skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
First of all, Linux violates 0 patents in my book til Microsoft at least specifies them. Then maybe we can talk about whether or not the present tense "violates" and not "potentially violating" is accurate.

Secondly, even if that is true, does Gruber think Microsoft deserves to win that fight? I mean seriously? If you can develop something on your own time that violates a software patent, that means we need massive patent reform. Not that somebody did something wrong, or that it should be stopped. Making that assumption is unjustifiable and something that should be apologized for.

Google doesn't have a lab with reverse engineers working on "hurting M$". No, they are simply distributing a flavor of Linux. And unlike the other scared/ignorant companies that are signing costly patent deals with Microsoft based on claims and threats of potential litigation, Google actually wants to fight. I think that's pretty respectful.

Software patents are a joke. They leverage the playing field towards the rich and ensconced individuals/corporations and against the hackers who are actually inventing the technologies. It's a sad, depressing joke no one wants to laugh at.
All I know is that the lawyers are gonna be making a whole lotta cash from this showdown!
Ideas are worth almost nothing. What matters is execution, and Google hasn't ripped off any of Apple's execution.

So what if Android borrowed a lot from Apple? It doesn't make the iPhone any worse, and we all benefit from cross-pollination of ideas.
Android is not priced under cost, it just has a different revenue model. Stifling competition happens when a company uses their cash reserves to sustain a product which is losing money, forcing smaller companies to leave the market. This is not what they're doing, at all.
If the United Kingdom is properly the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, why are the citizens and government British? Maybe because anything else would sound dumb...
Zero-day Wordpress exploit on the loose - Patch your themes immediately.
Likewise there are costs to a loss of anonymity. Consider political dissidents living under oppressive regimes, or whistleblowers afraid of retaliation. So in a very real way, preventing anonymity does allow and is currently allowing people to do bad things and get away with it.
Gruber's argument is dependent on the assumption that only people like Nathan Myrvold hold what I'm going to call "bullshit patents".

"Google isn’t arguing against a handful of never-should-have-been-issued software patents. They’re not arguing against patent trolls like Myrvold and his shell companies like Lodsys — companies that have no products of their own, no actual inventions, just patents for ideas for products."

Unfortunately, just because you actually make products doesn't mean that you are incapable of holding and/or abusing bullshit patents. Apple owns more bullshit UI patents than most other companies that I can think of, and they've made it clear over the years that they think it's morally right, not just defensively necessary, to patent user interface ideas.[1]

Apple has not, historically, abused its patent portfolio to the same degree that Microsoft or Oracle have.[2] However, now that they've thrown their hat into the same ring, they're getting lumped in with these dastardly anticompetitive badguy companies when this comes up in the tech press. I'm sure that makes Apple - and Apple fans - uneasy. It seems like they're being blamed for their newfound parters' bad behavior. Well, I'm sorry. You sign a deal with the devil, and you better buckle in.

[1] As as someone who designs and builds UIs for a living, I think this is complete bullshit. Copyright should protect UI; patents should not.

[2] Although they have done so. Just not as much.
When the practice involves potentially killing yourself and poisoning other people, the principle would seem to be not the same.
Google was born off of a patent: PageRank. It is unfair to criticize the entire concept of patents when they've guaranteed the just reward for several great, honest inventions.
Lady Gaga?
What about search engines or text-mode browsers without javascript?
That argument is fair and interesting, but it has no bearing on the current issue:

"So if Google had acquired the rights to these patents, that would have been OK."

It's in no way hypocritical for Google to try to acquire the patents and then, on subsequent failure, condemn their acquisition by the opposing consortium.

I'd be willing to entertain arguments along the lines of Google's anti-competitive behavior, but I find their stance on patents is cogent and consistent. I find Gruber's argument to be, OTOH, totally disingenuous.
Internet accessible.
it is being targeted due to the success of Android, and crucially, it's in the customer's interest that these patents shouldn't be used against them

The first is obviously true, and I'd argue the second is as well. An effective duopoly of iOS and WP7 would be bad for consumers in the short term due to decreased competition, and even worse in the long term due to the effects of all mainstream mobile platforms being locked down.

