. Furthermore, the temporary profits, if any, would only be temporary and would be a greater cost to their corporate image.

<comment><USER6> Jacking up prices isn't the only potentially-negative consequence of driving its competitors out of business, nor is it a requirement to be considered anti-competitive. The history of Internet Explorer is an interesting illustration of both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure how to say this without coming across as incendiary, but what the hell? Is Gruber utterly oblivious to the horrible state of software patents and their abuses? Is he actually condoning the abominable software patents that every other sane developer despises?

Yes, Google is trying to ward off being picked to death by a myriad of utterly worthless (in the market, not legal sense) patents. Yes, Google is likely in violation of several thousand patents with Android, and all of its other software products. Guess what? So is _damn near every other developer on the face of the planet_ , but Google has a big fat target painted on their back because of Android's success. They would be _crazy_ to not try to acquire a defensive patent portfolio.

I'll guarantee you that I violated a good half-dozen patents in the course of my absolutely routine work today. That doesn't mean that I'm a mean nasty violator out to undermine free enterprise, it means that _software patents suck_. Apple and Microsoft have both proven that they will use these garbage patents offensively to drive competitors out of the market, and Google is left in the position of "acquire means of mutually assured destruction to protect ourselves with or die by horribly broken patent law". Which do you think is the sane and responsible course of action?

<comment><USER8> _"No one other than Nathan Myrvold and his cronies sees the U.S. patent system as functioning properly, but Google's hypocrisy here is absurd. Google isn't arguing against a handful of never-should-have-been-issued software patents. They're not arguing against patent trolls like Myrvold and his shell companies like Lodsys — companies that have no products of their own, no actual inventions, just patents for ideas for products."_ \- Gruber

<comment><USER7> That one line doesn't really discount the tone of the whole rest of the post.

 _Google supporters claim that Google only wants to use patents defensively. But what exactly does Google need to defend against, if not actual patents Android actually violates?_ \- Also Gruber.

The implication is that these are legitimate, unassailable patents that Google has ripped off in some nefarious scheme to steal Apple's good ol' homegrown American hard work. Software patents are a severe problem that are retarding innovation and progress, not helping it, and to imply that Google is hypocritical because they wanted the patents, then railed against them is intellectually dishonest. Google's extremely obvious goal is to protect itself and its products from the abuses of the patent system. For Gruber to pooh-pooh their actions like that is effectively a means of condoning those patents - and software patents as a whole - as legitimate and worth protecting.

I'll guarantee you that if it were Google holding the patent gun to Apple's head, and Apple were to post a similar PR statement after a failed bid to acquire said patents, he wouldn't be singing the same tune.

<comment><USER9> _The implication is that these are legitimate, unassailable patents that Google has ripped off in some nefarious scheme to steal Apple's good ol' homegrown American hard work_

I would argue that android "borrowed" a lot from Apple, and that the iPhone was truly innovative in many ways. The question whether they copied _too much_ , or whether Apple's idea were innovative in the first place is what the Patent system is trying to answer.

There is little doubt the current patent system is a big mess. But I see opposing the idea software patents in the same light as opposing patents in general. It is likely that allowing companies to copy everything is good for consumers (at least in the short term), and increases competition.

The question is where you put the line, for example - if Android was an exact copy of iOS, would you still say that it should be permitted?

<comment><USER10> I don't think you can mention Android borrowing from iPhone while ignoring that iPhone borrows from Android too - iOS 5 notifications being the prime example.

All complicated systems borrow from each other - there is nothing evil about it - it's just evolution.

<comment><USER11> Can you show us the patents Google has on notifications?

<comment><USER10> Let's first try to understand what is implied by your question. Is it that unless an idea is patented it does not qualify as innovation and in that case if someone else copies it, it becomes acceptable?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Gruber's argument is dependent on the assumption that only people like Nathan Myrvold hold what I'm going to call "bullshit patents".

 _"Google isn't arguing against a handful of never-should-have-been-issued software patents. They're not arguing against patent trolls like Myrvold and his shell companies like Lodsys — companies that have no products of their own, no actual inventions, just patents for ideas for products."_

Unfortunately, just because you actually make products doesn't mean that you are incapable of holding and/or abusing bullshit patents. Apple owns more bullshit UI patents than most other companies that I can think of, and they've made it clear over the years that they think it's morally right, not just defensively necessary, to patent user interface ideas.[1]

Apple has not, historically, abused its patent portfolio to the same degree that Microsoft or Oracle have.[2] However, now that they've thrown their hat into the same ring, they're getting lumped in with these dastardly anticompetitive badguy companies when this comes up in the tech press. I'm sure that makes Apple - and Apple fans - uneasy. It seems like they're being blamed for their newfound parters' bad behavior. Well, I'm sorry. You sign a deal with the devil, and you better buckle in.

[1] As as someone who designs and builds UIs for a living, I think this is _complete_ bullshit. Copyright should protect UI; patents should not.

[2] Although they _have_ done so. Just not as much.

<comment><USER13> _Copyright should protect UI_

But it doesn't. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland>

<comment><USER14> um, that is not what that decision says. It says the interface may be covered by copyright to the extent that it contains expression. That would seem to me to have a large overlap with look and feel patents.

<comment><USER13> You are mistaken.

It is saying that copyright applies to a user interface insofar as elements of it are subject to copyright on their own, but that "a user interface" is not itself expression, not itself subject to copyright. If you copied every last detail of my interface _except_ the icons or other elements subject to copyright, I would have no valid claim that you infringed on my copyright.

(NB:I am not saying this is bad or wrong at all. Only that it is so, and that it's relevant.)

The trouble that stems from this is that what we call a "user interface" is not exclusively or even mostly elements subject to copyright, but consists of methods and behaviors that are often the product of much ingenuity and innovation. This is why various parties have sought patents for aspects of the interfaces they develop--because those things aren't subject to copyright.

<comment><USER14> I disagree with your interpretation. The collection of expressive elements such as icons seems copyrightable in aggregate as much as any of the individual elements. What that decision says is not copyrightable is an organization of data (including choice of words that would struggle to qualify as expressive). If they had allowed the copyright on that then things like logical taxonomies would also be copyrightable. User interfaces not built with a platform's standard interface elements are more akin to works of art and can be expressive and assuming it was copyrightable then determining if a clone was infringing would depend on if it was a true clone or if there was some transformative change.

I'm not sure what is accepted case law, but the cited case seems much narrower to me than you are implying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "But what exactly does Google need to defend against, if not actual patents Android actually violates?"

Of course Android violates patents. Just like any sufficiently non-trivial piece of software...

<comment><USER16> Absolutely spot on. That being said, in this rare occasion, I think John Gruber is raising points that needed to be raised. If you read Google's version of the story, it'd seem like Google is the champion of innovation and it is being targeted due to the success of Android, and crucially, it's in the customer's interest that these patents shouldn't be used against them. Well not really; it's basically in Google's interest. To say nothing about their own 3.14 billion dollar bid for Nortel's patent portfolio and then claiming that their true worth was 1 billion, being completely disingenuous.

<comment><USER17> _it is being targeted due to the success of Android, and crucially, it's in the customer's interest that these patents shouldn't be used against them_

The first is obviously true, and I'd argue the second is as well. An effective duopoly of iOS and WP7 would be bad for consumers in the short term due to decreased competition, and even worse in the long term due to the effects of all mainstream mobile platforms being locked down.

 _Well not really; it's basically in Google's interest._

Not mutually exclusive.

 _To say nothing about their own 3.14 billion dollar bid for Nortel's patent portfolio and then claiming that their true worth was 1 billion, being completely disingenuous._

How? Google's claim is that if the patent system were fixed, Nortel's patents would be worth much less than they are in the current environment.

<comment><USER16> "An effective duopoly of iOS and WP7 would be bad for consumers in the short term due to decreased competition, and even worse in the long term due to the effects of all mainstream mobile platforms being locked down."

I broadly agree with you on this count. However, I think that for us, the techie community, the fact that a majority of mobile platforms are locked might be an issue; for the average customer it is not.

"Not mutually exclusive." Again agreed broadly but it can be argued that at the end of the day Google is a company chasing revenues (just like every other company) and not having to get involved in patent litigation is going to save "them" money. While the patent system might be broken, but as long as it's not fixed, Google has to play along (just like MSFT and AAPL). I just do not see how they can ever take the higher ground here, other than being miffed at missing the deal.

