Topic: Apple are jerks

[K-man]

Or be a realist and hate the fucking players in the stupid fucking game.

But you are a player in the game.

[ren]

I find it hard to blame Apple or any other company for going after software patents. They're a profit-motivated company in competition with other profit-motivated companies. If they don't go after these stupid patents, someone else will and they'll pay the price. Your hate should be directed at the patent office because they're the ones letting all this happen and the only ones who can actually stop it.

[Xessive]

If it's a patent game then, yeah, I hate that game. I hate the players acting like douchebags in it too.

[K-man]

You can hate Apple and their tactics (and I do).  But at the end of the day they're just doing whatever they can in their power to make money.  Plain and simple.  Just like every other company out there that wants to stay in business.

[Cobra951]

Mhmm.  Bernie Madoff was doing everything in his power to make money too.

[K-man]

The large difference, of course, being that what Madoff was doing was illegal.

[scottws]

I find it hard to blame Apple or any other company for going after software patents. They're a profit-motivated company in competition with other profit-motivated companies. If they don't go after these stupid patents, someone else will and they'll pay the price. Your hate should be directed at the patent office because they're the ones letting all this happen and the only ones who can actually stop it.

Somewhere I heard someone say that the USPTO has basically said they are going to accept almost all patents submitted as long as they seem reasonable at-a-glance and let the courts sort it out later if there is an issue.  Basically they were just too backlogged and underfunded to keep up with the research needed to correctly validate patents in any kind of timely manner.

My source was a comment on a news article, so take it for what it's worth.

[Cobra951]

The large difference, of course, being that what Madoff was doing was illegal.

What Madoff was doing is not much worse than our treasury dept is doing.  It's certainly no worse than what Wall Street and the banking industry were doing with CDOs.  Legal or illegal depends on how much power you have to make the rules.  Right and wrong don't change.

[K-man]

I'll definitely grant you that.

[Cobra951]

Yeah, well, I wish it weren't so.

[ren]

Right but Wall Street was never hiding what they were doing. CDOs weren't some big secret only a handful of people knew about. A lot of people did get taken advantage of but they were still partially at fault for not understanding what they were buying. And what the banks were doing wasn't intrinsically bad, it was the volumes they were dealing with that got out of hand.  Madoff is a completely different situation because he lied to everybody.

As bad for competition as hoarding patents is, it's much more like the CDO example since it's just a result of crappy regulation that let's a legitimate process get taken advantage of to everybody's detriment.   

[Cobra951]

You're right, but the scale of the wrongdoing (the harm) was much greater from banking/Wall Street than from Madoff.  Plus I'm sure if Ponzi schemes were legal, Madoff would have been doing his business out in the open too.

I mentioned that parallel just to make a point.  The topic is Apple and their attempts to own and control everything.  It may be legal, but it shouldn't be.  Down with software and process patents.  At the very least, they should expire and become public domain within a few years (say 3).

[ren]

I completely agree with you there. I would just prefer everybody collectively rage to the government for reform instead of raging against Apple to no end.

[sirean_syan]

I'm happy raging on both.

[K-man]

I completely agree with you there. I would just prefer everybody collectively rage to the government for reform instead of raging against Apple to no end.

This.

Apple is only doing what they are being allowed to do.  Raging against Apple is pointless.  Because if they weren't in their position some other company would be.

[Cools!]

This.

Apple is only doing what they are being allowed to do.  Raging against Apple is pointless.  Because if they weren't in their position some other company would be.

Amen.

[sirean_syan]

So if someone can get away with being a dick, it's okay because if they're not someone else will be?

[ren]

Of course not. But corporations will never act like people and it's ridiculous to expect them too. People working for a company will do all sorts of unethical things to advance their own career and do it guiltfree since it was done in the name of the company and not themselves. Regulate it or continue getting angry at corporations for doing what they're designed to do.

[Cobra951]

Corporations are run by people, who can act ethically in addition to legally--or not.  It's perfectly legitimate to direct anger at people's dickish behavior, whether they act alone or in the name of some company.

[K-man]

Corporations exist to make money, and smart and successful companies do whatever they can to make money.  They don't exist as a moral compass.

[ren]

If Apple didn't apply for these stupid patents, then another company would have and Apple would end up paying the price. In that situation I don't consider Apple to be unethical, I blame the system that allowed it to get to that point.

