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Comment by nivla | Hacker News Reader

>Honestly, say what you will about Google, but I can't imagine them ever threatening another software company with software patents.

That is a naive fanboy outlook towards a company. Its a well known fact that Google bought Motorola only for the patents. Google has also managed to use the patents to sue other companies including Microsoft. Although I still believe it is the game that is flawed and not the players. Google has also done things that could hold back the Windows Phone ecosystem. However, none of that should discount how much Google has contributed to betterment of the web just like Facebook or Microsoft. Open-Source is open source, the only thing that matters is license here and it is as liberal as it could get MIT.

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I am not a Google fanboy, I am merely saying they abide by the spirit of Open Source. I just used them as an example. RedHat is another example.

> Google has also managed to use the patents to sue other companies including Microsoft.

Can you post a link to Google suing Microsoft first (not in retaliation)? Google was way behind in the patent game until they got hurt. Google bought Motorola to have a defensive patent portfolio. Also, see their Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge https://www.google.com/patents/opnpledge/

> Open-Source is open source, the only thing that matters is license here and it is as liberal as it could get MIT.

Open Source is where it is today from the decades of hard work by many, many people (in the early days, just for the love of it with no pay). MS is doing Open Source today because it really has no choice. There is no comparison between these two.

Open Source can welcome MS, but it should demonstrate a willingness to work towards the best interests of the movement. There are bigger goals here.

> MS is doing Open Source today because it really has no choice

And that's a good thing. It shows the strength of open source.

MS is a company. Just as Google. Companies will "work towards the best interests of the movement" as long as those interests converge with theirs: make money.

AFAIK large portions of Google's core business are closed source. They are not in open source for love.

MS has had in the past a systematic pattern of bullying, lying, cheating and a willingness to destroy social welfare by eliminating the competition and making their products the only option available in the market. This is extremely damaging. Yes every company wants to make money, but not every company will resort to that kind of sociopathic behaviour. Maybe they've changed, although I doubt it. I'm just saying - be careful.

In my opinion the sociopathicness of Microsoft's behavior has always been highly overrated.

Read about DR-DOS. And then realise how long ago that is.

Companies are not people and describing them as "sociopathic" is meaningless.

> eliminating the competition and making their products the only option available in the market.

This is business and this is how you win.

> Maybe they've changed, although I doubt it. I'm just saying - be careful.

Corporations aren't people where past behaviour predicts future behaviour. If MS's original executives are all gone, the fact that MS is behaving differently isn't surprising at all.

Google replaced their XMPP messaging system by Hangouts, a 100% closed protocol with no signs of even wanting to open source it.

From a FOSS pov, both Google and Microsoft have positive and negative sides to it. They're massive companies, you can't judge them as one giant blob.

What MS is doing right now with .NET is fantastic for open source. Just like what Google is doing right now with Hangouts is frankly bullshit. Judge actions, not entities.

Google's treatment of open messaging, albeit terrible, has nothing to do with its patent behavior.

Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and many other companies are known aggressors who use software patents as weapons of war to destroy competition and extort other companies. Google has consistently refused to participate in such immoral behavior without first being attacked by similarly sized companies.

XMPP had a fair amount of shortcomings and the real issue is that federated systems don't solve spam. So everyone living in this "we'll run our own IM systems, just like email" is deluded, as spam in email is barely a solved issue. And much of the solution involves blocking "independent" servers.

You missed the part where Google is not open sourcing Hangouts.

Throughout all the patent wars and all the rhetoric Google produced about competitors abusing patents, it was Google, as the owner of Motorola, that was the only company penalized in court for actually abusing patents:

http://patentlyo.com/patent/2015/08/agreement-microsoft-moto...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Motorola_In....

Sure, the lawsuit was started 2 months before Google acquired Motorola, and it was in response to an MS lawsuit, but the continued abuse of FRAND patents and the ensuing 14M penalty happened on Google's watch. Literally no other company in the smartphone wars suffered this fate.

"Those demands from Motorola should more properly be seen as a counter-offensive prompted by Microsoft’s demands for royalties on every Android implementation."

http://patentlyo.com/patent/2015/08/agreement-microsoft-moto...

There is the licensing and the ecosystem side which are part of the 'meta runtime' of the code and then there is the political story.

Is it possible that since the superiority of the open source model in several places is so obvious (i.e. when the code itself contains no secret sauce) this political narrative of whose development model is better is no longer pertinent?

I would say privacy is partly a different arena altogether, as well are software patents.

My head is too small to fit all of this into a coherent view. All I see is a delightful and shiny MIT license.

Google purchased Motorola for the patents as a defensive measure, so they ward of suits from Apple, MS and Intellectual Ventures. Google has NEVER sued another company over patents. Examine the timeline of patent suits on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_patent_wars

It's all Apple and Microsoft, and then Samsung started firing shots at Apple in retaliation. Google has never gone offensive with a patent suit.

>That is a naive fanboy outlook towards a company

Last time I checked Microsoft was still threatening Android OEM's with their prior art ridden / pile of junk patents (M-CAM analysis). I don't believe Google has ever used patents for offensive purposes, but Microsoft continues to collect quite a bit of money from shaking down Android OEM's.

"Its a well known fact that Google bought Motorola only for the patents. Google has also managed to use the patents to sue other companies including Microsoft."

Really? Which suits were that?

Google has never sued another company over patents. They've made counterclaims when themselves sued, but claiming otherwise is just a fiction.

And they bought Motorola because Motorola was threatening to start suing all of the other Android makers, causing infighting that Google didn't want. So Google bought Motorola....to stop those patents from being used to sue, further diminishing your point.

On the whole, Google is very much the good guys, and Microsoft are very much the bad guys.

However I will say it is naive to assume this will continue forever. There was a period where Microsoft seldom threatened anyone, and we all held quaint notions about all of their "defensive" patents. Situations and markets change, and suddenly desperation takes foot and the company that was hugs and kisses becomes claws and kicks, so I would never assume that Google will always be a fairly good citizen. It could change.

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