The true price of any commodity is not static, it is always dependent on competition/availability/demand etc. The patents might be worth 1 billion, but if Google offered in excess of 3 billion, they thought that it was worth the price "in the current environment". Also Google can claim that the patents were worth 1 billion, but they have a vested interest in portraying this as being the case. I am a little cynical of such claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> To rewind a bit, Apple didn't open this can of worms.

Several companies, all used to using patent suits as a cross licensing negotiation tool, got pissed at the lopsided profitability of truly innovative products in the mobile space, and started to sue. Kodak sued Apple. Nokia sued Apple. And no wonder -- shipping 5.3% of handsets, Apple's taking in 66% of mobile industry profits. How do you mollify your shareholders that some non- handset company is eating your lunch? You try to get a licensing fee.

Apple was new to this game, didn't start by playing it, but thanks to embarrassingly unprecedented success, got turned on from all sides, and drawn in to the fray. Now those throwing stones are realizing Apple (with 25 years of mobile device R&D the phone guys forgot about) can throw back.

I shared the timeline a year ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1166321>

_... to put this in context:_

 _\- Apple accuses HTC of iPhone tech theft (2 March 2010)_

 _\- Kodak prompts ITC to consider iPhone ban (18 February 2010)_

 _\- Motorola seeks ban on US BlackBerries (26 January 2010)_

 _\- Nokia sues Apple, says iPhone infringes ten patents (22 October 2009)_

 _One test for patents' validity is whether the company is enforcing them. With Kodak, Sony, Nokia, Motorola, RIM, and others suing one another as a business-as-usual step in licensing negotiations, the value of Apple's defensive patent portfolio at the licensing negotiation table depends in part on Apple's perceived willingness to stand behind the validity of their portfolio and enforce their patents._

Kodak got their judgment. The other pigeons will eventually all come home to roost. In the mobile industry this is how it's always gone -- we're just noticing it because Apple made phones interesting to the general public so now the press is involved.

</comment><comment><USER19> _How is Google's argument here different than simply demanding that Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, et al should simply sit back and let Google do whatever it wants with Android, regardless of the patents they hold?_

And why should it be different? The fact of the matter is that the idea of Google going after Apple, Microsoft etc for violating Google's patents isn't even an issue. Wanna know why? Because Google's competing on the merit of the product. It's letting the customers make the choice b/w the Microsoft OS and Android.

Whereas if Microsoft had it's way, the customer wouldn't even have a choice. _Thats_ the real difference.

<comment><USER20> But what about if the "merit" of the product is based on innovation developed by others?

<comment><USER19> Then it's more choices for the customer. Nothing's stopping the original 'innovator' from bring his product to market as well.

<comment><USER21> Then what incentive does the original company have in spending time & money into R&D to develop new products when some other company can just rip them off?

<comment><USER22> Why do most people or companies start a new business? Because they acquired the patent for it? No. It's because of consumer demand or the possibility of creating a new market, in which case you actually _want_ others to copy you, because they validate your idea. Usually, new product categories sound pretty crazy at first, but by having others copy you, they're basically giving you social proof for your business, and saying you're not crazy for making that type of product.

<comment><USER23> > Usually, new product categories sound pretty crazy at first, but by having > others copy you, they're basically giving you social proof for your > business, and saying you're not crazy for making that type of product.

Ah, of course. Because everyone held off buying the iPad until all these Android devices turned up and validated the whole product category. You're on to something there, you know.

<comment><USER22> I don't think there are that many companies out there that can turn a "big iPod touch" into a success, especially not a startup. People are much more willing to give Apple the benefit of the doubt and try their products than they would be with a startup or with most other companies.

This is why I want to laugh when companies like HP and others think they just need their own OS, and then they can be _just like Apple_. Apple has a lot of other advantages and factors working for them, that the other companies can't easily replicate.

The whole world spins around copying others and putting our own spin on it. 99% is copying, 1% is innovation. Thinking otherwise will not be compatible with reality.

<http://vimeo.com/25380454>

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100912/22380510974/why- im...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100912/22380510974/why-imitation- gets-a-bad-rap-and-why-companies-need-to-be-more-serious-about-copying.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "anti-Google", "disingenuous", "deep dishonesty", "willfully dishonest". "very twisted", "oblivious", "shill", "clown"

The Engadgetization of HN comments is nearly complete. Get off your high horses, Gruber is exactly right that this screed by Google's counsel is incredibly hypocritical.

Regardless of what you think about patents, Google, Apple, etc. the following argument is total bullshit:

Group A has a right to bid on X. Group B is an evil cartel for bidding on X.

Regardless of what you think about patents, Google, Apple, etc. the following argument is total bullshit:

Group A bids 4 billion. Group B bids 4.5 billion. Group B is paying way beyond what they are really worth! Group B has inflated the value of patents! Group B has created a patent bubble!

Gruber's conclusion is spot on:

"No one other than Nathan Myhrvold and his cronies sees the U.S. patent system as functioning properly, but Google's hypocrisy here is absurd."

<comment><USER25> That argument seems completely fine to me. If you have more funds then you can block a competitor from competing by buying up all the resources. Another example of this is cellular providers in Canada. New spectrum opened up, but somehow the established duopoly managed to by _all_ the new spectrum in Quebec leaving none for the incumbent providers. They are not even using the spectrum, but effectively locked competitors out of the market.

Regarding Gruber, your argument may have merit if it wasn't the case that Gruber _never_ publishes anything seriously negative about Apple, and also _never_ says much good about competitors. Sadly, I knew the article was going to be a negative piece about google the minute I saw it was by Gruber.

People are simply calling it as they see it. There is no real favorite here between Apple and Google that I've ever seen.

<comment><USER24> Gruber is fairly critical of Apple at times but generally takes a "I wish Apple would do X but I understand why they're doing Y (or ~X)" position when he does so.

Apple's a company that hasn't missed that often or that big recently though so it's hard for me to judge where he should have gone hugely negative on them in your view.

<comment><USER25> MobileMe was a nearly complete failure. The original Apple TV was not a strong product at all. The new iCal and Contacts in Lion are a huge design failure. Their server line was pretty much a failure too.

Those are Apple's biggest failures in recent times. Looking at Gruber's blog archives, I don't think it's a much of a stretch to say that he's a biased writer.

<comment><USER24> MobileMe was a modest money maker and ok reviewed product. if you grade on a curve, I guess that's a "complete failure" next to Apple's core products.

The original Apple TV was always seen as a hobby, just as the new, more successful one is. They still sold what 6-7 million of them, made a bundle of money. Compare to Google TV 1.0 it was a roaring success.

Cant vouch for iCal and Contacts in Lion but reviews overall are positive. You seem to be reaching here.

The server line was another well reviewed product and modest money maker.

You seem overall to be grading everything on a huge curve as if anything short of a home run is a massive failure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Google can be opposed to patents, but also try to purchase them because at this point in time, if they don't then they will be crushed by others using patents against them.

Also, Gruber seems to think that that it's hypocritical for Google to have bid for the patents and upset that others won them, though he seems to be missing the part where a consortium of competitors are the people that won them, not a single company.

</comment><comment><USER27> There's no hypocrisy here. Google had made it clear from the outset they were only bidding for the patent portfolio as a defensive measure. [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/patents-and- innovatio...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/patents-and- innovation.html)

</comment><comment><USER28> _But what exactly does Google need to defend against, if not actual patents Android actually violates?_

This logic confuses me, and kind of undermines his premise. Seems like the same logic would say "Why does this accused criminal need a lawyer, if he did not actually commit a crime?"

</comment><comment><USER29> What I think:

It's ok for Apple, Microsoft et al to defend themselves if Android violates _their own patents_.

It's not ok for Apple, Microsoft et al to defend themselves if Android violates _patents they didn't develop_.

Also, remember that although Microsoft & Oracle claims that Android violated some of their software patents, Apple claims against Samsung go far beyond that, this analysis by Nilay Patel is pretty good: [http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung- analys...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analysis/)

<comment><USER30> All patents held by companies were bought from someone else. They're just usually paid for with salaries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The distinction made by Gruber here is between two kinds of companies:

\- Apple, MS and similar companies who buy patents and actually use them to make products.

\- The Lodsys's of the world that use them as revenue sources and don't actually contribute any value to anyone.

In the blog post, Google is lumping everyone together, whereas Gruber disagrees.

