Recently my old HTC Hero started to get notoriously slow and frequently report "low on space". Even after removing all apps memory was still almost exhausted.
The phone has been running on MoDoCo 2.1 since the last r5 release.
I could have just bought a new phone, which of course would be better by all means, but since the risk of bricking the phone was low (low probability and the impact of the risk was just to by a new one) I decided to find what the latest update around for an old phone like the Hero.
I found far more than I expected in Cyanogen Mod 7.1. Now I have a far newer OS than HTC has ever released for the phone, a lot of new functionality plus a much more stable and responsive phone. Extended standby time included.
In addition to saving (or at least postponing replacing the Hero) it was a satisfying feeling to successfully tinker with the device.
When the risk is low the threshold for hacking your phone should be low. Just as people should know how to switch light bulbs and connect the pieces of a surround system, they should also have some knowledge about their phones and how to repair them. It is not hard, it is fun and you'll learn a lot.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
My data
We are doing it all wrong. Empowering people with technology is currently centered around the technology only. The technology is important of course, but it is totally useless without any data. Technology is just for playing with the data.
So do we empower the user with any control over data? Can we manage data digitally as in real life? Well of course not, digital information is about making data more fluid. But making data more fluid does not mean doing it to all data. The principles if privacy should be valid independent of format.
That does not mean any data can be gathered by trusted parties, but what and how data is collection should be open. It must always be possible to opt out. That does not exclude companies and governments from monitoring activity. It should just be recorded as impersonal observations. As in real life.
So do we empower the user with any control over data? Can we manage data digitally as in real life? Well of course not, digital information is about making data more fluid. But making data more fluid does not mean doing it to all data. The principles if privacy should be valid independent of format.
- Private data should be as private as in a bank box. If the individual chooses to destroy the data, it is his or her choice.
- Shared secrets should be as secret as though it was shared with real friends. Sometimes information will leak.
- Published data should assimilate. As in real life. It would be impossible to control the flow
- Observations can be recorded, but no personal information should be stored without consent
That does not mean any data can be gathered by trusted parties, but what and how data is collection should be open. It must always be possible to opt out. That does not exclude companies and governments from monitoring activity. It should just be recorded as impersonal observations. As in real life.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Information industry battles
Evidence that we are now witnessing one of the greatest battles in the information media industry is emergent. The giants of the industry is either actively pursuing ever more control or is being pushed to take defensive steps. Through the last century many similar battles has taken place: AT&T, the Hollywood Filmthrust and RCA vs Armstrong serving here as prominent examples.
The roles of the battle is not new: weak and unprepared governments, capitalism serving shareholders, and eager consumers. The goal of the current battle is to dominate so as to cut [exclusive] deals with content owners. As often seen before patents is used by the big guys to limit innovation from competitors, and push around those big enough to pose a competitive threat.
In earlier battles a very limited set of patents was used a weapons. Now the giants has to collect patent portfolios in order to gain sufficient control over/defense against competitors. A large number of consolidated patents is powerful when one tries to suffocate innovation and limit the innovative freedom of others.
Innovation has always been important in the Information media industry. Innovation could make the industry more or less self regulating. If a conglomerate/cartel manages to gain control over innovation that could be a threat and even ultimately replace them, they have also gained invulnerability. The loosers if the battle is the content consumers, that will have less choice. The free market can easily commit suicide, especially in the information industry.
The governments, and especially the USA, has much to easily given the giants the weapon they need: patents. It is maybe a bit counterintuitive, but patents is a construction for limiting further innovation. Governments are also generally weak at regulating the information media industry. This creates the opportunity to create an empire. The more powerful, the easier it is to get allies either by fear or business. But, there is a but, when governments has seen trough it's fingers of this battle yielding consolidated giants, they have also created a soft underbelly on those. The giants knows it, and parts of the governments knows it too. The parts of the governments that has understood, also know how to exploit it. Ultimately the information industry stiffens, only casting static shadows of its former dynamic nature. This is when capitalism stops working.
