News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Uber's Still Not Profitable by fleventynine on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:26AM (#32375097)
Wouldn't such a law stop Google from releasing Android as open source? AOSP cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, but it doesn't cost anything to use.

In such a world, could companies even contribute patches to Linux? Making Linux better without expectation of profit could be considered predatory pricing against Microsoft.

Re:Uber's Still Not Profitable by Ekaros on Sunday August 07, 2022 @05:32AM (#32375114)
There should be difference between releasing something for free like Open Source. And then providing real product or service for less than it costs to produce without any alternative income streams.
Re:Uber's Still Not Profitable by origin_path on Sunday August 07, 2022 @08:39AM (#32376030)
How would you even define that? Aren't you asking for other people's market dumping to be illegal, but not the type you like?
Re:Uber's Still Not Profitable by sfe22 on Sunday August 07, 2022 @07:44AM (#32375742)
And what if android charged a penny a year?
Re:Uber's Still Not Profitable by yccs27 on Sunday August 07, 2022 @06:05AM (#32375264)
The difference is that predatory pricing includes an expectation of future profits from that product. So it makes sense to exclude perpetual free licenses like open source from the definition.
Re:Uber's Still Not Profitable by rich_sasha on Sunday August 07, 2022 @06:49AM (#32375470)
Presumably Google benefits financially from the Android ecosystem. Play store if nothing else.

You can imagine a different world where many mobile OS providers exist, charge you for the system, then comes out Google with free Android, kills the competition and then milks monopoly pricing.

Re:Uber's Still Not Profitable by wodenokoto on Sunday August 07, 2022 @08:22AM (#32375911)
Not presumably. Around the release of android, google was quoting estimated earnings in the billions of dollars from a free and open source Android, purely from capturing mobile ad views/clicks.