Apple's patents that they've used against HTC and similar are for things that are remarkably unique - more unique than the Amazon 1-click patent and similar. Notably, they're not seeking out patents to use as weapons - it's likely, if not transparently obvious that they purchased the portfolios in question to remove the chance that those patents would be used against them.

I'm no friend of patent law (I think it should be reformed to function in a manner similar to real-estate property law), but I'm thinking that there is more nuance to this debate than "Gruber is a Google Hater".

<comment><USER32> Is this unique? <http://www.google.comn>

_That_ (turning the text of a link into a clickable URL) is precisely one of the patents Apple is asserting against HTC.

If that patent is truly innovative (which it isn't, I'm sure there were web browsers and/or mail readers that did similar things well before the filing date), Google has to worry about the patent situation around _Chrome_ , Mozilla has to worry about the patent situation around Firefox and ...

If Apple wins with such nonsense patents against HTC, wemight as well just shut down the US software industry and send it offshore (like everything else), since there are plenty of jurisdictions that don't recognize these bogus patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This patent thing has to come to a head. Something has to happen.

It's not just big companies that are involved here.

Guys like me. A family man in the northwest just trying to make a living doing pretty obvious things with technology is going to get screwed by all of this eventually.

I develop on Android and it's a massive chunk of my income. If they go down, so do I.

All these games have to stop and something has to be decided. The courts need to look at this, the government needs to look at this, and things need to move swiftly.

I'm about ready to start painting houses. I've never heard one of them complain about getting sued for the way they move their arm up and down when they paint.

</comment><comment><USER22> In his quest of defend everything related to Apple, Gruber is probably stepping on a lot of good principles or ideas - like admitting the patent system is broken. I think he made it obvious before, I don't remember in which case exactly, probably the one with Apple's new policy of taxing content distributors, that he would defend _anything_ Apple does, no matter how absurd. This is no different. I know it's become cliche by now, but I think Gruber has become too engulfed in Steve Jobs reality distortion field, and as others have said here, even he might not realize it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Since Microsoft, Apple cartel _bought_ the Nortel patents aren't they exactly behaving like patent trolls ( Intellectual Ventures ) in this context? You have to be wilfully ignorant not to see the similarity.

<comment><USER35> I would think not having used an acquired patent in offensive litigation is the salient dissimilarity.

One would have to be willfully ignorant not to see that.

<comment><USER32> Doesn't everyone expect that the acquired patents are going to be used against Android? Doesn't the makeup of the winning consortium argue for that interpretation?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone else feel the word _undermine_ is not appropriate in this quote (due to which, I'm unable to understand the point behind the comparison):

 _It's OK for Google to undermine Microsoft's for-pay OS licensing business by giving Android away for free, but it's not OK for Microsoft to undermine Google's attempts to give away for free an OS that violates patents belonging to Microsoft?_

[1] <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/undermine>

<comment><USER37> First of all, Linux violates 0 patents in my book til Microsoft at least specifies them. Then maybe we can talk about whether or not the present tense "violates" and not "potentially violating" is accurate.

Secondly, even if that is true, does Gruber think Microsoft deserves to win that fight? I mean seriously? If you can develop something on your own time that violates a software patent, that means we need massive patent reform. Not that somebody did something wrong, or that it should be stopped. Making that assumption is unjustifiable and something that should be apologized for.

Google doesn't have a lab with reverse engineers working on "hurting M$". No, they are simply distributing a flavor of Linux. And unlike the other scared/ignorant companies that are signing costly patent deals with Microsoft based on claims and threats of potential litigation, Google actually wants to fight. I think that's pretty respectful.

Software patents are a joke. They leverage the playing field towards the rich and ensconced individuals/corporations and against the hackers who are actually inventing the technologies. It's a sad, depressing joke no one wants to laugh at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The one thing I'll agree on with Google: the patent system is flawed ― too bad this is really the only good point (or excuse, I should say) they're using to defend themselves. Then again, Gruber shouldn't be condoning the validity of software patents in the first place, because they suck.

Aside from that, I think Gruber hit the nail on the head (though his usage of undermine seemed a bit odd and out of place).

<comment><USER32> "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Once you take away Gruber's presumption that most software patents are valid, the rest of his piece collapses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> "So if Google had acquired the rights to these patents, that would have been OK."

It's a war. You have to take arms to defend yourself, but it doesn't mean you're happy about it.

Gruber is almost bipolar: his insight on the industry is usually pretty interesting, but he becomes borderline retarded when he starts posting about Apple competitors.

</comment><comment><USER40> Sounds to me like what he's _trying_ to say is that using patents isn't such a terrible idea as long as you've actually used it to make money on your own products. I think that's not an unreasonable statement to make, whether or not you agree with it.

</comment><comment><USER41> "But what exactly does Google need to defend against, if not actual patents Android actually violates?"

I may be naive but I simply don't understand the concept of transferring the ownership of a patent. If Google buys a patent related to Android then HOORAY! They can use that idea in Android. If Microsoft buys that patent related to Android then HOORAY! Microsoft gets to sue Google.

It seems to me that "violations" are simply "didn't pay enough monies." Why is buying a patent your product violates a bad thing?

and, on a semi-unrelated note, why are patents transferable at all? Shouldn't they only benefit the person who created it? what claim does some arbitrary company dozens of sales down the line have to that patent?

</comment><comment><USER42> Also, apparently Microsoft offered Google the chance to join them in bidding for the patents and they declined.

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/08/03/interestinger>

</comment><comment><USER43> Google needs to drop the "but we are the good guys" argument because they simply can't sustain it.

"Don't be evil" is sounding at best schizophrenic and at worst hypocritical.

I'd much rather hear: "Look, we love open source software and we'll use it and contribute to it in every possible way, as long as it doesn't interfere with our business strategy".

That would be honest and not that bad in fact.

</comment><comment><USER44> Could somebody shed some light as to what kind of patents that Android is allegedly violating. I am curious as to whether they are "real" innovations or something akin to Amoazon's 1-click.

</comment><comment><USER45> Gruber: "Sour Grapes"

</comment><comment><USER46> It's hard to take Gruber seriously when everything he writes distorts reality and commonsense in the sake of representing them in ways that favor Apple Inc and its endeavors.

His thoughts on WebM vs. Apple backed MPEG-LA are equally ridiculous.

<comment><USER21> "It's hard to take yanw seriously when everything he writes distorts reality and commonsense in the sake of representing them in ways that favor Google Inc and its endeavors."

It goes both ways. I don't agree with the way software patents currently work and think patent trolls such as Intellectual Ventures are the scum of the Earth, but Gruber has made some valid points here.

<comment><USER47> No not really. There's nothing of value in this article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> When will Apple respond to bad press directly instead of hiding behind this clown?

<comment><USER49> What bad press does Apple have to respond to? Google losing a bidding war? Bwuah?

Attack the argument, not the man. Your comment just looks silly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> All I know is that the lawyers are gonna be making a whole lotta cash from this showdown!

</comment><comment><USER39> Hold the presses everyone, Gruber just bashed Google.

</comment><comment><USER51> Does anyone else feel like the apple shill is worried that his precious is losing to android? haha... software patents suck... it is bad for apple and google and any other tech company.

<comment><USER11> Yes, because with 5.6% of the market share and 56% of the profits Apple is hurting.. lol Get real, Google can only hope to make that amount of money on Android.

<comment><USER51> Depends on what you are after. If it is only money (aka Apple) they are really doing great. Their tribe has money and loves to pay (you cant even go in the apple store for less than 30 dollars). If you are trying to spread like a virus... Android wins. Not sure where google is getting money off of it, but android will end up with insane market (but you are right much less money there)</comment></comment></comment>


Why Big Companies Can't Innovate - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2012/09/why-big-companies-cant-innovate <comment><USER2> Some can, some can't. IBM was once very good at innovation.

What hurt IBM was not lack of innovation. They got that part right. It was incremental production economies, the thing the article says is a big-company problem. Others could make generic PCs cheaper than IBM. Others could make disks (which were invented at IBM) cheaper than IBM. IBM eventually exited the low end entirely.

3M, GE, and du Pont are big, old companies good at innovation. Westinghouse was too good - too many high-tech products before their time.

Gerber, the baby food company, doing something stupid is not a good example.

<comment><USER3> I weep to see people sharing my viewpoints. Too often, quasi-professional observers of industries would make stupid anecdote examples into attention grabbing but misleading and ultimately stupid stories.

