Re:Microsoft acquires Github
by bitmapbrother on Monday June 04, 2018 @12:16PM
(#17229347)
I didn't know patent racketeering was a fair response to not supporting an OS with a worldwide marketshare of less than 2%.
Not supporting? You mean actively blocking? Google actively blocked windows phones devices from accessing YouTube.
And on what planet do you live that licensing out patents that are legitimate patents, for a fee, is racketeering? Talk about Torchlighting....
Re:Microsoft acquires Github
by bitmapbrother on Wednesday June 06, 2018 @05:02PM
(#17251104)
You must be referring to the time Microsoft reversed engineered YouTube API's and blocked ads in their unauthorized YouTube app. They had no right to reverse engineer proprietary API's, they had no right to block ads from being played and they had no right to create an app for an IP they didn't own.
>And on what planet do you live that licensing out patents that are legitimate patents, for a fee, is racketeering?
You should look into the Microsoft vs Barnes and Noble case[1] as well as review their detailed patent racketeering practices at Groklaw. Additionally, the Chinese government made Microsoft expose all of their patents that they wouldn't allow companies they were shaking down to see and, well, they were full of old, obsolete and prior art ridden patents - be sure to look those up too.
[1]http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20111111222912...
Literally every for-profit desktop OS vendor has "spied on users" by the definition you're trying to use. Including OSX and Ubuntu.
>Do they not engage in patents racketeering?
So Google boxes Microsoft out of the phone market by refusing to support any of their services on Windows Phone. And Microsoft is the bad guy for leveraging their patents against vendors selling Android phones? Satya Nadella would be looking for a new job if he weren't leveraging their patent portfolio. End of story.
>Haven't they killed Nokia and ruined Skype?
See comment above. Nokia is dead because they couldn't get a handful of table-stakes apps. Primarily because of google.
Skype... well that was just fumbling the ball, but it wasn't for no-reason. The way Skype was originally architected wasn't going to scale. That was by no means nefarious in nature though. Github has no fundamental flaws that I've seen that they would require them making significant changes.