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Comment by jarofgreen | Hacker News Reader

This is brilliant - but not because I hate Apple or have anything against someone choosing to use Apple, even tho I don't myself.

But hopefully a ban on such a popular product (right before Christmas to) will bring software patents and all the issues around them fully into the public attention and debate.

In the past it's been really hard to explain to non-geeks why they should care about such issues ...

Or am I being optimistic in hoping it would be reasonable debate and not just an "Evil Motorola/Google!" hate fest?

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I think you are being optimistic. The question is (tho), how will Apple counter this one. If they pull something similar on Motorola, then that's a settlement. If they can't pull anything, they have to buy themselves out - which would be great, because the only way to beat the patent system is its main players realizing, that the game became way too costly, and instead of patent troll firms they start paying lobbyist firms (may even be the same ones huh?) to get legislators to make radical changes on the patent system.

Motorola is being bought by Google. And while they aren't involved in this lawsuit, they are probably present as advisers, so a settlement will probably have to apply to all Android phone makers, as it's in Google's interest to do so.

Considering how fierce Apple is fighting Android companies, I don't think they'll settle. I'm seeing this fight going nuclear.

This farce has surely got out of control and just makes the manufacturers look extremely foolish. All of this is powered by greed.

Lets hope as you say that it pushes this debate out to the general public, although I doubt that it will happen.

Makes me want to not buy any of Nokia, Samsung or Apple's products.

You're right. Angry consumers, rioting for iPads would tip it.

This is an arms race. I just see this getting worse and worse until it gets better.

As these battles get larger, companies will dump more and more resources into their legal arsenal.

The ever larger legal departments at these corporations will then need something to do. Budgets to spend. Targets to meet. Goals to hit.

I downvoted you. Here's why: It's hard to take anyone seriously when they misspell "though" "tho". You may have made a good point, but I didn't read past your first sentence. I'm not trying to be a dick about it-- and I hate to clog up the comments section with a garbage comment like this one-- but you would really be doing yourself a favor to use somewhat correct spelling and grammar. It really sucks when people ignore what you have to say, not because of the message, but because of the delivery.

"Tho" is in the dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tho

And I down-voted you for an ad-hominen, and for not checking your dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tho

Is it common practice to register anonymous accounts to explain why you've downvoted someone? "anonmouse" doesn't have sufficient karma to downvote anything, so clearly isn't your regular account. You appear willing to downvote others over inconsequential nonsense, but won't risk your own karma over it. This doesn't seem entirely in the spirit of things, I have to say.

> I'm not trying to be a dick about it-- and I hate to clog up the comments section with a garbage comment like this one...

Next time, then, consider doing neither.

"Tho" is a correct variation in American English. It's like down-voting someone for "misspelling" colour or metre.

Get over yourself

The HN website can do what they want but it seems anti-democratic to muzzle opinions and debate by making comment box text unreadable making the text colour lighter, just because some people (a few downvoters) find the words uncomfortable.

On the contrary, the community decided that text is not worth reading. It's very democratic. If enough disagree with the downvotes they can upvote the comment and make it black again.

If you can read it you may upvote it but often you, I know I often do/did, will just breeze over it and ignore it.

so you didn't want to waste your time reading past the first sentence, yet you dedicated 10x more time to creating a new account and writing up all this stuff?

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