Posts by mantrik00 7 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Aug 2011
"but by then they'll probably have to start paying Oracle/Apple/Samsung et al their patent fees for Android, at which point $35 rapidly becomes unobtainable again"
All those software patents creating havoc in the western world would be invalid in India. (In India, software per se cannot be patented). The hardware patents must be already covered by the suppliers providing the components for the "Aakash" tablet PC.
I agree with the author's conclusion that technology is value neutral. But being a direct beneficiary of Mother Teresa's institution, I find the assertion that Bill Gates has done more than Mother Teresa indigestible. Also, philanthropy by a rich shareholder or owner of a company and the policies of a company are two distinctly different activities of two independent entities. Therefore, any attempt to paint proprietary software (or the diabolic litigious practices of such firms to the detriment of other open source vendors) as benign is like masking the wolf with the hide of a lamb.
Only install from the Android Market. Before installing, look for the permissions it requires. If the permissions being sought are inconsistent or over & beyond the functional requirements of the App, just don't install it. With Android, at least you know what is being accessed by an App but with any other OS you can never be sure, unless some researcher points it out. However, Google needs to monitor the Apps' permissions more discreetly.
Despite the popular perception in the media which projects the OS as "Google's Android", the truth is that every new release of Android OS has significant contribution from the Open Handset Alliance partners who are deeply entrenched in the OS and it just does not make sense for them to fork Android and make their version of the OS incompatible with the Apps in the Android Market. Besides, the existing Android framework provides enough scope for differentiation. They would also not like to miss out on the further developments of the OS by going a different path.
So, even if an overzealous Apple patents and registers obvious designs or designs that have been in existence or demonstrated much earlier by taking advantage of broken intellectual property regimes and uses them to block competitors, the media will apply some convoluted logic to blame Google. But, I can understand it. The media which has been feeding on Apple's humongous advertising and PR budgets can of course find it difficult to find fault with Apple's business practices. Just for the record Apple spent $691 million in 2010 on advertising & PR.
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