Hacker News Reader

Comment by drivebyacct2 | Hacker News Reader

Is Dell "dumping" when they sell Ubuntu laptops and don't incorporate some sort of surcharge for me since I submitted a kernel patch for free? I can't imagine how open source software is ever part of a "classic definition of dumping". Are they dumping because they don't "take software development costs" of the radio firmware, or open source compression library, or (etc) into account? Besides, is the right response to "dumping" to collaborate with competitors to patent-block a common enemy?

I really, really don't understand your position, and that may be ignorance on my part.

(As for the SGS/II looking like the iPhone, that's really neither here nor there, but again, I don't think it excuses patent trolling.)

View on HN

With Dell you have a choice of buying a PC with Ubuntu, or Windows, or whatever. Other manufacturers can also do this. Will you be able to use Android phones without Android? No. I don't think your example fits well here.

Android OS is the most essential part to make Android phones operate. It does cost Google a lot of money to make, yet it gives phone manufacturers licenses for cheap, just to make phones cheap enough so that users chose them over iPhones. Google wants it so bad they are willing to lose a lot of money now hoping it will pay off in future when everyone has Androids. Apple (and Microsoft) who cannot use this model (they don't dominate in ads or search markets) obviously don't like this. How would you feel if you were Apple? So they will try to use patents to make Android licenses more expensive. I hope I explained it well this time.

P.S. I don't know what is the right response to dumping. With physical goods it's easy to prove. With software much harder. This does not mean dumping prices on phone OS software to kill competition is nice. Apple and MS are just using what they can within legal means. Google did not play it nice with them - why they should be nice to Google?

> It does cost Google a lot of money to make, yet it gives phone manufacturers licenses for cheap, just to make phones cheap enough so that users chose them over iPhones. Google wants it so bad they are willing to lose a lot of money now hoping it will pay off in future when everyone has Androids. Apple (and Microsoft) who cannot use this model (they don't dominate in ads or search markets) obviously don't like this.

No need to wait for the future, Andy Rubin and Eric Schmidt have stated that Android is already profitable, through advertising revenue. That Microsoft and Apple can't compete with Google's business model is not unfair, it's business: they aren't owed profits, they must earn it.

In any case, you might as well say that Apple-Software "licenses" Apple-Hardware iOS for "free" and makes money from the App Store. Is it "unfair" that the Android Market doesn't dominate developer attention like the App Store has? And Microsoft in particular is trying to build its own search and ad presence, so they might in theory adopt Google's model; that they aren't successful enough to drop licensing fees is tough luck.

In any case, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to concerns that advertising-driven business models may cheapen software in the long term, but that this somehow justifies some pseudo-conspiracy to take down Android with patent litigation just flabbergasts me.

We can argue about what is fair forever. Some people at Sun (Oracle) can say it's unfair to take Java language they developed and offer it in Android without paying anything to them. And Steve Jobs can say it's unfair to use ideas from iPhone Apple spent years working on in Android without even asking them.

The original post was about MS & Apple being anti-competitive by using patents. To me, using a dominant position in search/ads market to crush competition everywhere else is no better. This is exactly what Google is doing.

You should ask yourself a question: will you be better off when Google one day dominates web, search, mobile, browser, possibly even desktop OS markets and desktop software and there will be no Apple or Microsoft and everyone will be forced to play the same game as Google? Will it be better off for everyone to make revenue on ads and pay Google a 50% share? I don't think it's going to be very good. This is why I would like both Apple and even MS also be players in the mobile if they offer good products. Competition, not domination by a single company is what actually drives innovation. Whose ideas will Google steal next when Apple is out of mobile business?

I don't think anyone wants a monopolist (a part from the monopolist itself). The most dangerous in the mobile space able to gain (regain?) a monopoly is Apple.

Google seams far less dangerous to me, just build on android (the open source project) and google monopoly can (thoretically) be broken... am I too naive?

You are being naive, by thinking that if Google says it's "open source" it has no leverage with it. "Open source" is a very misleading label Google also uses here. Google owns Android, they make Android - how can anyone break this by modifying it?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com