Recently the US and EU has implemented legislation that let them get access to the giants business records. In the name of the fight against terrorism and child porn, they have adopted draconian laws, that removes our digital privacy. This just get easier the bigger the giants gets, because the stakes get higher with size. No giant wants to be defeated up by an anti-trust case.
The current battle is more destructive than ever. The real stakeholders is not shareholders, but us. Our privacy is at stake. Information media industry collects private information and serves public information. It is a unbalanced game. We loose as consumers because without competetion, the giants will be lazy but almost impossible to replace. They have their patent portfolios. This equilibrium is exploited by our governments.
The roles of the battle is not new: weak and unprepared governments, capitalism serving shareholders, and eager consumers. The goal of the current battle is to dominate so as to cut [exclusive] deals with content owners. As often seen before patents is used by the big guys to limit innovation from competitors, and push around those big enough to pose a competitive threat.
In earlier battles a very limited set of patents was used a weapons. Now the giants has to collect patent portfolios in order to gain sufficient control over/defense against competitors. A large number of consolidated patents is powerful when one tries to suffocate innovation and limit the innovative freedom of others.
Innovation has always been important in the Information media industry. Innovation could make the industry more or less self regulating. If a conglomerate/cartel manages to gain control over innovation that could be a threat and even ultimately replace them, they have also gained invulnerability. The loosers if the battle is the content consumers, that will have less choice. The free market can easily commit suicide, especially in the information industry.
The governments, and especially the USA, has much to easily given the giants the weapon they need: patents. It is maybe a bit counterintuitive, but patents is a construction for limiting further innovation. Governments are also generally weak at regulating the information media industry. This creates the opportunity to create an empire. The more powerful, the easier it is to get allies either by fear or business. But, there is a but, when governments has seen trough it's fingers of this battle yielding consolidated giants, they have also created a soft underbelly on those. The giants knows it, and parts of the governments knows it too. The parts of the governments that has understood, also know how to exploit it. Ultimately the information industry stiffens, only casting static shadows of its former dynamic nature. This is when capitalism stops working.
Recently the US and EU has implemented legislation that let them get access to the giants business records. In the name of the fight against terrorism and child porn, they have adopted draconian laws, that removes our digital privacy. This just get easier the bigger the giants gets, because the stakes get higher with size. No giant wants to be defeated up by an anti-trust case.
The current battle is more destructive than ever. The real stakeholders is not shareholders, but us. Our privacy is at stake. Information media industry collects private information and serves public information. It is a unbalanced game. We loose as consumers because without competetion, the giants will be lazy but almost impossible to replace. They have their patent portfolios. This equilibrium is exploited by our governments.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Patent dowry
Patents, that are originally meant to promote innovation and protect investments, has become a strategical asset in the game of alliances. For Google it has become an urgent matter to strengthen the Android ecosystem with a patent portfolio, not innovations. I guess it is important to the Android partners that they are "protected" by patents. Not necessarily things they have invented. Just any patents that can be used in the war against the other players.
Google providing a patent portfolio is merely a dowry to make the Android ecosystem attractive and protect it's inhabitants. Innovation has become a minor variable in the equation. Innovating mostly pays off in lawsuits these days, because there is always someone who has bought or patented something the innovation resembles. The genius working alone that need to protect her or his ideas is a myth. Innovation happens in teams and cooperation with other entities, and is mostly empiric.
What really happens now is patents are collected in portfolios and presented as a deck, either to be attractive or frightening. Entities are forced to join conglomerates and consortiums in search of protection. If this game is allowed to proceed any longer it will be hard, and even impossible to enter the market. An idea that competes with the existing products will not have a chance. Innovation and the free market suffers. More or less willingly cartels are born through consolidation as a result of the patent wars.