To add to your examples (and to bring this closer to hearts of Hacker news audience): Google released Gmail, GMap, GWT, etc. after its initial success; Amazon unleashed AWS after domination of online marketplace; Microsoft jumped into Xbox after establishing itself as "the tech company." Most notably, Apple is only accepted as a mainstream "innovator" (with the slew of products like iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc) after its revival and domination; before that, they were merely a niche player and their products (the many colorful boxes) were never quite celebrated as later creation as market leader.

<comment><USER2> Microsoft's XBox experience is more about throwing money at the problem. The entire first generation of XBox devices was a net loss.

<comment><USER4> Not just the first gen, they are billions in the hole still

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They can innovate. Startups often make shit products the market doesn't want too, and often fail more slowly and expensively than the example of Gerber's adult food line; the article could instead have talked about how Gerber _did_ successfully roll out a life insurance product. The followup articles mention Xerox and Apple: two companies which produced more game changing products as mature companies than 99.99% of Silicon Valley ever will.

If I was to propose my own cod theory of why big companies don't innovate, it would probably involve them seeing innovation as driven by MBAs formulating "innovation strategies" based on articles full of interesting anecdotes and open-to-interpretation theories rather than management saying yes to a higher proportion of projects their underlings want budget for.

<comment><USER6> One trip to Walmart or a large, grocery store shows you how much the big companies can innovate. Actually, they do it even more than that but often do focus groups in a form of fail-early and fail-fast. The bad ideas get weeded out before they can soil the brand or dilute the earnings. What we see is what at least seemed to work. It then usually makes plenty of money.

Also, the big companies' innovation usually nets them tens to hundreds of millions in extra revenues or plenty of profit. They care about making money, not growth to sell out. Changes the nature of innovation considerably.

<comment><USER7> Can't speak for all giant companies, but they care about percent growth. A product that might be profitable, but millions profitable and not billions profitable, it isn't worth the effort and gets axed or sold. A 0.1% profit boost isn't gonna matter to share price. Not saying I agree with it, just an observation.

<comment><USER6> It depends on the company. Many of the big companies... can't say most without data... get their money through a collection of products and services. They _do_ care about millions because a million here and there accumulates. The low-margin business care down to the pennies of individual items.

So, that isn't a rule for big businesses especially in the Global 2000. Many care about that stuff. There's just competing interests that can axe one thing for another. The ones doing stupid, expensive stuff also make the news more since "incrementally improved operation to make more money" isn't as exciting over coffee. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, folks are already off to the races reading the headline and not the core of the story.

But, this is something I've thought of often over the last several years. If perhaps, a better angle would be to build a business around Unix-style philosophy, of "Do one thing, and do it well." Then, you simply start over with another brand new, small thing, and grow it from there, while lending it the HR resources of the core.

The closest company to trying something like that, that I know of, is Google. But even there it seems they've hit some stumbling blocks.

<comment><USER9> When I worked for Microsoft, this part: "Then, you simply start over with another brand new, small thing, and grow it from there, while lending it the HR resources of the core."

...never worked. Because the core businesses (Windows and Office) were $10B products. Investing a little bit to get a 0.1% move in revenue there, brought in $10M more. It was bloody difficult to persuade anyone that the $ should be invested in a brand new startup idea, rather than re-investing it in the core, growing business. And who can blame them?

There were two businesses that mattered, and everything else was a distraction. Actually after a while, the combination of Windows Server and SQL Server became a business that mattered, too.

In those days, everything else was a weed that might/could grow, if it could shoot up and grab some attention and look pretty, before the groundskeeper just snipped it off at the base.

If you look at what succeeded at Microsoft since then, it has not been "investing in some some small thing." It has been MASSIVE investments in things, like Azure and Xbox. Of course, MSFT also made MASSIVE investments in plenty of things that did not work out.

But the point is, proposing to start with a brand new small thing, was a sure way to be asked to get with the program, or leave the company.

<comment><USER8> But a lot of that would depend upon support structure or company architecture, right?

After all, if the idea of starting something new gets you asked to leave the company, the company itself is probably hostile to new proposals, so it's fundamentally against what I'm talking about.

I don't disregard what you're saying- but it's a _huge_ mentality shift, to be able to do things like this.

I also think it'd be beneficial to run such an organization in a smaller side- company, similar to what Alphabet does, than merely as a new department inside of a huge monolith like a Microsoft. Otherwise, you risk just this sort of thing, and being able to consistently maintain a culture of creation in something meant to last a century or longer is incredibly difficult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> From the article:

      > corporations exist to make money.

I'm so tired of hearing this. Contrast this with Steve Jobs's quote:

"My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products . . . the products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything."

<comment><USER11> Public companies legally have to "increase shareholder value." If they don't, the shareholders can revolt.

Private companies aren't beholden to this mandate. Nor are Google and Facebook, which structured their public stock offerings to keep the founders in charge.

Apple was an odd outlier in that the stock holders had complete trust in Steve Jobs to ultimately increase the stock value long term, so let him spend the money on R&D as he saw fit. How many public companies _not_ structured like Google or Facebook are like that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Businesses are built from the ground up to succeed in the business they are already in. Any entrepreneur who's built one, or anyone who oversees operations of a company knows that each component has a specific purpose, and the process of ensuring they all work and click is painstakingly tedious, fragile, and requires maintenance overhead (the guy overseeing operations is one of them).

So to say "they have money and smart people, they can do anything, why not innovate" is completely ignoring how businesses grow, come to fruition, and ultimately profit.

Google's profit mainly comes from Adwords. Their history involves entrepreneurship, an awesome search engine, a new philosophy for a top page, and a ton of innovation. They even kept their innovative (and academic) roots for as long as they could in the form of Google Labs, which one can only assume they had high hopes for considering the talent they had and the amount of freedom they gave them. But it was no Bell Labs or an IBM in their heyday. It shut down in 2011, because the business arm couldn't justify it. They didn't need hobby projects. Google needed bigger and faster innovation to meet the scale of their resources and potential returns to match, so they focused more on phones, cars, AI, and robots. And now they exercise true big corporate innovation. Innovation is bought. They buy it, work on it, then sell it if it doesn't work out (as they did with their headless robotic dogs).

Big corporations cannot pay entrepreneurs to be entrepreneurs under their umbrella. No one can. They can pay researchers to do research, engineers to build things, and designers to come up with new products and services. But entrepreneurs are not for hire. The moment they're hired, they stop being true entrepreneurs. But their companies are often for sale -- the business they built from the ground up to succeed in the specific business they're in (or just for IP if they're a technology play). And innovation is easy to measure when it's already there for sale in front of you.

<comment><USER6> Counterexample: Goldman Sachs and Buffet's stuff. They hire and pay entrepreneurs to be entrepreneurs, managers, and product developers. Many of their top people bringing in big dollars have attributes of all of these. Their job function just brings the money back to the parent company instead of a random investor. There's nothing about big companies that prevent entrepreneur-like activity within. Usually, just their management culture if anything.

<comment><USER12> It's not a counterexample. What you provided is an example of an entrepreneur managing business. Many large corps have tried this, and for the most part have gotten more out of these efforts in the form of brand benefits and PR (as an innovation first company, yada yada) than actual profit. Toyota in Japan is highly entrepreneurial per se, except they still only make their billions from cars.

And the problem with these efforts is in the entrepreneurs. If they're working on sure businesses from scratch, then it's like opening a Starbucks where you know it will make money. That's not innovation, that's just good aggressive profit-sniffing business.

The best entrepreneurs will continue to quit their jobs to focus on their companies. Hence all the ex-Facebook, ex-Google, and ex-Wall Street founders doing startups. I doubt Jeff Bezos would have considered a career at Goldman Sachs for what he hand in mind with Amazon. Doubt they'd even hire him to do it.

And them hiring entrepreneurs to be managers and product developers is exactly what I said. They stop being entrepreneurs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Too many overconfident anecdotal HBR 'instructive stories' remind me of the old adage 'an economist is someone who can tell you a thousand ways to make love but has never actually met a member of their opposite sex'...the authors often appear to be hackademics, VC bag handlers and other theorists with little practical experience...

</comment><comment><USER14> To be fair, most small companies can't innovate either. The ones that can are the ones that stand out.

</comment><comment><USER15> The whole article is about Gerber, it should have been called "Why Gerber can't innovate".

As plenty others have already pointed out, the tech industry is currently being led by very big companies that are frighteningly effective at innovating.

