That may be true, but it would be misplaced. I think we should channel our outrage into changing the screwy US patent system so this kind of stuff would become moot.
No. Voting with your wallet works. We need to start treating companies like they are members of our society - if one of your neighbours turns out to be a jackass to your other neighbours, do you tolerate him just because, hey, he just wants to make a profit?
Fuck that. Companies must learn to play nice and it's insane to treat them differently than we treat people. It's a huge double standard and if you expect the system will change without us punishing companies with our wallet, then you've got another thing coming.
Well the problem with boycot is you will find some reason to boycot one of the big players every week. When everyone does their ranking at their yearly smartphone purchase, the whole boycot becomes intransparent.
If there were an association of smartphone vendors, a club of app developers or a federation of tech bloggers, saying "Don't do this or we'll stop to support you", this would work out very differently.
You can meet even large corporations at eye level. Just find their vulnerable points, it's easy.
Well, true, but we also have to adjust our expectations - the patents system will never go away or be fixed until these big companies stop supporting it.
When Apple released iOS as a really locked-down operating-system, I complained about it, but on the other hand it was nothing major. Heck, it was their toy, their hard work, their platform, when other people or companies want something different, more open, more tuned to certain niches, or whatever, then they should work in that direction by building their own operating-system, their own platform, right?
But patents lawsuits are evil, because it prevents alternatives from emerging. It's a really bad loophole that works against healthy competition. Say, Firefox OS takes off, do you think it will be spared?
So that's why right now I'm angry and I think we really should not tolerate patents trolling. It's one thing to acquire patents for defensive purposes. It's an entirely different thing when such a company becomes offensive (and don't think I have forgotten about Google not stopping the Motorola's lawsuits as soon as they bought them).
Why can't we do both? Let the companies know we don't accept their behaviour, and try to change the patent system. The patent system won't change overnight, but the companies can drop the suit in an instance.
Because until the entities, likely to exert huge lobbying pressure on legislation, are brought to heel, changing those laws will prove very difficult indeed.
yes. definitely agree..no one company (including Google) is truly altruistic here..as I said below if anyone we should be rooting for fireOS and not Android/Google.