Apple is already in bed with media industry, network providers, so we already have conglomerate of corporations controlling a large part of media consumption. Now with Google buying Motorola hardware a manufacturer is the same entity controlling the largest switch (search engine) of the Internet. These entities become very powerful. As long as they behave nicely, this is not a serious problem. But this system is vulnerable in two ways. First, how can such powerful entities restrict themselves so that this power is not misused? Secondly they have a soft underbelly, as they will probably be investigated in terms of antitrust. But governments have recently become very interested in how the Internet and electronic communications can be surveilled and even controlled.
Will governments regulate or exploit the opportunity? As long as the patent war proceeds, the conglomerates will not dissolve. It is their survival strategy. But it undermines the original design of the Internet with distributed control. It does not matter if the Internet is technically controlled in a distributed manner, when the information flow is centralized.
The situation will then resemble some of the pre antitrust cases in the information technology industry. But this time it is driven by patents.
To begin with, selling and buying patents should not be allowed as this fuels the patent war. But I guess it is much more complicated to fix this problem now than ever. Big patent owners will not like the idea of their patent portfolio, expensively procured, should only be used to protect innovative ideas for a short period of time.
PS! I listened to the JavaPosse #360 Newscast while writing this. It has some interesting points about these issues, recorded almost a week before Google buying Motorola, and as such is free of speculations over why.
Further reading
Patents, Schmatents!
Google providing a patent portfolio is merely a dowry to make the Android ecosystem attractive and protect it's inhabitants. Innovation has become a minor variable in the equation. Innovating mostly pays off in lawsuits these days, because there is always someone who has bought or patented something the innovation resembles. The genius working alone that need to protect her or his ideas is a myth. Innovation happens in teams and cooperation with other entities, and is mostly empiric.
What really happens now is patents are collected in portfolios and presented as a deck, either to be attractive or frightening. Entities are forced to join conglomerates and consortiums in search of protection. If this game is allowed to proceed any longer it will be hard, and even impossible to enter the market. An idea that competes with the existing products will not have a chance. Innovation and the free market suffers. More or less willingly cartels are born through consolidation as a result of the patent wars.
Apple is already in bed with media industry, network providers, so we already have conglomerate of corporations controlling a large part of media consumption. Now with Google buying Motorola hardware a manufacturer is the same entity controlling the largest switch (search engine) of the Internet. These entities become very powerful. As long as they behave nicely, this is not a serious problem. But this system is vulnerable in two ways. First, how can such powerful entities restrict themselves so that this power is not misused? Secondly they have a soft underbelly, as they will probably be investigated in terms of antitrust. But governments have recently become very interested in how the Internet and electronic communications can be surveilled and even controlled.
Will governments regulate or exploit the opportunity? As long as the patent war proceeds, the conglomerates will not dissolve. It is their survival strategy. But it undermines the original design of the Internet with distributed control. It does not matter if the Internet is technically controlled in a distributed manner, when the information flow is centralized.
The situation will then resemble some of the pre antitrust cases in the information technology industry. But this time it is driven by patents.
To begin with, selling and buying patents should not be allowed as this fuels the patent war. But I guess it is much more complicated to fix this problem now than ever. Big patent owners will not like the idea of their patent portfolio, expensively procured, should only be used to protect innovative ideas for a short period of time.
PS! I listened to the JavaPosse #360 Newscast while writing this. It has some interesting points about these issues, recorded almost a week before Google buying Motorola, and as such is free of speculations over why.
Further reading
Patents, Schmatents!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Chaos is good - and why we should trust Google
Google, the search engine, does not own content it directs users to, with some exceptions. I do not trust Google everything, and I do not say they always adheres to their own "do no evil" mantra. But when it comes to limiting the powers of traditional content owners it does a decent job. Google is the net neutrality's best bet. I will explain why I think this is so.
