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Comment by hhsnopek | Hacker News Reader

I find it oddly funny how Google hasn't stepped in to support their "clients", I'd think they'd help shutdown patent trolls so developers can continue to improve and distribute applications

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Seriously - what the fuck Google?

It's only a matter of time until a patent troll writes a for loop on the store index to send out infringement suits DMCA-takedown style.

> It's only a matter of time until a patent troll writes a for loop on the store index to send out infringement suits DMCA-takedown style.

Perhaps a competing troll owns the iteration patent.

No, iteration is fair game, but `for` is an API name patented by Oracle. Legally, a patent troll would have to write a `whenceforth`, `do...thither`, or `oft` loop.

The next time I'm forced to write C code...

#define whenceforth for

#define supposing if

#define whereas else

I know nothing about C. You can alias keywords like that?

#define is part of the preprocessor, which does very basic string substitution on the code before compiling. Useful in small doses, but also regularly abused.

An old classic --- pascal.h:

http://thedailywtf.com/articles/_0x23_include__0x22_pascal_0...

Boost has macro header libs that allow pretty much anything within the macros system limits to be computed. Lookup Boost preproccessor and youll be even more impressed.

My dad used to tell idiots that he was very impressed with their ideas; one day, he pointed out to me that the impression was not always a positive one.

Edit: Not saying Boost is idiotic; just that you may not be positively impressed with their use of preprocessor magic.

Pretty funny. I have to use that "impressed" fib one day and silently chuckle. Ive actually used Boost preprocessor macros in C for huge benefits to compute variadic functions at compile time. You may not like boost templates or libs but the preproccessor stuff is merely just a turing complete arithmetic language that includes arrays, tuples, lists, and a whole slew of other great things. Its actually quite marvelous how its implemented all from standard macros. A treatise in limited functional programming. I would not want to produce those macros myself..they are insanely clever, just take a look at the source. They use something similar to Church encoding for representing numbers. You can use it without any of the other boost libs or headers. Repetitive code sucks and the BOOST_PP macros are godsend. Im pretty sure you are referring to other 'magic' most likely C++ template stuff. All boost PP does is give you data structures, loop, and arithmetic at compile time. [1]

[1] http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_61_0/libs/preprocessor/doc/i...

The same goes for "quality". It may be a quality product but a poor quality product. If 'quality' is the best word marketing can come up with, maybe marketing isn't of very high quality!

In C, #define basically does string substitution, so absolutely.

You can also do even more weird things with it, like X macros

You can even do evil like

    #define true false

Along the same lines, for added (and undefined) fun:

    #define static thread_local
    #define if(X) if((X) ^ (rand() < 1000))
    #define private public
    #define while if

*copyrighted, not patented

They can use dogescript. In dogescript it's a much loop.

https://github.com/dogescript/dogescript/blob/master/LANGUAG...

I'm just waiting for one of these languages to catch on, gain traction, and become a real respected language used in business settings.

Not respected maybe but lolcode is functional, complete, and extensible.

This is Javascript.

I am hoping for INTERCAL. "COME FROM" is very much needed now that GOTO is considered harmful.

Simple, you instead just write

    totalMoney = googlePlayAuthors.reduce((money, author) => money + abusePatentSystem(author), 0)

That would almost assuredly force Google to get involved. I think it's more likely that they will continue to sue just a few small time developers here and there to try and keep things under the radar.

Absolutely. At least Apple pledged nominal, vocal support when their developers were being similarly threatened.

Google offers pretty handcuffs that developers mistake for bracelets.

Consider how Google is helping the OEMs get Android updates out. Consider how easy it is to call google customer care.

The real question should be: what the fuck developers? Why do you keep hitching yourself to such an unreliable partner? When is it enough?

Good question. What's the alternative for delivering software to a consumer market? Many people have Android phones.

It would be interesting to offer a curated App store with patent indemnification and malware scanning on Android. Do the whole thing, the APIs the eco-system. Without a particular vendor lock in (like amazon fire for example) you might be able to capture the Chinese OEM market which would be a lot of devices.

Very hard road to travel though.

Speaking of app stores for Android, there’s also F-Droid¹, although admittedly, it’s not much of a 'store' considering it only lists FOSS (Free and Open Source Software).

――――――

¹ — https://f-droid.org/

Webapps...

Web does not and will never have the same quality of experience as a native application.

What is missing in your estimation?

WebAssembly and efficient arrays bounds checks.

Do you use slack? Is that a "web" app or "native"? I think the lines are blurring.

It is like using all web apps in native wrapper and the telling that all web apps looks like native apps.

Slack desktop is a webapp packed in native wrapper.

I use the Slack web app, but others heavily prefer the "native" aka "fat" client. The fat client isn't much more than a wrapper for the web, but both are more than just an interface for the API, which can be a bit laggy.

