Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 14th Jul 2011 21:16 UTC
I've been sitting on this item all day. Technically, it's about patents and the like, and even I understand I've been beating this dead horse so often it almost looks like it's alive. However, this is an interesting opinion piece by Craig Hockenberry, long-time employee at The Iconfactory, one of my favourite software development houses - these guys breath software and beautiful design, and employ one of my favourite artists, David Lanham. The gist of his story? Software patents are killing the independent developer scene.
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RE[4]: Counterproductive advocacy
by rhavyn on Fri 15th Jul 2011 03:54
in reply to "RE[3]: Counterproductive advocacy"
Member since:2005-07-06
Now fast forward to today. We have Microsoft in first with 90% share. They use their patents to bash Android instead of making a better product.
Another emotional, factually incorrect statement. First I'm pretty sure Microsoft doesn't have a 90% share in anything. Second, Microsoft is producing and continually improving a very well received (even by Thom) mobile operating system. Just because a company chooses to use the legal system doesn't mean they aren't producing and competing with a good product too.
We have Apple and the rest of the mobile market being sue happy. We have patent trolls. We have less choice and less innovation. Are we really better off with patents? I dont think so.
You think we have less choice and innovation in software than in the 50's? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, this is the kind of factually incorrect emotional kind of post that I was talking about?
RE[5]: Counterproductive advocacy
by TechGeek on Fri 15th Jul 2011 04:18
in reply to "RE[4]: Counterproductive advocacy"
Member since:2006-01-14
"Now fast forward to today. We have Microsoft in first with 90% share. They use their patents to bash Android instead of making a better product.
Another emotional, factually incorrect statement. First I'm pretty sure Microsoft doesn't have a 90% share in anything. Second, Microsoft is producing and continually improving a very well received (even by Thom) mobile operating system. Just because a company chooses to use the legal system doesn't mean they aren't producing and competing with a good product too.
We have Apple and the rest of the mobile market being sue happy. We have patent trolls. We have less choice and less innovation. Are we really better off with patents? I dont think so.
You think we have less choice and innovation in software than in the 50's? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, this is the kind of factually incorrect emotional kind of post that I was talking about? "
Its pretty well known that Microsoft has a 90%+ share of the desktop market. Second, their WP7 OS is a flop. According to Gartner, Microsoft occupies less than 5% of the mobile market. So I would say that they are NOT competing by making a decent product.
I am not saying we have less choice. I am saying there was no explosion of innovation all of a sudden when software patents were suddenly allowed. We are still basing our OS's off of designs from the 60's and 70's when most of them weren't even copyrighted. So all this intellectual property protection obviously hasn't done anything good.
RE[5]: Counterproductive advocacy
by Alfman on Fri 15th Jul 2011 05:13
in reply to "RE[4]: Counterproductive advocacy"
Member since:2011-01-28
rhavyn,
"You think we have less choice and innovation in software than in the 50's? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, this is the kind of factually incorrect emotional kind of post that I was talking about?"
Beware, the following is an "emotional kind of post".
The 50s were obviously way to early to consider consumer gear. However I do think that innovation is in decline today compared to all previous decades in my lifetime.
There are too many leaches in the economy, from frivolous lawsuits, patent trolls, wallstreet, bank bailouts, political corruption, monopolies, education prices, and inflation, we are paralyzed. More and more of the economy is driven by cheap goods which gets built with offshore workers. Corporations consolidate into conglomerates and lay off scores of skilled workers. In the mean time largest MNCs can use complex loopholes to pay zero taxes. The small businesses, who are collectively the biggest employers, are left carrying the burden and cannot compete.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/study-tallies-corporations-n...
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/general-electric-paid-federal-taxes-...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-callahan/googles-tax-avoidance-...
Big business influence on the US government is astounding. They've been the primary beneficiary of trillions of dollars in tax cuts and hand outs over the past decade. I suppose it may not matter to all of you, but I personally had to watch my tax dollars pay for these big business entitlements, who did nothing to deserve them.
No, this is not innovation, it's profiteering. I'd gladly take the 50s over today. This way, I might live to see man go to the moon instead of the dismantling of the space program.
Edit: Also, they probably could have used a good computer programmer like me. Today there are more of us than jobs.
Edited 2011-07-15 05:21 UTC
RE[5]: Counterproductive advocacy
by JAlexoid on Fri 15th Jul 2011 15:03
in reply to "RE[4]: Counterproductive advocacy"
Member since:2009-05-19
Just because a company chooses to use the legal system doesn't mean they aren't producing and competing with a good product too.
When they are forcing patent licenses to be applied globally, they are abusing the US system to force the patents in countries that don't have them. Abusing is not the same as using. And MS is abusing.
PS: They do have 90% share of desktop OS.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/15/13 23:03 UTC
"During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.More News »
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Member since:
2006-01-14
As a rebuttal to the argument that software patents drive innovation and creativity, lets think about how things have progressed since 1950. We started out with no patents and not even copyright on the code. It didn't matter as you probably couldn't run the software with out the hardware anyway. We had all kinds of growth and all kinds of different ideas.
Now fast forward to today. We have Microsoft in first with 90% share. They use their patents to bash Android instead of making a better product. We have Apple and the rest of the mobile market being sue happy. We have patent trolls. We have less choice and less innovation. Are we really better off with patents? I dont think so.