Google plays the same role as the phone catalog, but in a much broader sense. It helps users find what they look for. If the dispatcher(s) of the Internet is agnostic to newcomers and established content providers this will help innovation, education and general informing the global community. At the same time this degree of centralization represented by the mighty Google, is vulnerable. Misused or controlled neutral dispatching is broken and value limited.
A neutral dispatcher is important in ensuring net neutrality. Except from paid search rankings, Google's page ranking algorithm favors paths to content users prefers. I guess we are lucky to have Google. Google is no saint, and is not defending net neutrality out of pure values and standards. But it is important to their business and current position. They depend on users looking for content in a chaotic ever growing amount of content. Google creates value from chaos. Chaos is to their advantage. Content providers and owners, the kind that is lobbying against net neutrality, want control and order. E.g. Apple, married to AT&T in the US, wants you to find what you look for inside iTunes, and is does a heck of a good job providing a streamlined user experience.
Google, a strong player that does not have specific interests in providing owned content (Youtube beeing an important exception, but it is a free service and content is user provided) and with no network preferences they effectively have become kind of net neutrality guarantor. Because of their unique position in the information industry, it is their interest that the net is neutral towards all content providers.
As a consequence Google has never been closely related to content producers and network providers. Content providers even accuse Google of copyright infringements, even traffic is directed their way via the search engine.
With Android Google have become related to device manufacturers. But one should note that none of these, or at least to a small degree, has, produces or provides content. They compete on producing devices suitable for content consumption and to some degree content production.
Apple and Sony are examples of the opposite type of device manufacturers, with Sony Ericsson in a limbo position providing Android handsets. Sony Ericsson's Android handsets are typically more customized than other Android handsets. Apple is closely related to content providers through iTunes and AT&T on the network side for exclusive deal on the iPhone.
Content owners will want to shortcut the neutral dispatcher to gain advantages over other content providers. Ultimately main players in the information industry want to control distribution, and even consumer devices. By controlling the networks used for distribution and devices, they can direct, and even filter content available. This is called walled gardens, and what traditional content providers want. I interpret what happens in OECD as a content provider control coup towards network services. Content providers utilize their powers over governments to gain some (initial?) control over network services.
The architecture of the Internet, as Licklider and the other founders designed it premiered distributed media control. The design was in direct opposite of how AT&T and telephone networks was designed, and AT&T still struggles with this.
But Google can not alone defend against the forces trying to divide and conquer the Internet. Even Google will have to change business strategy if net neutrality is lost. Google is wholly dependant on the prosumer (producing consumers) and others betting on the open and neutral web (which of course is in their own interest too).
The World Wide Web and http protocol is used for providing, finding and consuming content. An open WWW is mutual dependant on net neutrality. Net neutrality is an important foundation for WWW as we know it, and at the same time helps defending against centralized control. The reason for this is the hyperlinking nature of WWW.
So what can net neutrality defenders do? The decisions needed is often counterintuitive, since you often will have to choose chaos over order and not first class content providers that only accepts exclusive deals. Prosumers must put an effort in putting all kind of common knowledge on the web under a sharing license e.g. Creative Commons to prohibit evasive copyrighting of stuff of interest to everyone. Digital tool makers must strive to give prosumers tools to mass produce good quality content. Prosumers should link to relevant content, that help glue the Internet. Network service providers must not make exclusive deals with content providers or let them to close to their operations.
Content makers should also consider what will serve them best in the long run: a close marriage with media conglomerates that was formed during the 90's or a model with room for all players in the content industries. In contrast to the job
market 20 years ago, the options are no much more dynamic. Lock-in is not a good thing when tools are democratized to a level where everybody can produce something (talent or not). A large part of the content industries will benefit from net neutrality in the long run, but established entities will often fight against it.
Governments must regulate to by intervening using antitrust laws, but when one studies the history of media industries it is revealed that they are slow movers and too vulnerable to lobbying. The book The Masterswitch, by Tim Wu, describes the phenomena of media- and content industries since the inception of telephony and is an important contribution in the net neutrality debate.