[sirean_syan]

Wait. So you're saying that people who make decisions for companies are free from a moral compass because they're working under some magical umbrella? They don't have to be a beacon of morality, but they could try to compete in the marketplace with better products or lower prices. What about the government then? Because a government isn't a single entity are the people working within it free from morality as well? Where does the line get drawn? Is no one accountable for their actions if they're part of a larger organization because the organization has some sort of life of it's own that exist beyond the human scale?

That's pretty crazy. I understand doing something to stay alive or even competitive, but that doesn't make actions acceptable. Both sides are fucked up and things only get worse until one side stands up for what right (or is forced for some reason). I know I'm being idealistic. People are dicks. When you give us someone anonymity they can become super dicks, especially when their rivals are also anonymous corporations. I just see no way for things to get better and it bugs the hell out of me.

[ren]

I'm saying it's naïve to expect them to act morally just because they should. If they're put into a situation where acting immorally is tempting, there should be a law stopping them. So basically it should work like everything else. If a company pollutes in a river, you have every right to get angry at them but really it should have been illegal for them to pollute in the first place.

[K-man]

No, I mean that most companies are going to do whatever they can to make money as allowed by law.  And it's not like we're advocating mass murder here.  We're talking patents.

Someone's got to be the kid in the relationship and someone has to be the daddy.  The kid (company) will do whatever daddy (the government) will allow him to get away with.  And I'm not saying that people that work for companies are free from a moral compass.  I'm saying that companies don't exist to be a moral compass. They exist for one purpose:  making money.  Period.  

[Cools!]

Haha, way to take things too far.

Apple is doing what it has to do to keep itself competitive. Everything they are doing is within the bounds setup by the current patent system. Nobody is breaking any laws or acting immoral here. Like others have mentioned, if it wasn't Apple it would've been someone else.

No I'm not saying that this is the way it should be, because I do believe many patents are a detriment to innovation, but it's not like this just happened overnight. There are plenty of patents that prevented companies from doing cool things. MS, Adobe, etc. all hold some crazy patents on what you can and can't do. Heck, LinkedIn (if I'm not mistaken) has the patent for adding friends via email, you know, the system used by pretty much every social website. Heck, there's a patent for storing user information in databases.

Going back to Apple, I'll add that there's nothing preventing other companies from doing something original or radical, in the same way that Apple did with the iPod or the iPhone (which at the time was a step in a new direction that everyone has since copied). And yes, I do think the Samsung tablet is very, very, very much inspired by the iPad, to a point that I confused it for a new smaller iPad when I first saw the commercials.

[ren]

To go back to the banking example, Canadian banks went through the financial crisis pretty much unharmed because the kind of risky practices American banks did are illegal here. So should I blame the banks for getting us into the mess or the laws for allowing it to happen? Regardless of what your answer is or how it should work,regulation was effective and self-control wasn't.

[sirean_syan]

There can't be a law that accounts for every possible dickish action out there (heh, the No Dick Act of 2012. Hopefully someone reads beyond the title). There shouldn't be a law for everything. I *wish* this worked. I know it doesn't.

My issue is I don't see a good reason why we shouldn't hold an organization/company/corporation at the same standard we hold people living across the street. More relevantly, should two bakeries who are competing for customers resort to suing to succeed? They sell similar products. Is that wrong?

Anyway, yeah. Way off track. I just think it's silly that Apple resorted to using the courts to attacking Samsung's tablet. So it looks like an iPad. Touchpads can only go so far in design when they are more or less just trying to be a touchscreen. I suppose they can change colors, but who wants a brightly colored device right now? The OS is different. What else does there need to be?

[PyroMenace]

Corporations are run by people, who can act ethically in addition to legally--or not.  It's perfectly legitimate to direct anger at people's dickish behavior, whether they act alone or in the name of some company.

By all means say what you want. But until you can justify your comments on one argument, everything you say here is utter horseshit.

[Cobra951]

 

[ren]

There can't be a law that accounts for every possible dickish action out there (heh, the No Dick Act of 2012. Hopefully someone reads beyond the title). There shouldn't be a law for everything. I *wish* this worked. I know it doesn't.

My issue is I don't see a good reason why we shouldn't hold an organization/company/corporation at the same standard we hold people living across the street. More relevantly, should two bakeries who are competing for customers resort to suing to succeed? They sell similar products. Is that wrong?