Well not really; it's basically in Google's interest.

Not mutually exclusive.

To say nothing about their own 3.14 billion dollar bid for Nortel's patent portfolio and then claiming that their true worth was 1 billion, being completely disingenuous.

How? Google's claim is that if the patent system were fixed, Nortel's patents would be worth much less than they are in the current environment.
Presumably with the exception of counter-suing companies that have sued you? Companies build patent portfolios so that other companies will be wary of suing them for fear of being counter-sued (simplification). If being a member of this pool removed your ability to even act defensively, I don't think it would achieve its goals.
I'm not sure that's as pertinent a question as "do patents stop your ideas from being ripped off?" And as it currently stands, I think the answer to that is no. But I also see companies innovating like mad. Maybe the pace would be even faster with better protections, but I am sceptical.
Tech companies going all out to recruit talent
I don't think you can mention Android borrowing from iPhone while ignoring that iPhone borrows from Android too - iOS 5 notifications being the prime example.

All complicated systems borrow from each other - there is nothing evil about it - it's just evolution.
Redacted.
The argument for political dissidents in nonfree countries is valid but old (in many cases the regimes will catch the dissidents regardless). The value of pseudo-identity is not just anonymity, but the ability to have multiple identities. We shouldn't be forced to use one identity for the various areas of the internet, just like the comments and actions i make on HN are totally unrelated to my facebook community or my twitter community. Single-identity is a vehicle for tracking people, and i can only think of evil reasons to track people across communities. Even in real life, we dont carry our real identities around, you don't tell your full name to the cashier in the supermarket or to people in the street. If you get into a fight, you don't start by exchanging phone numbers.

In fact, offline real identity is less dangerous: unless you kill their mother, people you don't interact with will forget you in a matter of months. The internet is permanent.

But why am i wasting my time, facebook people think like infants anyway.
The profit to be made between the time the original product launches, and the copies appear. This keeps companies on their toes instead of launching once and milking it for twenty years.
Sure, maybe it'd be unfair (in your view). However, Gruber paints it as hypocritical, which it's not. Google's actions (and the blog post under review) reflect a cohesive ideology: software patents are bunk.
But what exactly does Google need to defend against, if not actual patents Android actually violates?

This logic confuses me, and kind of undermines his premise. Seems like the same logic would say "Why does this accused criminal need a lawyer, if he did not actually commit a crime?"
I would think not having used an acquired patent in offensive litigation is the salient dissimilarity.

One would have to be willfully ignorant not to see that.
Why the congratulations? If people are no longer saying "That's no moon..." then perhaps the deception is complete.

> Researchers suggest the collision may explain the mysterious mountains on the far side of our Moon.

The best way intelligent life, such as humans, can travel between stars is embedded deep inside a large pre-existing object, rather than a flimsy arficially-made spaceship. That object could be modified so it can navigate around by putting large booster rockets ON ONE SIDE. If humans wanted to observe a planet for terraforming and colonization, they would navigate the object into orbit as an apparent Moon around that planet. If their habitat in that moon was on the opposite side as the booster rockets, then by leaving those rockets, which would look like mysterious mountains, on the permanent far side from the Earth, they could keep the Earth permanently within observation for terraforming, etc.
Lol. Can you explain how?
Sure you can spoof MAC's but most people won't, so it's an easy solution that works for most incidents. No telling why you are getting banned over and over, but if it's for a legitimate reason that you're unaware of you're certainly not going to be getting much understanding by the time an ops person has had to figure out what's going on and manually turn off the port.
Perhaps, but it is entirely pertinent. Many of these pro-patent positions, I suspect, are entirely rooted in the feeling of belonging to a certain community. See Gruber's bizarrely hypocritical piece which mirrors that public sentiment.