Disappointing content from the Harvard Business Review.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's a good article, with a simple-enough premise: large companies do one thing, well, and have difficulty changing to do another thing, perhaps less well at first but better later. However, this leapt out at me:

> In it's infancy,

You'd think Harvard could afford an editor …

<comment><USER17> No, it's a _terrible_ article. It's factually wrong, and then it tries to explain, with parables and no real evidence, something that isn't even a problem - at least, not in tech.

I'm even not sure it's a problem in most industries. I suspect that companies that do the same thing over and over without any successful innovation are freakish exceptions, not the rule.

It would be far more useful to (e.g.) think about how to match innovations to the market, and how to create balanced corporations that include a working mix of all the so-called corporate life stages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> AMZN is pretty good at innovation, according to my recent memory....

</comment><comment><USER19> tl;dr: because innovation is what you have to do when you don't already have a business.

<comment><USER20> Call it an "executive summary" and you can charge for it

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> From part 2 of this series: [https://hbr.org/2012/10/how-big-companies-should- innovate](https://hbr.org/2012/10/how-big-companies-should-innovate)

"If the antibodies already exist within your organization to destroy new endeavors, you need to go outside of the organization to overcome them."

Another option is to just fire or move employees that are resistant to change and innovation to other parts of the company where their resistance to change might be more helpful. I don't understand why this option is not considered or discussed.

<comment><USER22> Well, there's more than one way to block new endeavors.

Many organisations sometimes have costly problems, and try to learn from them by adding new procedures to stop the problems recurring. After a few years, an accumulation of such procedures can raise the costs of a new project significantly - even though every rule is a reasonable one put in place with the best of intentions.

For example, where a startup can test a concept with a PHP website on a single server using MySQL, a large company might have standards calling for a high availability configuration, a 24/7 support rota, monitoring logging testing automatic scalability change management backups and security to these standards/levels and independently audited, a bug bounty program...

Before you know it a project a startup could have prototyped with one guy and a week needs several guys and several months - but the reasons for it are all individually reasonable and firing the people behind them makes no sense at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think this is hard for most companies to understand. The natural growth pattern is to take what you're good at, tweak it and sell it to another market. The problem is that instead of creating a process or product that's tailor made for the market it's meant to serve instead you get something that's close yet just not right.

What the article is implying that the only way to combat this is for there to be a substantial buffer between the established company its innovation group lest their be some amount of tainting. They only thing innovation group should be provided is money to try to come up with their own solutions without any interference or guidance beyond the main goal. Quite honestly I think this is impossible unless you hire people with nearly no knowledge of the established processes at the company unless you want intellectual incest. Maybe a single manager might suffice but beyond that I don't think it would work.

I have to wonder how amazon is coming up with its new ideas. They seem to be batting at least .100 when the field is batting 0.

</comment><comment><USER24> Gamestop is not really a good example to end the article with as a company that has given up on innovation. They've pursued the other strategy: buy it. Since 2010 they have made several acquisitions including Spawn Labs, Simply Mac, BuyMyTronics, Spring Mobile, and a bunch of Radio Shack stores.

<comment><USER25> That's buying something, but is it innovation?

<comment><USER6> " that has given up on innovation. They've pursued the other strategy: buy it."

Writer claimed they were doing the opposite. Or am I misreading what you're asking? Did you mean to ask if buying something was itself an act of innovation as in other comments?

<comment><USER25> I was asking if the things that they are buying are fairly described as buying innovations.

<comment><USER6> I'd say so. You can build it or acquire it. Steve Jobs, echoing Picasso, used to say that "good artists create but great artists steal." Allegedly, anyway. ;) I'd also say, as some others did, that it takes a certain amount of insight to see through the noise of the market to spot the claims (eg innovations) that will become part of your vision and integrate with your offerings. A track record of doing that right most of the time is certainly a form of innovation even if not as brilliant as a startup. Each time, the company's portfolio is stronger and providing more value to customers and shareholders that competition might not have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This article was written in 2012. Mods, can you please update the link?

</comment><comment><USER27> Has HBR recently changed its page layout? There is a 20% top bar, that hides a few lines of text when I hit page down. I couldn't finish the article, too frustrated with that POC top bar.

</comment><comment><USER28> As a note though: walk down the aisles at your nearest Target and you'll find just as many single serve pureed fruits+veggies in the food aisles as the baby aisles (many coming in the same pouches and a couple the same branding). I admit, marketed toward parent who want to spend too much money trying to get their middle schoolers to eat vegetables at lunch more than adults proper.

</comment><comment><USER29> This example doesn't make much sense, since adult baby food is one of the hottest food trends right now. It's usually packed in squeezable pouches rather than plastic containers, but other than that it looks like they were just ahead of their time.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's still all just humans making decisions, nothing structural or insurmountable.

</comment><comment><USER31> Once you have ossified middle management machiavelli banally evil sociopaths that only care about maintaining their miniempire, all the big companies can do is leverage monopoly power, startup gap, and government largess to persist.

</comment><comment><USER32> Xerox Parc innovated. It's usually based on the a high pain point the founder has with the product.

</comment><comment><USER33> Google can?

<comment><USER34> I think innovate meant in the form of creating successful businesses. Most of googles revenue is still advertising.

<comment><USER25> > Most of googles revenue is still advertising.

That doesn't mean that Google's other businesses aren't successful. There are lots of independent, successful businesses with vastly less revenue than Google's advertising operations, so why wouldn't an internal Google business that is profitable but has vastly less revenue than its advertising business be evidence that Google can create successful businesses?

<comment><USER34> Sure but I think that's the spirit it's meant in.

I.e. why is it hard for companies to mostly have one cash cow and not develop several. Or why is it hard for them the develop a new business as old ones die out.

<comment><USER14> _why is it hard for companies to mostly have one cash cow and not develop several_

In other words, why can't more companies be like Apple? Or Oracle, or Microsoft, for that matter.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How many Ubuntu Phones there are? - <AUTHOR> http://rpadovani.com/how-many-ubuntu-phone/ <comment><USER2> One more than there should be by rights! Mine fell in a river at night a week ago, I thought it was gone but then I saw a light flashing from the bottom.. It was the screen flickering, coming and going for about a minute like it was calling to me. By the time I got in it had gone out but I found it by diving and feeling around on the bottom.

Packed it in rice and 4 days later it came back to life :) I'm very happy, great phone and surprisingly hardy!

</comment><comment><USER3> The worst thing to happen would be for early-adopters to get screwed over if/when Canonical decides to drop support for the mobile OS.

The truth is that just like Windows, Android will dominate market-share for a long time, but there are millions of linux users out there who will gladly purchase a pure-linux phone if a decently-polished one with LTS can be delivered.

It sucks that the market beyond Android and iOS consists of Windows-phone as a distant third and everyone else scrambling for 0.1%, but Linux can grow here too, cause Android is (just like Windows is/was) a malware breeding-ground (and worse, considering Google is the for-profit version of the NSA).

<comment><USER4> I'm not trolling, but genuinely curious. Android runs on a Linux kernel, as does Tizen and probably several other phone OSes. What makes the Canonical phone more Linux than these for Linux fans? Presumably it's more like a desktop linux distro in some ways, but if so what ways?

<comment><USER5> Android uses the Linux kernel. That's where the similarities between Android and GNU/Linux end.

Ubuntu Touch is GNU/Linux. It is largely[1] made up of "standard" GNU/Linux components (e.g. glibc, systemd [soon], BASH, gcc, Pulseaudio, Gstreamer, NetworkManager, Telepathy, oFono, BlueZ, deb, apt).

This has several advantages:

1\. People familiar with GNU/Linux can re-use their existing knowledge

2\. The GNU/Linux ecosystem is developed by a lot of different parties. If you feel you can do better you can write your own components and swap them in (e.g. as Canonical did with Mir)

3\. A community (or business) can develop their own "spins" (distros), which could extend the lifetime of your mobile (security fixes!)

4\. It's a real pleasure to develop software on your Linux desktop, knowing there'll be less friction getting it to work on Linux on the mobile.