Google plays the same role as the phone catalog, but in a much broader sense. It helps users find what they look for. If the dispatcher(s) of the Internet is agnostic to newcomers and established content providers this will help innovation, education and general informing the global community. At the same time this degree of centralization represented by the mighty Google, is vulnerable. Misused or controlled neutral dispatching is broken and value limited.
A neutral dispatcher is important in ensuring net neutrality. Except from paid search rankings, Google's page ranking algorithm favors paths to content users prefers. I guess we are lucky to have Google. Google is no saint, and is not defending net neutrality out of pure values and standards. But it is important to their business and current position. They depend on users looking for content in a chaotic ever growing amount of content. Google creates value from chaos. Chaos is to their advantage. Content providers and owners, the kind that is lobbying against net neutrality, want control and order. E.g. Apple, married to AT&T in the US, wants you to find what you look for inside iTunes, and is does a heck of a good job providing a streamlined user experience.
Google, a strong player that does not have specific interests in providing owned content (Youtube beeing an important exception, but it is a free service and content is user provided) and with no network preferences they effectively have become kind of net neutrality guarantor. Because of their unique position in the information industry, it is their interest that the net is neutral towards all content providers.
As a consequence Google has never been closely related to content producers and network providers. Content providers even accuse Google of copyright infringements, even traffic is directed their way via the search engine.
With Android Google have become related to device manufacturers. But one should note that none of these, or at least to a small degree, has, produces or provides content. They compete on producing devices suitable for content consumption and to some degree content production.
Apple and Sony are examples of the opposite type of device manufacturers, with Sony Ericsson in a limbo position providing Android handsets. Sony Ericsson's Android handsets are typically more customized than other Android handsets. Apple is closely related to content providers through iTunes and AT&T on the network side for exclusive deal on the iPhone.
Content owners will want to shortcut the neutral dispatcher to gain advantages over other content providers. Ultimately main players in the information industry want to control distribution, and even consumer devices. By controlling the networks used for distribution and devices, they can direct, and even filter content available. This is called walled gardens, and what traditional content providers want. I interpret what happens in OECD as a content provider control coup towards network services. Content providers utilize their powers over governments to gain some (initial?) control over network services.
The architecture of the Internet, as Licklider and the other founders designed it premiered distributed media control. The design was in direct opposite of how AT&T and telephone networks was designed, and AT&T still struggles with this.
But Google can not alone defend against the forces trying to divide and conquer the Internet. Even Google will have to change business strategy if net neutrality is lost. Google is wholly dependant on the prosumer (producing consumers) and others betting on the open and neutral web (which of course is in their own interest too).
The World Wide Web and http protocol is used for providing, finding and consuming content. An open WWW is mutual dependant on net neutrality. Net neutrality is an important foundation for WWW as we know it, and at the same time helps defending against centralized control. The reason for this is the hyperlinking nature of WWW.
So what can net neutrality defenders do? The decisions needed is often counterintuitive, since you often will have to choose chaos over order and not first class content providers that only accepts exclusive deals. Prosumers must put an effort in putting all kind of common knowledge on the web under a sharing license e.g. Creative Commons to prohibit evasive copyrighting of stuff of interest to everyone. Digital tool makers must strive to give prosumers tools to mass produce good quality content. Prosumers should link to relevant content, that help glue the Internet. Network service providers must not make exclusive deals with content providers or let them to close to their operations.
Content makers should also consider what will serve them best in the long run: a close marriage with media conglomerates that was formed during the 90's or a model with room for all players in the content industries. In contrast to the job
market 20 years ago, the options are no much more dynamic. Lock-in is not a good thing when tools are democratized to a level where everybody can produce something (talent or not). A large part of the content industries will benefit from net neutrality in the long run, but established entities will often fight against it.