I believe that software patents are overwhelmingly farce, whether they support Microsoft in attacking Apple, Apple against Samsung, Samsung against Apple, or any of various IP ventures against App Store developers. It is not a position that varies based upon the actors.

The pro-Apple lobby, however, has a position that essentially holds Apple's patents as legitimate and righteous to enforce, but everyone else's as illegitimate for various reasons. It is farce to criticize lodsys and others for entirely legal IP protections -- as the system supposedly encourages -- while supporting Apple and their like behaviors. Whether a company is open to counter-attacks is irrelevant to the legitimacy of patents.

Virtually everyone who interacts with HN relies upon Linux (for instance as the foundation of their startup). Linux infrgines on countless Microsoft patents. Thus far Microsoft has treaded lightly, but I don't think it's tough to imagine how sentiments would change if they started laying the hammer down, shutting down every cloud host, etc. The simple love of a gadget has many supporting an incredibly dangerous position.

But sentiments are changing. I argue for the exercise of it, but there is no doubt that dramatic software patent changes are coming due.
Thank you for providing a fantastic example of how people overreact when it comes to radiation. They tested the apartment when the police arrested him and found no dangerous levels of radiation, which means he knew to limit the scale of his experiments to what was safe.
Civility is really important if you want to have any meaningful exchange of opinions. However it is idiotic to claim that the only way to afford it is via real identity. I imagine an adaptible text algorithm that removes profanities and hate speech would even make youtube comments useful.
I'm quite tempted to do this to my shed.
It's a novelty item, the point is it makes it easy to find in the dark:

http://unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info...

Seems benign to me, since beta radiation won't penetrate the glass.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium_illumination
SEEKING FREELANCER

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Reasonable, but not generous compensation, however, work through the end of the year at a minimum. Payment via oDesk or PayPal, no work restrictions.

Teams welcome.
>Any patent can be made to look obvious by quoting half a sentence

Apple themselves distilled their own patent into the specific infringement. Their reading was identical to mine.

>the HMS Zealotry

You are in the wrong place. Every one of your tactics is bog standard on borefests like Engadget comments.
I've worked remotely for the the last six years. It started because of having to work for a Fortune 100 with overseas resources (at crazy hours) then operations support for another huge company (crazy hours again) Then for the last 2 years doing contract python/django development.
REMOTE
Our Location: New York City or Los Angeles

>> iOS development & Android development (2 location finder apps + 1 bubble-bobble style game = 6 apps total).

>> Server and API development (faceted searching with Solr or ElasticSearch, database design with MongoDB or postgres spatial.) You choose the language (python or ruby preferred) and help set the roadmap / timetable.

Reasonable, but not generous compensation, however, we have plenty of work through the end of the year at a minimum to keep you busy. Payment via oDesk or PayPal, no visa required.

Teams welcome (preferred).
How is it more noble? In just about every possible way.

Driving on the "dangerous interstate" is something we all do, most of us every day. And it's not dangerous in the sense of running into a burning building or into the robbery-in-progress.

Doing things like that are heroic because they require you to overcome a very basic and very strong sense of self preservation at all costs.

Truckers do a valuable job, but so do we all: That's why we get paid. We're adding value. But they're not hero's in the sense you're suggesting.
Sweet, bookmarked. Thanks for sharing the services you used too, url2png looks awesome, can't wait to try it out
Science fair gold medalist, 17, invents better way to search Internet
JQuery hosted on Google and some implications for developers
If anyone is interested, I found this existed from a daily newsletter I subscribed to - http://dlewis.net/nik/

Sure the things on the list aren't that bad, but if google can get that much just from you browsing the web they could probably get a lot more. And yeah they are transparent by showing what they know about you and it's one click to opt-out but how would someone even find that page in the first place.
For what it is worth I read your pervious comment as you intended and good job in your response.
That is incorrect, my Fred can go all the way to the top (60"+)
It was not a nuclear meltdown, it was probably only a chemical "meltdown". He made some mistakes and probably the mix split everywhere and perhaps there was a small fire, but it was not an uncontrolled nuclear reaction (like in Three Mile Island, Chernobyl or Fukushima). He used a nuclear word to describe the mess, to make it sound cool.