Anyway, yeah. Way off track. I just think it's silly that Apple resorted to using the courts to attacking Samsung's tablet. So it looks like an iPad. Touchpads can only go so far in design when they are more or less just trying to be a touchscreen. I suppose they can change colors, but who wants a brightly colored device right now? The OS is different. What else does there need to be?

Well to be fair, any old person can be a patent whore in the same way as the companies. The patent system worked well enough for decades but it clearly wasn't designed with software in mind and this recent mess just seems like a critical mass of bullshit.

But more on topic, this is kind of interesting.

Also, this is ridiculous (Full article if anyone is curious):

[idolminds]

He doesn't think you can argue about peoples ethics when in a different thread you basically say piracy is justified.

[scottws]

This.

Apple is only doing what they are being allowed to do.  Raging against Apple is pointless.  Because if they weren't in their position some other company would be.

Being a patent troll is just one reason I hate Apple.  Not even really that big of one.  Actually, I don't really hate Apple, per se.  I don't like their business practices and hate Steve Jobs, but what I really hate are the Apple zealots.  The people who enable Apple and defend them vehemently.  Its like if Steve Jobs could be in two places at once, these people would have one Jobs' dick in their mouth and the other in their ass.  Sucking off while getting fucked at the same time.  And then liking it!  *shudder*

[Cobra951]

He doesn't think you can argue about peoples ethics when in a different thread you basically say piracy is justified.

Oh?  I don't justify it on ethical grounds to be sure.  It's more of a defense mechanism against some of the aforementioned dickishness.    I'll say this:  I have yet to pirate an id game, but this Willits asshole isn't helping me stay on that path.  Anyway, we kissed and made up, so it's cool.

[Cools!]

My issue is I don't see a good reason why we shouldn't hold an organization/company/corporation at the same standard we hold people living across the street. More relevantly, should two bakeries who are competing for customers resort to suing to succeed? They sell similar products. Is that wrong?

No, and Samsung isn't getting sued for selling a tablet. They are being sued for selling a tablet that uses concepts patented by Apple. They could've patented the same concepts had they been first to the market, but they weren't so Apple beat them to it. Simple as that. Oh and I'm sure if the recipe for an éclair was invited today it'd get patented.

Anyway, yeah. Way off track. I just think it's silly that Apple resorted to using the courts to attacking Samsung's tablet. So it looks like an iPad. Touchpads can only go so far in design when they are more or less just trying to be a touchscreen. I suppose they can change colors, but who wants a brightly colored device right now? The OS is different. What else does there need to be?

If you hold a patent, you have to defend it. If you don't, you lose the patent. And who says touchpads can't be innovative? Until Apple released the iPhone pretty much all smartphones looked the same in concept. It only took one company (with zero pervious experience with phones) to change the whole landscape. Why can't these big companies come up with something new? Also, the OS is part of the problem for Samsung.

[Quemaqua]

Government regulation becomes a requirement when you live in a society that has lost the ability to police itself. There is no legitimate moral compass remaining either in business or in society. One hand dirties the other and no one cares enough to be responsible.

[ren]

Government regulation becomes a requirement when you have enough people to form a society. Are you arguing against the concept of laws because people should just know better?

All I'm saying is we need patent reform. I don't see why that's so contentious when basically everybody here has problems with people running around patenting everything.

[Xessive]

When t comes to government regulations and lawmaking in general there has to be a limit. For example, in Connecticut, it's illegal to walk across a street on your hands. Did that really have to be a law? How much of a problem was the state having with people crossing streets on their hands that it needed to be a illegal?

Funnily enough, in Missouri it's illegal to drive with an uncaged bear (caged bears are fine). You have to wonder how many times this happened before they had to make it a law.

Patents (among other regulations) are subject to abuse as well.

[Xessive]

HTC attempts serious patent play against Apple in federal court

[Cobra951]

As much as that pissed me off, this made up for it.  A glimmer of hope.  Sanity prevails, occasionally.

[Xessive]

As much as that pissed me off, this made up for it.  A glimmer of hope.  Sanity prevails, occasionally.

Haha yeah I read that too, it was nice to see it blow up in their face! Righthaven are really shitty in doing things that way! Profit through lawsuits?!