Governments must regulate to by intervening using antitrust laws, but when one studies the history of media industries it is revealed that they are slow movers and too vulnerable to lobbying. The book The Masterswitch, by Tim Wu, describes the phenomena of media- and content industries since the inception of telephony and is an important contribution in the net neutrality debate.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Can patents and intellectual property rights put a deadlock on the information society?
What is information? Or what does information make us capable of doing? Information put into context is knowledge. Information exchange is the basis for empiric evolvment and great inventions. Without relatively free flow of information society can not evolve and prosper. Historically things would have turned out pretty differently of the alphabet was patented, or mathematics was protected as intellectual property.
During listening to a podcast interview with Robert Laughlin, that (I thought was only) about carbon future and climate, the talk also mentioned the topic of patents and intellectual property rights (at 50:35). Protection of informaton has restricted US to some extent to empirically evolve, and jobs is outsourced to e.g. Japan and now China. The patents is kept by American companies, but production is not in the US. It is however unclear how this affects employment and innovation in the long run, but there is a high probability that a connection is present. It started my thinking on how such protective measures affects our society. Laughlin mentions a book he has authored: Crime of Reason that rationalizes over this subject.
Just think how some cities and whole nations became recognized mariners in the era of sailships. By sharing knowledge, and demolishing the churchs false demagogy saying the world was flat, they conquered the earth. Little or no knowledge was patented before industrialization. At least not commodity knowledge.
The invention of the internet has let loose massive flows of information. Our society and daily lives is packed with technology. Information technology is ubiquitous and indespensable in the parts of the world calling themselves information societies. What disturbs me is that the tools we are so dependant on is illegal to tinker with to an increasing degree. Apple is the forefront of this development, but they are not alone. Given that a lot of smart people, buying products, sees ways to improve them it is a waste of talent not to let them. The knowledge of how the tools that we depend upon works should be available. Reverse engineering should not be am act of crime. The products themselves is just as valuable with the knowledge available, if not even more. When products can be extended in ways the manufacturer did not think of, the usefulness and usablility increases.
This is especially true for software, that increasingly becomes the inner workings of our tools. Did you know that the average car has software with over 10 million lines of code? How many knows how that code works, opposed to traditional home mechanic doing maintenance works on his own car? Recently it has been shown that wireless pressure sensors are vulnerable for malicous hacker attacks. Patents can not protect you from criminals, but people with good intentions (and I am fairly convinced they outnumber criminals) could reveals such things. The most capable could even provided fixes. Software should not be patented. The value is in goods that can be traded and valueadding services using the knowledge. Using information correctly is complex (instantiation of knowledge) and will always be in demand.
My point with arguing that knowledge about how our tools works is that this is how it has been most of the time during our civilization, and probably before that too. When there are too many patents and intellectual properties protected from reuse and tinkering, the information society may be deadlocked. If this is true, it is a slow process. It is like the story of boiled frogs, that do not recognize that their beein boiled when let into cold water slowly heating up.
The issues of protecting knowledge may eventually restrict desired and needed innovation. In the context of the interview with Laughlin, one can derive that it slows down or prohibit much needed concensus over what environmental challenges we are really facing and how they can be solved. To make it clear where I am going with this: Environmental challenges are global, the internet is made for global information exchange. The tools we use, that largely is the cause of (our perceived) environmental challenges, are protected from tinkering. Information protection and patents is not helping us in figuring what we have to do.
During listening to a podcast interview with Robert Laughlin, that (I thought was only) about carbon future and climate, the talk also mentioned the topic of patents and intellectual property rights (at 50:35). Protection of informaton has restricted US to some extent to empirically evolve, and jobs is outsourced to e.g. Japan and now China. The patents is kept by American companies, but production is not in the US. It is however unclear how this affects employment and innovation in the long run, but there is a high probability that a connection is present. It started my thinking on how such protective measures affects our society. Laughlin mentions a book he has authored: Crime of Reason that rationalizes over this subject.
