There aren't really any "good guys" in this picture, but I at least give Microsoft a nod for trying (and failing) to do something different.
Google isn't "dumping" by giving Android away for free. They have a different business model, and it makes money. It also keeps the competition sharp. Nothing wrong with that.
What's shitty is that Microsoft and Apple are doing everything in their power to delay and destroy innovation for their own benefit.
Google's actions have accelerated innovation. Android has been good for customers, good for Google, and good for the industry.
The justification for patents in software as providing shelter for inventors to work on their inventions while releasing the details of how they work is complete and utter bullshit and has been so for a long time. First, the way people share inventions in software is by publishing papers in journals, at conferences, or by shipping software, so that their peers benefit. No I know of has ever used a patent database or patent pending database as a search engine for knowledge sharing.
Secondly, software is shipped and revised so fast, and the time for patents to be granted, and successfully litigated in court, is so long, that more than enough time already exists for inventors to recoup their investments. It could take a decade or more to go from software patent application to successful litigation, so the idea that the patent protection is needed to shelter you while your startup executes is nonsense.
As far as I can tell, software patents serve one purpose and one purpose only: to inhibit and restrict competitors, or to shakedown successful companies with deep pockets.
Note, Android allows Firefox, even as a default browser for opening links. That's impossible on iOS and on Windows RT.
I don't have any problem with people shipping free software, even Microsoft. The issue is whether consumers and developers have choices.
Sigh.
It doesn't matter how you try to downplay it. Google shipped a huge useful chunk of kernel changes to Linux, plus a mature, ready, out of the box piece of open source that anyone can fork and use as a foundation to make another free OS, like FireOS, Tizen, FirefoxOS, etc, and they successfully got a platform deployed on a huge number of devices around the world that don't completely lock down who can install what.
Even if they had completely evil motives, good has come out of it. If you're a rabid fanboy who wanted Steve Job's platform to have a monopoly on mobile, it's depressing for you, but it's liberating for everyone else.
Google wanted a platform that prevented Microsoft and Apple from beating them to control of the next big advertising platform.
Nothing more, nothing less. "Open" has been shown conclusively to take a back seat to monetization. It is as much a marketing tactic (in the sense that it's useful to promote the platform, but can and will be discarded, with spin to explain why, when its usefulness decreases) as anything in Microsoft's or Apple's ads.
And it doesn't matter how you try to downplay it: companies other than Google have, whether they intended to or not, accomplished undeniable good through things they've shipped. Apple, for example, has contributed monumentally to LLVM, which is a large and useful public good. But it did so more or less explicitly to screw the GPL.
So, faced with all the major players doing this in some form or another, how, precisely, do you plan to rank them relative to each other in order to discern which one is "good" or at least "least bad"?
For the average consumer, control of "the next big advertising platform" is a meaningless abstraction, it matters to people in the ad buying business, not consumers who generally don't like ads in the first place, and tolerate them mostly to get free stuff. And how does Android "control" mobile web advertising anyway?
But for the average consumer, telling them they can't install App X on their device that they spent $300 on because Apple censors don't like it is much more direct.
No company is perfect, but I can say as a Googler, your cynicism is basically wrong, that open source isn't just a marketing tactic, but that the rank and file at the lowest levels of the company, culturally believe in it. Google has disappointed in the past on the degree of openness, and there is much to improve, so I am not uncritical of it in this regard, but if you were to query the rank of file of Microsoft and Apple with regards to open source, and Googlers, you'd find a lot more zealots at Google.
The world isn't black and white, it's shades of gray, and some are just a much brighter shade of gray than others.
While I work for Google, and was involved in the CPTN and Rockstar stuff (and thus can't comment on this article at all, though I wish I could), i can actually point out that this statement is not right.
First, companies that wish to contribute to LLVM are asked to non-assert patents involved in their contributions. This is covered in the dev policy, and has been for a long time. Their are non-assertions/grants on file for a number of companies now.
As for whether Apple owns any patents on LLVM core, Chris Lattner himself told me Apple held none, which is why they had not filed a non-assertion.
Apple may or may not hold patents on LLVM code that is not "in tree" (so yes, they may have non-public frontends or backends they own patents on), and I never specifically asked about the clang frontend, but I trust Chris enough to know that if there was in-project code, be it clang or core or whatever, he would have followed the dev policy and Apple would have non-asserted them.
There is simply nothing that prevents apple from using patents against LLVM users. We can only hope that none of their numerous vaguely written patents cover any technology used by LLVM or any of their frontends like Clang.
Wow, you used just a single line to describe an entire, complex, (possibly superior) open source operating system?
I'm done reading comments here.
If they've discovered a business model that enables them to invest, develop and freely distribute their own tech to end-users benefits, they should encouraged, not a victim of established cartels using their cash war-chest to buy B.S. patents that they can use as anti-competitive weapons to legally attack their competitors instead of competing against them technically in the market-place.
Seriously, who wants cheap superior products? Not me, that's who.
On a serious note, I hope those patents, get downturned and that 4.5 billion investment goes sour for all involved.
The part where it ends up eliminating competition and results in a mono culture?
Regardless, the world is better off with a mono culture around an OSS project than a walled-garden keeping everyone hostage to their whims.
With regards to Schmidt on Apple's board, you're not the first to mention it here, as I responded to another comment, Apple was really dumb in this instance. Google bought Android in 2005, Apple brought Eric Schmidt onto it's board in 2006. So, either Apple was hoping to get some insight into what Google was doing with Android and hoping Schmidt might slip up, or they just shouldn't have brought an advisor on who was the CEO of a potentially major competitor. I was always amazed that that happened. Google Buys Android - 2005 http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-08-16/google-buys-a.... Schmidt Joins Board - 2006 http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/08/29Google-CEO-Dr-Eric....
Plus he wanted the iPhone maps at launch, and probably a few other things which he could only get from Google. Steve had been around the block, and screwed many people over himself. His outrage was calculated.
Prior to Android, your choice was between your carrier overlords and the Apple overlord. Not only was that limiting for users, it was a vulnerability for Google business-wise to have their direct competitors as gatekeepers between their services and their users.
What you say is a classic logical fallacy. Do you repair your own car? Personally, I like having the freedom of doing repairs on my car outside of "authorized" repair shops, even though I know nothing about cars.
Who gives a shit. The fact that the option exists means the "android locks you into google" argument is nonsense.
The fact that a few hobbyists can back their phones does nothing to change this.
The Chinese do.
Seeing as how MS sold Xbox consoles at a loss so they could sell expensive games, I doubt MS has much of a leg to stand on with this claim. Apparently, the Xbox One is the first Xbox to be sold at a profit or break-even from day one; this was such a bold move that Forbes devoted a whole column to it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/06/microsoft...
(Other articles indicate that most consoles are sold at a loss. I'm picking on MS because it was mentioned in the article as a party to this suit.)
these dumping tactics ruined the market for licensed OS like Windows.
did anybody truly believe the rest of the software industry would take it up the ass from google without fighting back?
bing, apple maps, patents, etc - all part of the war. how much money does MS already make off android due to lost patents?
blaming a single player in this game is ridiculous. schmidt in apple's board was the ultimate insult.