Amazon have their own app store for Fire devices and Androids. It requires installing Amazon's apk though, which also requires changing a security setting.

As the video mentions, people have been sued for App Store and Steam as well.

Google, and Apple and Valve, can send their own lawyers to defend these clients, but since there are dozens of cases, it will be quite expensive. They can maybe sue these trolls for tortous interference, but that may not stick.

So they can't do much.

If the same plaintiff is suing the a bunch of different developers over the same alleged infringement then I believe the defendants could request that the cases be combined?

Those three companies all have tonnes of cash on hand! Its the right thing for them to do, also!

A couple million dollars would bankrupt the average freelance developer, some many times over. A couple million dollars to any of those companies is negligible. I'm not saying that money is no object, but on the other hand, that Google or apple or whomever allows patrons of their store to be bullied like this is, in my opinion, an embarrassment. It not only shows a lack of concern, but it also loses them money because the apps in question probably have to be pulled from the store. I might be off base but I absolutely think that any of those companies could sue these trolls for their behavior. Instead they seem to be showing that they only care about number one.

If they systematically defended these clients it would not take long for the patent trolls to seek greener pastures. After all, patent trolls are in it to get a settlement or payout. If there's a class of lawsuits where they have no hope of seeing any money, they would steer clear.

Because Google has a great track record of caring about Android developers? They are basically monopoly (in western markets at least), they don't need to do anything to turn profit. They are happy to collect their 30% while spending almost nothing (directly that is - on support for example).

The Google Play Store didn't write it self.... Those developers cost real money.

Sure. But that cost isn't proportional to the revenue generated of every app sold and every in-app purchase done on Android. Picking up a million or two in legal costs is the least they should do. If this lawsuit succeeds and this would make 1% of of app developers shy away from the Play store then the lost revenue would easily outweigh any legal costs.

I would totally want this too, but legally, can Google do something here when they are not a party in this litigation?

I believe the defendants are able to hire any lawyer. In that case Google would be able to provide support without issue. I could be wrong.

Or Google can sue patent troll for false claims that they own patent on Google Play Store and seek compensation for their financial damages caused by those false claims. In this case "financial damages" may be interpreted as thousands of developers that presumably did not get involved with Google Play platform because of these false claims.

Plus Google can claim litigation costs.

Also clearly there is a damage to reputation of the Google, since we are discussing here that they need to get involved in this case. I am not sure if they can get compensated for that as well.

They could file an amicus brief with the court.

Google could agree to indemnify app developers for legal fees. There are certain restrictions on other people paying for your legal defense but it's commonly done subject to those restrictions.

They could also take the first app developer to get sued under the patent and pay for them to file a CBM review. Or file an IPR or PGR in their own right seeking to invalidate the patent.

If Google just paid for the defense of the developers, without patent reform, wouldn't that just encourage more patent trolls to arise, knowing there is a massive pot of gold?

Only if the trolls won. On the other hand, if Google's lawyers gave them the smack down then all the patent trolls would go scurrying back under the rocks they crawled out from

I think trolls live under a bridge, in either case, it's not a horrible enough place for them.

Even when trolls lose, they're typically shell companies with no assets, so they can't pay for the legal fees of the winner (they just go bankrupt) and the winner still loses in terms of money.

Wouldn't they stand to loose their patents if they declare bankruptcy?

Spin off a shell corp for each individual patent that is litigated, if a loss ever occurs, the only thing "on the line" in a bankruptcy is the single patent that presumably just lost.

IANAL, but I suspect this is exceedingly rare.

There would be no massive pot of gold, because Google would not be a party potentially liable for damages.

IIRC Apple has a history of stepping in to defend app developers from trolls. So there are at least some cases where it's possible.

He mentioned in the video that App Store apps were getting affected sometimes too, did Apple step in? (I'm legitimately asking, I thought I remembered something about them doing so, but it might have been in relation to a different patent thing unrelated to the store itself).

apples app developers were sued, apple tried to step in. The circumstances were a little different.

This is what I could find. I think the suits were dropped.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/08/apple-tells-judge-inter...

Honestly I just think 4chan should get involved in this. That would probably turn out awesome.

Agreed. They should fight this patent, especially since Be Inc. had an online app store back in 1999.

The first AppStore was even older, it was made for NeXTSTEP, Steve Jobs bought the whole thing.

"We want all the freedom Apple doesn't offer!"

"Why are we forced to fight for ourselves?!"

Sure...

This is a platform that millions use, this isn't a simple freedom that developers don't have for not using Apple's platform. If Google doesn't support their developers, even if they've already made millions, Google will lose a decent amount of market after developers leave their platform because of these law suits. Imagine 2 or 3 of Googles major games dropping support for Android because law suits they lost in court.

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