Just think how some cities and whole nations became recognized mariners in the era of sailships. By sharing knowledge, and demolishing the churchs false demagogy saying the world was flat, they conquered the earth. Little or no knowledge was patented before industrialization. At least not commodity knowledge.
The invention of the internet has let loose massive flows of information. Our society and daily lives is packed with technology. Information technology is ubiquitous and indespensable in the parts of the world calling themselves information societies. What disturbs me is that the tools we are so dependant on is illegal to tinker with to an increasing degree. Apple is the forefront of this development, but they are not alone. Given that a lot of smart people, buying products, sees ways to improve them it is a waste of talent not to let them. The knowledge of how the tools that we depend upon works should be available. Reverse engineering should not be am act of crime. The products themselves is just as valuable with the knowledge available, if not even more. When products can be extended in ways the manufacturer did not think of, the usefulness and usablility increases.
This is especially true for software, that increasingly becomes the inner workings of our tools. Did you know that the average car has software with over 10 million lines of code? How many knows how that code works, opposed to traditional home mechanic doing maintenance works on his own car? Recently it has been shown that wireless pressure sensors are vulnerable for malicous hacker attacks. Patents can not protect you from criminals, but people with good intentions (and I am fairly convinced they outnumber criminals) could reveals such things. The most capable could even provided fixes. Software should not be patented. The value is in goods that can be traded and valueadding services using the knowledge. Using information correctly is complex (instantiation of knowledge) and will always be in demand.
My point with arguing that knowledge about how our tools works is that this is how it has been most of the time during our civilization, and probably before that too. When there are too many patents and intellectual properties protected from reuse and tinkering, the information society may be deadlocked. If this is true, it is a slow process. It is like the story of boiled frogs, that do not recognize that their beein boiled when let into cold water slowly heating up.
The issues of protecting knowledge may eventually restrict desired and needed innovation. In the context of the interview with Laughlin, one can derive that it slows down or prohibit much needed concensus over what environmental challenges we are really facing and how they can be solved. To make it clear where I am going with this: Environmental challenges are global, the internet is made for global information exchange. The tools we use, that largely is the cause of (our perceived) environmental challenges, are protected from tinkering. Information protection and patents is not helping us in figuring what we have to do.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Has Oracle killed innovation on the Java platform
Most of the innovation the software world is derivative works. The whole software innovation ecosystem is empiric, and new offsprings sees the daylight with knowledge originating from other successes and failures. Further, a lot of innovative products is based on commodity software, that saves innovators from the tedious and costly work of doing everything themselves. If these mechanisms breaks apart, the whole innovation ecosystem in the software world would crumble. I think this article explains how innovation happens today, and it lists som famous everyday innovations that where never patented. Things everyone of us uses almost everyday. Had they been patented, some things would be quite differently today.
So, Oracle sues Google over some patent infringments and IP rights. Because they own Java they can do just that. Google has been clever omitting these patents and IP rights and Sun did not see any interest in pursuing any possible infringements in court. I guess they saw Googles works as strengtening Javas overall position, even if the code was not portable, but knowledge is. And knowledge is very easily transferrable. Further, it can result in new offsprings and innovations.
The Java Virtual Machine is a commodity that a lot of business and open source projects relies upon. The desktop and server editions are open source under GPLv2. The mobile edition is not fully open source, and it is here that the Oracle lawyers (hyeanas are more appropriate me thinks) are seeing legal meat to dig into. How they axactly will argue is not yet revealed, but it could be they will argue lost business. I would say it is downright unethical to sue a another party on such basis. Just as Apples iPhone would not have had Androids market share, if it did not exist? There are no other real competitors to Apple just now, and is Oracle producing phones? Can they show a prototype? Can Oracle provide any proof that Java ME has lost any market share (as far as I know Java ME has not played any significant role in a market sense)? They are just hurting the JVM and Java language as a commodity by inserting insecurity and fright into the ecosystem. Maybe this will be the event that triggers completely new programming languages or strengthenes some new ones in the pipeline? Languages with absolutely no patent strings attached and potential misuse by the "owner".