[1] The exception probably being using Mir instead of Wayland

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think they've done the right thing in catering to their existing base of enthusiastic developers. Trying to mass market it right now would just get them a bunch of bad reviews from consumer electronics sites that don't understand it and don't have the time to bother (to be fair, their readers are just more interested in the what color the next iPhone comes in). I think they've also done the smart thing in bringing it to countries where Android and iPhone have not already obliterated the whole market. That's a bummer for me though as I'm a US Ubuntu user and I'd love to buy one of their phones. (I know I can now, but 2G or wifi is not worth paying my monthly bill for). Last I heard they're working with a manufacturer to bring a different option to the US market. I'll be first in line to buy it and I'm excited about building whatever applications I find that I need on it that may not already be there. I think they could do well by really marketing to what they do and the others can't: no questionable agreements to sign, ability to choose what to do with your device that you bought and own, and nobody using your information. Sadly that's a small market, but it's probably large enough for them to keep the lights on.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd love to use an Ubuntu phone, but the last couple of times I've tried, it was still pretty awful to use. Currently, the only phone I could install it on is a Galaxy Nexus and it's not surprising that the OS would be slow there. However I've read that it's still stuttering on the Meizu MX4 (in this german review: [http://www.golem.de/news/meizu-mx4-mit-ubuntu-im-test- knapp-...](http://www.golem.de/news/meizu-mx4-mit-ubuntu-im-test-knapp- daneben-ist-wieder-vorbei-1507-115243.html) ).

Also, the lack of Ubuntu Convergence (the "killer feature"), is disappointing.

<comment><USER8> I've been running the Ubuntu Aquaris E5 since it launched. The main reason I want to stick with it through the difficult early time (browser crashes continuously), is that I want a proper Linux environment on which to develop applications for phones/tablets. I hate having to be forced into Java on Android, and IOS is too locked down and you can't use custom hardware. I hope they stick with it (the main phone guy recently left Canonical) but I can only agree that it is now becoming extremely urgent for Canonical to ship convergence, as without it, this OS is a poor cousin to the competition, even if the user interface is quite clean and fresh by comparison to the gaudy design of Android and IOS. It definitely has potential as much more of an open, blank slate for developers than the others, but the key word is "potential". It's not there yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article makes me uncomfortable, it's pretty light on information and then reveals the author is a contributor and expects donations - shouldn't such a contributor have more information or at least more to say than "Canonical want to sell x, but x could be anything, so the results could be anything"?

<comment><USER10> Being a contributor to an open source project doesn't automatically give you any insight into the business goals of a company sponsoring the same project.

<comment><USER9> But yet that same contributor expects readers to pay him for a few paragraphs of weak guesswork?

<comment><USER10> He probably hopes people might pay him for the development work he's putting into Ubuntu rather than the blogging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd love to see the Ubuntu phone try to do things that the iPhone just can't do - things like give developers the tools they need to write apps: onboard, i.e. use the thing itself to build software for it.

Anyone know if thats possible, or do you still have to have an external cross- compiler/IDE to write proper apps for it?

<comment><USER4> > ...write apps: onboard, i.e. use the thing itself to build software for it.

I do this on iOS using Pythonista. It includes a basic on-device GUI design tool, hooks into various iOS built-in libraries and some useful third party Python libraries. There are even a few (admittedly trivial) apps published to the App store written in Pythonista. There's also Codea if you prefer Lua to Python. I tend to do most work in an iPad as a phone is a bit cramped for working on code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Canonical's speculative sales numbers may be further deducted by their Edge crowdfunding campaign that resulted 37K people participating forming only 40% (~13M $) of their target.

<comment><USER13> That's in the same ballpark as the 25k number the article comes up with.

For people who don't know, these numbers are very, very small. I wrote an app store dice puzzle game on Android no one here has heard of and it has 20x those numbers.

As a developer, you have to decide if the decreased competition on the platform is worth the smaller user base when you decide if you will write a version for that platform. So platform size numbers like these are important.

<comment><USER8> In my own case, the attraction of Ubuntu Touch is to actually ship an entire semi-custom device with custom software for vertical use cases, mainly in B2B. Different order of magnitude of revenue / profit margin, with much smaller unit sales. I don't think Ubuntu Touch stands a chance with consumers at least for the next couple of years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Phoronix links to this submission, and tries to compare his visitor numbers to that of the findings.

[http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu- Ph...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ubuntu-Phone- Estimate-25k)

Spoiler alert: Ubuntu phone can be found among the users, but it's pretty much behind _everything_ else in terms of market-share.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'd love to see a "laptop shell" where once i slip in my ubuntu phone, it goes from the phone os, to the regular ubuntu desktop experience. There's a lot of advantages of only having to own one device. For instance, as long as i'm updating my phone every 2 years... why not get a free laptop upgrade as well!. I take the train home from work, every day I struggle with the tether from my phone to my laptop. If it was just one device life would be a lot simpler.

<comment><USER8> You're looking for convergence, and so far Ubuntu touch does not offer it. It's the main selling point but we're still waiting...</comment></comment>


Star Trek vs Babylon 5 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/74364532680/star-trek-vs-babylon-5

<comment><USER2> B5 had an actual story arc. Star Trek is great and fun, but because it's not intended to end, each series has a jump the shark point where the characters lose their original selves and sort of turn into happy mush.

</comment><comment><USER3> Star Trek FTW. Best TV scifi ever made, inspirational to millions, and tells a good story, but at the same time being an example to follow.

<comment><USER4> I'd agree it's inspirational to a lot of geeks, but looking at human society in general, I think we're not drifting towards Star Trek, but farther and farther away from it. It is still a great show, though.

Also, I grew up watching Star Trek, but recently (a few years ago) discovered Doctor Who as well, and now I'm having trouble ranking those two (I feel that in some ways, Who beats Star Trek).

<comment><USER3> I'm not a fan of Doctor Who - I've tried to explain this many times in many different ways, but one of my biggest dislikes is how technology isn't explainable, but just a plot device, and changes all the time. My other is that its focus is on the exact opposite of Star Trek plot-wise.

<comment><USER5> I have the same complaint about Star Trek. Star Trek pretends to have explanations for things, but they are never consistent, because it's random technobabble. Because of the Monster of the Week format, with little continuity between episodes, an explanation crucial to the plot in one week will be ignored the next. Voyager is the worst series for this, Enterprise has it the least, because the first few seasons of Enterprise had significant overarching plots. But in Voyager, they are trying to reach home, and find many cool technologies along the way -- extremely useful ones even. But most exist only for the length of the episode. Occasionally, a plot device will return for a second episode, but not much more than that.

Don't get me wrong, I love Star Trek and Doctor Who, and you are right that Doctor Who is very loose on strict continuity, but I think Doctor Who is more honest with its technology. I admit, Doctor Who often solves the problems in its plots with a solution completely that is made up in the last 5 minutesWho ith no foreshadowing, but they call back to previous episodes very often. Anything that was taken as fact in one episode can be rewritten at any time, and often is, but as often as possible, they use something from the huge array of existing plot devices. I like that. You can tell that the writers like the lore they have created. They leave enough hints that when old plot points reappear, they fit -- like a riddle, they are on obvious in hindsight.

In Star Trek, however, the technobabble explanations are just fill-in-the- blanks. The writers write a script, then later on someone fills in some scientific words. All of the numbers are random. Occasionally, whoever is filling in those numbers or tech words will be able to reference a past event, but most of the time it's just another spacial distortion that does what the writers say.

In short, I think that Doctor Who respects its canon more by using previously established lore when it serves the plot, but a acknowledging and embracing the ridiculousness of the world they've created. Star Trek, on the other hand, rarely cares about previously established lore -- each episode gets a new species or new temporal disturbance. In many ways it's very good and very interesting -- going where no one has gone before -- but it feels like they could explore the already existing things a lot more. Each alien species wears one hat -- they are all plot devices, because when the 6 acts of the episode are over, the Enterprise will warp away never to return. Their purpose is fulfilled. Maybe that's why I'm a fan of DS9 -- it focused less on exploring strange new places, and focused on just a few species and planets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> +1 for Babylon 5

</comment><comment><USER7> Babylon 5 rulez.</comment>


Microsoft Betting Big on 'Touch' - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123172288454472521.html

<comment><USER2> Touch doesn't make as much sense on a desktop. It's more awkward because it is less ergonomic. If you put the screen lower so that your hand does not get tired you end up looking down too much, bad on your neck. If you keep the screen where it is in a traditional desktop you end up leaning over and your arm will get tired.

Touch makes sense in hand-helds and tablet style machines not desktop screens.</comment>


CrowdMed: We've solved hundreds of the world's most difficult medical cases - <AUTHOR> https://www.crowdmed.com/ <comment><USER2> One of the "medical detectives" on the front page, Daniel Auer, advertises himself as a homeopathic practitioner and naturopath. From his bio:

> ... Dr. Auer augmented his initial plans to attend medical school and > pursued a doctor of chiropractic degree instead...

