Comment by laumars | Hacker News Reader

Comment by laumars | Hacker News Reader

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> this seems to be an emotional reaction to the fact Apple is still doing so well vs. more open source (Android) approaches.

Wow that's a hell of a conclusion to jump to. And your argument doesn't even make sense given how hugely successful Android has been.

I was actually thinking more on the wider industry scale, such as Redhat, Canonical, and obviously Google (but not specifically Android).

> In what possible way is Apple's success with their proprietary code and processes exaggerated? I mean, Apple might market in a way you find distasteful, but facts are facts - Apple has been wildly successful in profitability, largely because of their proprietary ability to design great holistic user experiences that people like to use. This isn't because of marketing and brainwashing solely, as the products do mostly work really well, with some debate around overall quality lately.

Clean design isn't innovation. I'm not disputing that Apple have done great work on polishing their products and rightfully deserve to be rewarded for it. I have an issue with companies that stand on the shoulders of giants and then claim their software stacks are "innovative", "original" and deserve aggressively pursuing any company who developed similarly usable frontends around the same or similar underlying open source software stacks.

> All of this is not about exaggeration and "it's magic" stuff, it's about very smart people thinking through how they're going to compete against an ecosystem that doesn't want to make any money.

All of that you listed existed before Apple incorporated them, it wasn't their invention. And your "[the mobile ecosystem] doesn't want to make any money" couldn't be more wrong. Mobile apps were a profitable market before the iPhone came along, not to mention the profitability selling feature phones and smart phones at that time. It was already a pretty big industry - though obviously had room to grow.

Apple obviously did a great job carving a share of that market. But it would be silly to say they were the only ones wanting to make money.

> Clean design isn't innovation.

I beg to differ.

innovation is generally considered to be a process that brings together various novel ideas in a way that they have an impact on society. (https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Innovation)

This pretty much sums up Apple's M.O., which has often been described as taking something that has already been invented (often by someone else), and putting it together in a new way that makes it useful (and usable) to mass market consumers.

Consider Time Machine. Apple didn't invent backup systems, but designing one in such a way that non-technical people could use it, was truly innovative, and Apple deserves a lot of credit for this. Likewise Apple didn't invent the tablet computer, but they came up with the key innovations that made it an attractive product.

So, maybe you didn't mean innovation, but invention, and maybe you don't think Apple deserves much credit, because you think invention is much harder than innovation and design? But if that truly were the case, then why do so few companies do what Apple does?

> So, maybe you didn't mean innovation, but invention, and maybe you don't think Apple deserves much credit, because you think invention is much harder than innovation and design? But if that truly were the case, then why do so few companies do what Apple does?

Even fewer companies do invention, so I don't think your closing argument quite proves the point it's trying to. But I do take accept your argument none-the-less.

Innovate generally means to incorporate something new, but it's true that you don't necessarily need to invent to innovate. However Apple are aggressive in litigating against anyone who they feel borrows their ideas via intellectual property laws - which would suggest they at least consider themselves to be inventors, even if you don't include that in the definition of "innovation".

ALL companies are aggressive in litigating against anyone who they feel borrows their ideas via intellectual property laws. It's basically REQUIRED (by those same intellectual property laws) to maintain your 'intellectual property'.

Now, one could argue that there shouldn't be such laws or that they should be shaped differently, but that's a different discussion, in some ways.

It's only required for trademarks. Copyrights and patents don't require defending every case to maintain ownership.

Perversely it might actually be a good thing if you did have to for patents as it would force trolls into the open early on (ie before their claims run into the millions).

This is only partially true. You are 'strongly encouraged' to enforce your patent violations, for after a period of years (6) they basically become unenforceable. This is to prevent things like 'patent bombs'.

In practice it doesn't always work this way ( see patent trolls ) but it can be a BIG issue for people looking to enforce their patents.

Here's an interesting example:

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2010/05/26/estoppel-time-bomb/id=1...

No, that is only true for trademarks, not for patents or copyright.

And this confused comment is a good example why the FSF recommends against using the confusing term "intellectual property".

No, that ALSO applies to patents, though the term is actually 6 years rather than the standard 3. Your 'confused' comment is a good example of why the FSF should encourage educating ones-self instead of trying to play semantic games with the english language.

I assume you are talking about this, which mentions a 6 year limit:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/286

But that only limits the time period for which damages may be claimed - it does not forfeit the ability to claim damages altogether, which is what may happen with trademarks; that's a pretty significant difference.

Ok, that is an interesting aspect of US patent law I wasn't familiar with. But this doesn't look like a universal property of patents, more likely it's specific to the US?

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