
Apple loses German patent court case - akulbansal
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19699632
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neya
This is seriously good news. I want open source to eventually win the war.

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kgarten
Unfortunately, Android is not really open source :(

Edit: If you think this statement is not true, please look at Debian or any
other REAL open source project compare it to Android. Android uses Open-Source
as a marketing term, not in it's original meaning ... (or at least in how I
understand open source)

~~~
deelowe
I stand that it is: <http://source.android.com/>

Some people like to state that gmail, maps, the play store and other
proprietary Google bits are not open source and that is true, but those are
not android. Those are separate apps.

Some like to claim that since Google gives vendors early access to the source,
this somehow makes it not open. For those releases, at that specific date in
time, maybe so. But, the source is released and generally pretty soon after
phones start shipping (honeycomb was a different story and Google's statements
on the matter have been proven to be true with the new combined tablet and
phone releases).

Look, if android wasn't open source, projets like this would be a lot less
successful: <http://www.cyanogenmod.com/>

~~~
cooldeal
Sigh, this whole Android is open or not argument is degenerating into the kind
of arguments over 'Copyright infringement vs. Stealing'.

Here's one good solution, call the open Android as Androidium(on the lines of
Chrome vs. Chromium).

Very good article on the openness of Android and to implement the above
proposal.

[http://marketingland.com/what-is-the-one-true-android-and-
ho...](http://marketingland.com/what-is-the-one-true-android-and-how-open-is-
it-21664)

>Some like to claim that since Google gives vendors early access to the
source, this somehow makes it not open. For those releases, at that specific
date in time, maybe so. But, the source is released and generally pretty soon
after phones start shipping (honeycomb was a different story and Google's
statements on the matter have been proven to be true with the new combined
tablet and phone releases).

The problem came to fore when Acer got threatened with being cut off early
access etc. when they wanted to launch other phones with Alibaba OS (Aliyun)
on them. It's sort of a Android fork, but that's legal, but still Acer had to
fold under the pressure or force getting cut off from their mobile business.
Early access is much more important to OEMs than you make it seem to be and
being able to fork is the core tenet of open source.

>Look, if android wasn't open source, projets like this would be a lot less
successful: <http://www.cyanogenmod.com/>

You know what, barely anyone would use CM if they couldn't get access to the
Play Store and Google Apps like Map. So they download it illegally from other
sources. CM used to provide them but got a warning from Google. So right now
they wink-wink-nudge-nudge towards the Play Store.

~~~
bryanlarsen
What's the difference between "Androidium" and AOSP?

~~~
pooriaazimi
It's cooler, and kinda rhymes with Chromium (which is to Chrome what
Androidium will be to Android).

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scrrr
> In a separate case being heard in Munich, the court backed Apple's claim
> that Motorola had infringed its patent on what happened when users scrolled
> to the end of a page, document or list - a technology known as "overscroll
> bounce" or "rubber banding".

That is also what the Chrome browser does..

~~~
tobias3
I wonder how they plan to win that one, given that there are no software
patents in Germany. (Only if software is used in connection with a "technical"
invention)

~~~
tveita
To be clear, Apple already did win that case:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/14/motorola-
mo...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/14/motorola-mobility-
recall-android-tablets-smartphones)

Nothing about that makes sense to me, but that's patents for you.

~~~
tobias3
I'm confused as well. Every claim of the patent begins with "A computer-
implemented method..." so it is definitely a software patent.

I think this is just for damage and they have to counter-sue for invalidility
separately.

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leeoniya
i wonder how much of the Apple tax can be attributed to bringing about patent
litigation.