This sounds like hiring a psychic to do my taxes. Thanks, guys, but no thanks.

Full disclosure: I'm an MD, and I practice science-based medicine. [http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/about-science-based- medi...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/about-science-based-medicine/)

<comment><USER3> How much did you have to dig to find a detective with homeopathy in their bio? ;)

One quack in the crowd doesn't mean that they are all quacks.

PS If you actually believe you practice science-based medicine, you may be part of the problem. Medicine is mostly a guessing game, and will stay that way until we have genome-specific-personalized-medicine with real-time biofeedback mechanisms from sensors in the body.

<comment><USER4> I know it's unpopular to stick up for physicians but...

> Medicine is mostly a guessing game

Can you be more specific with that sweeping generalization?

> and will stay that way until we have genome-specific-personalized-medicine > with real-time biofeedback mechanisms from sensors in the body.

And why do you think that? Again, by what study, authority, knowledge or reasoning?

> you may be part of the problem.

Actually no, it's the other way around. You are part of the problem. I'm so tired of people who have zero training or background in medicine or science half-haphazardly proselytizing without any data or evidence to them up.

Please stop pretending like you know the answer to something this important if you aren't in the position to do so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One thing I've thought would be useful for a while is a platform to allow people with unknown diseases to get matched up with others with the same symptoms.

While CrowdMed can help with rare diseases it's less useful in cases where a disease has never been diagnosed before.

In recent years we've seen a number of diseases/conditions essentially identified by patients discovering others sufferers (often through online campaigns) and the commonalities / genetic testing helping identify the cause. But these have largely relied on serendipity.

It would be great to have an online platform to allow people with unknown conditions to find each other.

(this is especially true with long-tail psychological issues where diagnose is often still very weak)

<comment><USER6> See: [http://www.patientslikeme.com/](http://www.patientslikeme.com/)

<comment><USER5> PLM is much more focused around known conditions and benchmarking those patients with each other rather than discovery of new conditions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The bit I find intriguing is how the paid subscription packages aim to improve your diagnosis by actually reducing the number of eligible participants.

That and (according to the FAQ) the unusual design decision of making flagging public. I wonder if the "try homeopathic magic pills" suggestions are efficiently eliminated, and whether reciprocal flagging behaviour has ever been an issue.

<comment><USER8> CrowdMed founder here

The more expensive packages only allow higher-rated Medical Detectives to fully participate, which reduces the quantity but increases the quality of participants. FWIW, we've found that beyond 30 or so Medical Detectives, results quality doesn't really improve anyway.

We've gone back and forth a lot on whether to make flagging public. The advantage of public flags is that users flag more carefully, the disadvantage is the potential for reciprocal flagging behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love the idea. When asking for medical advice online, people often implore you to go see a doctor and stop asking people on the Internet. Unfortunately I think that's allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Doctors have limited time and rarely want to spend a lot of it with you as it is. There needs to be a cheaper alternative to free them up.

Granted the focus here is a little different. It's specifically tailored for people who have already asked a doctor and are at their wit's end. But I think the same principle applies to more mundane situations. Most of the time when I message my doctor with something I'm worried about, they call me in just to ask me some questions they could have asked me over the phone and then tell me I'm probably okay.

<comment><USER10> Ultimately, this site along with all of the rest concludes that you should "talk to your doctor":

> "CrowdMed patients are advised to never act upon one of our diagnostic or > solution suggestions without the care of a medical professional, who is > ultimately responsible for determining the patient's correct diagnosis and > treatment."

This seems reasonable to me.

<comment><USER11> Naw. I think that line was probably placed in there by the CrowdMed lawyers, to prevent and/or defend againsts Lawsuits. This way, they can pass the blame on to the "Medical Detective" whose diagnosis led to the Patient becoming worse, dying etc, after following the instructions or accepting the detective's diagnosis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's a good idea. In cases where there is a real diagnosis, but it isn't found there are probably these reasons, and CrowdMed addresses them to some degree:

1\. It fits into the category of diseases which have amorphous and tricky symptomology eg Lyme disease, immunodeficiencies, Coeliac disease, temporal arteritis, rare inherited conditions. These are just cognitively difficult to diagnose. Having people from another perspective take a look (particular with the perspective of, hey, maybe this is something unusual) is helpful. Good primary care physicians usually have a list of 'easy to miss' conditions in their heads.

2\. Patient related factors eg they don't communicate well, they can't afford to go to the doctor consistently, they have a huge anxiety overlay, they have many chronic conditions with overlapping symptoms etc. CrowdMed gives them another port of access to healthcare advice.

3\. Doctor related factors eg just incompetence, over specialisation, too busy, too old, too young, too tired, too depressed, too male, too burnt out etc... Sometimes you just need to get a different type of person to look at the case.

But, I do have concerns about how it's marketed. To say that you have 'solved' hundreds of the world's 'most difficult' medical cases is not a responsible thing to put on a front page that will be visited by patients.

Firstly, what does 'solved' mean? I think to prove that you solved a case, you would need to have detailed and long term follow up, and I don't see any evidence of that. Do you have any evidence beyond the patient testimonial at a single time point?

Also, how many cases are not solved?

Secondly, 'world's most difficult' is silly marketing speak, like a detergent that gets rid of the 'world's toughest stains'. Presumably you haven't surveyed all the world's medical cases and ranked them by difficulty. It really puts me off signing up as a detective. Patients are vulnerable. They are scared and suffering. This sort of tagline just makes it look like you are trying to fleece them, despite all the goodwill elsewhere on the site.

</comment><comment><USER13> I watched the testimonial videos and at the end of all of the ones I watch there was no definitive diagnosis and there was no affirmation that the patient got substantially better. Maybe they are just being vague to protect the privacy of the individuals featured in each testimonial.

<comment><USER8> On [https://www.crowdmed.com/our-stories](https://www.crowdmed.com/our- stories) scroll down to Patient Success Stories and you'll see patients with more definitive resolutions. Those are completely anonymous, unlike the videos, so more medical detail can be provided.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how well a standard clinican, armed with a the right software(maybe the full version of [1]) would do at crowdmed ?

[1][http://www.isabelhealthcare.com/home/default](http://www.isabelhealthcare.com/home/default)

<comment><USER8> The site has about $40,000 in cash reward offers up for grabs right now, so somebody should be motivated enough to find out!

<comment><USER4> The cash prizes are inconsequential compared to the liability a physician would take on. There are exactly zero insurance carriers that would cover any malpractice claim as a result of consulting on this site. Despite what the FAQ says about this "not constituting a doctor patient relationship." Good luck with that in court.

<comment><USER14> You can always use some other name,not use the title doctor, or even try to stay anonymous-Like the other non-doctors who consult on this platform.

I'm sure the non-doctors on this aren't exposed to any legal risk, or else the FDA would have closed this site already.

<comment><USER15> Um, most of the medical professional bodies in the world would consider it professionally dishonest to offer any form of medical advice as a Doctor whilst hiding behind anonymity, and would likely start disciplinary proceedings over this.

<comment><USER14> Why would a medical body would have problem with a doctor - who doesn't use his title or name - that posts info on a forum ? he isn't deceiving people in any way , and he isn't using his title in a wrong way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Crowd sourced House Md. I think that's a brilliant idea. I still don't now details about the inner functions like if anybody can be a detective? or do you need special education to be a detective? or who generates the report? but it seems to be sorted out and working currently.

Of course with the expansion of the crowd and patients moderation will become a bigger problem. If it can be moderated at least for an acceptable size, this will be huge.

How can we invest? :)

<comment><USER8> CrowdMed founder here

See "How do you vet your Medical Detectives?" and "Who is your crowd?" at [https://www.crowdmed.com/faqs](https://www.crowdmed.com/faqs)

Our final reports are automatically generated in PDF format once a case closes.

It's funny, just a few weeks ago a patient offered to invest his life savings in our company because he so believes in our mission and the value we provided. Unfortunately we had to turn him down, because our seed round closed a couple years ago :)

<comment><USER17> I would rather you turn down his offer because of professional ethics.

Consider taking a guy's life savings because he felt he benefitted from "the value you provided", and "believed in your mission"?

Every doctor on your staff knows most patients have no clue to why they are feeling better, and placebo plays a huge role.