The consequences could be devastating for innovation on the Java platform. Those who want to use Java the platform must from now on be extremely careful to not irritate Oracles lawyers. What does the Scala people think now? Will Oracle try to sue them for lost revenues on Java IDE's or do some ridicoulous changes to stop Scala?
In addition to damage innovation on the Java platform, this lawsuit will drain energy and time from managamenet at Google and Oracle. Who gains on that? Yes Apple and Microsoft. While Oracle bashes Google with stone age business models, competitors can exploit their distraction from the scene where innovation happen.
What feels so completly wrong with this lawsuit, apart from totally missing the point of the software industry works, is that Google has probably been one of the biggest contributors to the diffusion of Java language on the mobile platform, namele Android. Android provides no or little revenue for Google, but sees at as mere innovation and business platform that suits them. I think Oracle will have a hard time arguing for any economic losses as Google does not make money on Android directly and Oracle is certainly not in the ad-business.
Friday 13th , August, 2010 is a sad day in software history, and James Gosling did foresee it in the aquiring negotiations with Oracle. He must have felt like Albert in We, the drowned by Carsten Jensen. Albert can see war victims beeing killed in his dreams before it actually happen.
Update 18.08.2010
Charles Nutter has written a thorough blogpost on the issue.
So, Oracle sues Google over some patent infringments and IP rights. Because they own Java they can do just that. Google has been clever omitting these patents and IP rights and Sun did not see any interest in pursuing any possible infringements in court. I guess they saw Googles works as strengtening Javas overall position, even if the code was not portable, but knowledge is. And knowledge is very easily transferrable. Further, it can result in new offsprings and innovations.
The Java Virtual Machine is a commodity that a lot of business and open source projects relies upon. The desktop and server editions are open source under GPLv2. The mobile edition is not fully open source, and it is here that the Oracle lawyers (hyeanas are more appropriate me thinks) are seeing legal meat to dig into. How they axactly will argue is not yet revealed, but it could be they will argue lost business. I would say it is downright unethical to sue a another party on such basis. Just as Apples iPhone would not have had Androids market share, if it did not exist? There are no other real competitors to Apple just now, and is Oracle producing phones? Can they show a prototype? Can Oracle provide any proof that Java ME has lost any market share (as far as I know Java ME has not played any significant role in a market sense)? They are just hurting the JVM and Java language as a commodity by inserting insecurity and fright into the ecosystem. Maybe this will be the event that triggers completely new programming languages or strengthenes some new ones in the pipeline? Languages with absolutely no patent strings attached and potential misuse by the "owner".
The consequences could be devastating for innovation on the Java platform. Those who want to use Java the platform must from now on be extremely careful to not irritate Oracles lawyers. What does the Scala people think now? Will Oracle try to sue them for lost revenues on Java IDE's or do some ridicoulous changes to stop Scala?
In addition to damage innovation on the Java platform, this lawsuit will drain energy and time from managamenet at Google and Oracle. Who gains on that? Yes Apple and Microsoft. While Oracle bashes Google with stone age business models, competitors can exploit their distraction from the scene where innovation happen.
What feels so completly wrong with this lawsuit, apart from totally missing the point of the software industry works, is that Google has probably been one of the biggest contributors to the diffusion of Java language on the mobile platform, namele Android. Android provides no or little revenue for Google, but sees at as mere innovation and business platform that suits them. I think Oracle will have a hard time arguing for any economic losses as Google does not make money on Android directly and Oracle is certainly not in the ad-business.
Friday 13th , August, 2010 is a sad day in software history, and James Gosling did foresee it in the aquiring negotiations with Oracle. He must have felt like Albert in We, the drowned by Carsten Jensen. Albert can see war victims beeing killed in his dreams before it actually happen.
Update 18.08.2010
Charles Nutter has written a thorough blogpost on the issue.
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