Google announces open source patent pledge, won't sue 'unless first attacked'

[NC12309]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/28/4...source-patent-pledge-wont-sue-unless-attacked

So who thinks Apple will do the same thing?

I know it's only 10 now...but that number will go up. It's a good start though!

 

[TheMTtakeover]

I don't ever see that happening (Apple). This is really cool of Google to do though.

 

[onthecouchagain]

Good guy, Google.

 

[hyteckit]

A good gesture.

I just don't know how much weight/trust I put into their plead.

This is the same company that collected private content/data from WiFi networks with their street view cars.

I guess the plead is better than nothing.

 

[Vegastouch]

Apple will never do the same.

 

[ugahairydawgs]

Apple will never do the same.

Nor should they. The goal of business is to build a product or service that the public wants and then maximize profit as much as possible. If you feel that someone is infringing on your IP, and in turn your future profits, you are obligated to defend yourself by whatever means available.

Take Google and this announcement for example. Opening up the open source related patents is a nice move from a PR stand point, but doing so costs then very little. They make a relatively tiny profit from Android and Chrome right now so giving away the milk for free here hardly registers as a blip on the radar. Go infringe on one of their search or ad works patents and see how fast they sue you to the moon.

 

[ijohn.8.80]

Seriously, are they all that useful to anyone? Does the Folding@Home or Distributed Computing use it?

I'm interested to see the real world applications of this generous offer before I wet my pants about it.

We’ve begun by identifying 10 patents relating to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google—open-source versions of which are now widely used. Over time, we intend to expand the set of Google’s patents covered by the pledge to other technologies.

 

[digital.l0gic]

Seriously, are they all that useful to anyone? Does the Folding@Home or Distributed Computing use it?

I'm interested to see the real world applications of this generous offer before I wet my pants about it.

Heard of Hadoop?

Amazon's, Facebook's, and pretty much every other Major(and not so major) company's Big Data architecture is Hadoop or some other Map reduce variation.

It is not an exaggeration to say that maybe the vast majority of the current Big Data software is a direct result of Google's mapreduce. I'm pretty sure iCloud uses a map-reduce variation as well.

If Google wanted to screw over other companies..all they have to do is to take them to task over Hadoop which is btw directly based on Mapreduce. Being the Good guy, it encourages Hadoop instead of suing. imo Apple would have simply sued the **** out of other companies if it invented mapreduce instead of Google.

Here is a very good Wired article about Mapreduce and how big a part it plays. Sadly A lot of Inventions by Google are related to the back-end of the internet/data and most consumers are blisfully unaware of the positive benefits they experience due to Google's efforts.

If Xerox PARC Invented the PC, Google Invented the Internet
..

Time and again, we hear the story of Xerox PARC, the Silicon Valley research lab that developed just about every major technology behind the PC revolution, from the graphical user interface and the laser printer to Ethernet networking and object-oriented programming. But because Google is so concerned with keeping its latest data center work hidden from competitors — and because engineers like Jeff Dean aren’t exactly self-promoters — the general public is largely unaware of Google’s impact on the very foundations of modern computing. Google is the Xerox PARC of the cloud computing age.

These Google technologies aren’t things you can hold in your hand — or even fit on your desk. They don’t run on a phone or a PC. They run across a worldwide network of data centers.

They include sweeping software platforms with names like the Google File System, MapReduce, and BigTable, creations that power massive online applications by splitting the work into tiny pieces and spreading them across thousands of machines, much like micro-tasks are parceled out across a massive ant colony. But they also include new-age computer servers, networking hardware, and data centers that Google designed to work in tandem with this software. The idea is to build warehouse-sized computing facilities that can think like a single machine. Just as an ant colony acts as one entity, so does a Google data center.

While Silicon Valley stood transfixed by social networks and touch screens, Google remade the stuff behind the scenes, and soon, as the other giants of the web ran into their own avalanche of online data, they followed Google’s lead. After reinventing Google’s search engine, GFS and MapReduce inspired Hadoop, a massive number-crunching platform that’s now one of the world’s most successful open source projects. BigTable helped launch the NoSQL movement, spawning an army of web-sized databases. And in so many ways, Google’s new approach to data center hardware sparked similar efforts from Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and others.
more here
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/google-as-xerox-parc/all/

Oh btw...Google stopped using map-reduce in the early 2000's and apparently it's Big Data software is about 2 generations ahead of the current technology used by any other major company.

Nor should they. The goal of business is to build a product or service that the public wants and then maximize profit as much as possible. If you feel that someone is infringing on your IP, and in turn your future profits, you are obligated to defend yourself by whatever means available.

Take Google and this announcement for example. Opening up the open source related patents is a nice move from a PR stand point, but doing so costs then very little. They make a relatively tiny profit from Android and Chrome right now so giving away the milk for free here hardly registers as a blip on the radar. Go infringe on one of their search or ad works patents and see how fast they sue you to the moon.

Mapreduce and its open source variation Hadoop(based pretty much entirely on Google map-reduce white papers) drive the internet today. To say that these patents are trivial is pretty shocking..to say the least.

 

[inselstudent]

I really don't wanna talk ill of Google unfoundedly, but I'd ask the question "who profits from that?" A company with only few noteworthy patents surely could.

Apple, on the other hand, has got a lot of them. I agree that patent law has been getting crazy, but all in all I actually do support the general idea of protecting someone's ideas. Now, if Apple took the same step, what would happen? Maybe awfully many start-ups would appear and would actually manage to profit, just by impudently copying Apple.

Of course, the chances of Apple following suit are minimal, but I think the real purpose of Google's behavior could actually be that consumers might say now, "Oh what an altruistic step to take, Google must be an honorable company indeed. Apple would never do that, but they are a cheap, money-hungry company, so it was obvious anyway."

 

[hyteckit]

Google promised not to sue developers, distributors, and users of open source software utilizing Mountain View's patents.

I thought that was pretty much the idea of open source.

Has Apple sued anyone for using its open source WebKit? Google's Chrome browser uses WebKit.

 

[ijohn.8.80]

Heard of Hadoop?

And the penny drops!

Thanks heaps digital.l0gic I really appreciate the lengths you went to helping me (and I'm sure many others also) to understand the actions of what went down here.

 

[sentinelsx]

Meh, if someone infringes on google's search algorithms I am sure they will be take to court very swiftly.

Lets not get blinded by corporate PR. All these corporations, be it anyone, would never want their core IP to be revealed to anyone. That means business suicide.

 

[cynics]

Google has never liked the "sue" game.

This is from March 2012

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...apple-google-says-patent-wars-hurt-consumers/

I'd like to mention that article is from March 2012 and the deal with Moto wasn't done till May 2012. So it may seem hypocritical but I'm sure there was more too it.

One of the main reasons if not THE main reason Google acquired Moto mobility was for their patent portfolio to protect Android and Manufacturers that's use it.

I've read articles WAY in the past about google trying to stay out of the court seen too but this new article is completely plugging up search engines lol.

Google has a ton of patents just very few to do with Android. So its not like they didn't know anything about it. More like they didn't care, well didn't care until others threatened them and they didn't have ammo to fight back with.

Regardless all this law suit stuff is very bad publicity. There was a time when everyone was thinking, "who is Apple suing this week?". Which maybe rightfully so but something's were just ridiculous.