Besides being unethical for a patient to invest all of their savings into your startup; I think it is illegial in most states? Along with being a beneficiary in a trust, or will?

Have a Licensed medical doctor respond to these questions.

You might have a great service, but you're not coming across well on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How does a company cover itself legally? People in the US love to litigate, especially when it comes to medical issues.

<comment><USER8> See the "Privacy, Security, Liability, & HIPAA Compliance" section at [https://www.crowdmed.com/faqs](https://www.crowdmed.com/faqs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There are a lot of people that suffer from health-related obsessive compulsive disorder (i.e. hypochondria). I imagine a site like this would be the worst possible thing for such a person.

<comment><USER8> CrowdMed founder here, happy to chime in on this question.

We consider it up to our Medical Detectives to determine whether the patient's symptoms are physical or psychological in origin. If the latter, then 'somatization disorder' or 'hypochondriasis' are perfectly acceptable diagnostic suggestions.

That said, a lot of patients are given psychological diagnoses from physicians (i.e., "it's all in your head") only to discover on our site a physical root cause to their symptoms.

<comment><USER20> I would be very interested in seeing a list of diagnoses from cases that were solved correctly. It seems to me that once someone with a difficult to characterize condition has gone through 5-7 physicians, any 'diagnosis' that comes out at the end is either wrong or a placeholder until technology advances.

<comment><USER8> While we don't disclose our full list of final diagnoses, I can give you some statistics from our 700+ cases resolved to date:

\-- no single diagnosis is more than 2% of the total, except for one (Lyme disease at 2.3%) \-- 95% of these have come up as final diagnoses only once or twice in the history of the site

So it's fair to say that it's a VERY long-tail list. Also:

\-- our current success rate is 70% (i.e., the patient told us that we brought them closer to a correct diagnosis or cure) \-- about 50% of our final diagnoses are medically confirmed by the patient's doctor

These statistics are based on our post-case surveys, which not all of our patients answer, but they should be directionally accurate.

<comment><USER21> Lyme disease, or Chronic lyme disease?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How do you handle professional liability for these expert opinions? Medical malpractice is a very real thing.

</comment><comment><USER22> This reminds me of MetaMed.com</comment>


Making C Less Dangerous in the Linux Kernel [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY9SbqTO5GQ <comment><USER2> Kees is one of the few developers in the world doing the boots-on-the-ground rough-and-tumble soul-withering grunt work of actually making Linux kernel more secure. It's not glorious work, but it's perhaps the most important work anyone's doing in the kernel these days. The world runs on the Linux kernel, and from a security standpoint, it's really been a mess (see: Dmitry's Syzkaller talk). Too many contributors are drive-by scattershot "my boss told me to upstream this stuff" types who don't really care about the incremental suckage they inject into the kernel. Bravo on Kees for doing what he's doing.

<comment><USER3> Indeed and that is why I mostly criticise C, we need solid foundations and UNIX clones aren't going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

So whatever can be done in a safer languages should be, and for use cases like this we really need to improve what actually means to use C.

Linux is a very good example that even with quality gates, safety errors creep in and something has to be done about it.

Really kudos to Kees and everyone else involved on these projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a misleading statement in the "undefined behavior" slide. Allow me to nitpick, since this subject is so full of misunderstandings and confusion.

"What are the contents of uninitialized variables? ... whatever was in memory before now!"

This may be true or false - as the slide itself says, "with undefined behavior, anything is possible!".

Besides, the subject of accessing uninitialized variables is more nuanced than "undefined behavior". Among other things, the effects depend on the variable's type ("unsigned char" does not have trap values):

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11962457/why-is-using- an...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11962457/why-is-using-an- uninitialized-variable-undefined-behavior)

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6725809/trap- representat...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6725809/trap- representation)

It's also important to note that C++ has different rules on this. For example, the extract_int function in the last link is valid C, but not valid C++ (in C++ you'd use std::memcpy to achieve the same thing in a valid way).

<comment><USER3> Also to note that ISO C++ working group is trying to reduce the amount of UB, while ISO C working group doesn't have any ongoing papers into this direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I didn't even know that scnprintf was a thing. Cool! I learned something just by skimming the video

<comment><USER6> I think the presenter mentions it's only in Linux kernel though, not available in userspace.

<comment><USER7> The userspace version is snprintf.

<comment><USER8> The speaker mentions it, seems like the return value is different: [https://i.imgur.com/Jj2fMZu.png](https://i.imgur.com/Jj2fMZu.png)

<comment><USER9> yes - snprintf() returns the length of the string that would be written even if it wasn't clipped to the length of the output buffer - if you want to accumulate strings into a buffer using the output length to update the offset/size bad things will happen.

scnprintf() returns the actual number of bytes written (less the null)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Happy Leap Day - The Science of Leap Time - <AUTHOR> http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/02/28/714273.aspx

<comment><USER2> They didn't mention the effect that this has on Programmer Day! The 256th day of the year comes on September 12th this year, but we're programmers so I guess we should expect some special cases, yes?

</comment><comment><USER3> If your wristwatch tells the date, check it today! (Or tomorrow. Will it even let you set today's date? Mine did.)</comment>


Writing File Systems in Go with FUSE - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gopheracademy.com/advent-2014/fuse-zipfs/

<comment><USER2> I wonder how long before someone creates a Reed Solomon implementation in golang to help error detection in a fuse filesystem. It would be interesting to see.</comment>


Ask HN: Where did you find your co-founder? - <AUTHOR> Curious how you found your co-founder and which traits of him/her you attribute to the success of your project.
Really struggling to find a co-founder with adequate abilities. The HN motto is usually to start with someone you're like a brother/sister to and known for at least a decade, but so far my search for someone with the necessary dedication and abilities in my close surroundings was without success.
I'm not a first-time founder and already built two profitable SaaS (first one sold / second one makes enough profit to live off). <comment><USER2> Are you looking for a technical cofounder or something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, including technical cofounder.</comment></comment>


A social media platform targeted towards sharing travel - <AUTHOR> http://dev.wandrlust.co <comment><AUTHOR> Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated</comment>


Microsoft's C# and VB Compilers Now Freely Available - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoq.com/news/2013/08/msbuildtools

<comment><USER2> The title is slightly misleading - In fact the compilers have been available before as part of the .NET Framework (or Windows SDK) and are most likely sitting on your windows machine (try c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\csc.exe).

<comment><USER3> Indeed, and have been free for a long, long time. The only thing they charge money for is the IDE.

<comment><USER4> and even then, there are free editions of that too (express)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Odd title, they've always been freely available, just bundled with the larger .Net framework

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, a programming language compiler I don't have to pay for... Somehow not that exciting a development in 2013.

<comment><USER7> They have been part of the .NET framework since .NET 2, anyway. The only change now is that you can download them separately in a package with MSBuild (which was previously only bundled with Visual Studio or the Platform SDK, if I remember correctly).

But indeed, that's not a very big change, given that they were free before already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apple's similar "Command Line Tools" package is a handy way to get clang & co installed, so that you can still use brew (...and write C) if you don't want Xcode.

<comment><USER9> This is different and somewhat confusing to me. The Command Line Tools are just broken out from a large IDE that isn't necessary to run the results.

In this "Microsoft Build Tools" case, they're separating the tools from their runtime support (the .NET framework). You need the framework to run whatever you're building, so it doesn't seem like much is gained by splitting them up.</comment></comment>


RedisConf live streaming - <AUTHOR> http://redisconf.com/video/

<comment><USER2> After clicking on play i get "Server not found: rtmpt://ec2-50-112-34-102.us- west-2.compute.amazonaws.com:80/live", anyone else get this problem? I am wondering if it's the stream or the firewall at work.

<comment><USER3> Yeh same error here... only when accessing via a proxy :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They might as well not :/

<http://img6.imagebanana.com/img/g9pzoo8j/Selection_021.png>

Would really like to watch this if it were offered in a better quality.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there a pubsub channel I can listen in on?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm afraid I do not knwo this. But they have set up an irc channel #redisconf at freenode. You might ask it there

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Will these be uploaded anywhere in near future?

<comment><USER7> I believe the organisers said they'll put recording online, but I'm not 100% how many talks / when.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pieter Noordhuis is on stage right now!

</comment><comment><USER8> Bono just started his keynote.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Happening right now.

</comment><comment><USER9> I hope no uppity ladies are watching. Redis dude has a problem with them.</comment>