But, probably he was accumulating to much radioactive material, and he was not taking proper safety measures in a populated area. So probably it is a good idea to stop him.
No not really. There's nothing of value in this article.
He recently posted a link to a story about Amazon removing the various buy bits from their app, which the snarky commentary "That wasn't hard, was it?"

A few hours later he completely changed position to one where he was mildly critical of Apple for making the app less user friendly. I suspect his overwhelming bias just became too strong for even him to bear.
Excuse me but what is Gnome3? I've been using Xubuntu and Xfce4 for a number of years now and have been really happy with it. Periodically I will try regular Ubuntu and Gnome just seems to have too many awkward issues. For example it insists on me having a desktop (preferable one full of icons and Excel spreadsheets). Even if I turn off icons on the desktop, I still must have the Desktop directory. Their file manager is also confused: it thinks I need help mounting network file systems. That's the job of things like Fuse and NFS, not of a GUI application. Things like this are the reason why I prefer not to spend too long using Gnome.
"anti-Google", "disingenuous", "deep dishonesty", "willfully dishonest". "very twisted", "oblivious", "shill", "clown"

The Engadgetization of HN comments is nearly complete. Get off your high horses, Gruber is exactly right that this screed by Google's counsel is incredibly hypocritical.

Regardless of what you think about patents, Google, Apple, etc. the following argument is total bullshit:

Group A has a right to bid on X. Group B is an evil cartel for bidding on X.

Regardless of what you think about patents, Google, Apple, etc. the following argument is total bullshit:

Group A bids 4 billion. Group B bids 4.5 billion. Group B is paying way beyond what they are really worth! Group B has inflated the value of patents! Group B has created a patent bubble!

Gruber's conclusion is spot on:

"No one other than Nathan Myhrvold and his cronies sees the U.S. patent system as functioning properly, but Google’s hypocrisy here is absurd."
I totally agree but that would be the in the implementation; the principle is an abstract idea, [1] such as the principles of modern physics.

I know it seems nit-picky but as someone with an interest in chemistry and comp sci, and a degree in both, I can appreciate the curiosity that comes with science. It's what encouraged me to study the science.

[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/principle
While I don't use macros a ton, I do use data as code a lot, which is what the code as AST allows me to do easily.
Here are all the patent cases in which Google was a plaintiff. They appear to all be declaratory judgments against NPE defendants.

4:2004-cv-04922	Google Inc. v. Skyline Software Systems Inc.
5:2005-md-01654	In re Compression Labs, Inc., Patent Litigation
5:2004-cv-03934	Google Inc. v. Compression Labs Inc et al
4:2008-cv-04144	Google Inc. v. Netlist, Inc.
3:2009-cv-00642	Google Inc. v. Traffic Information LLC
1:2011-cv-00175	Microsoft Corporation et al v. GeoTag Inc.
1:2011-cv-00637	Google Inc. v. Sourceprose, Inc.
4:2009-cv-01243	Google, Inc. v. EMSAT Advanced Geo-Location Technology, LLC et al
To rewind a bit, Apple didn't open this can of worms.

Several companies, all used to using patent suits as a cross licensing negotiation tool, got pissed at the lopsided profitability of truly innovative products in the mobile space, and started to sue. Kodak sued Apple. Nokia sued Apple. And no wonder -- shipping 5.3% of handsets, Apple's taking in 66% of mobile industry profits. How do you mollify your shareholders that some non-handset company is eating your lunch? You try to get a licensing fee.

Apple was new to this game, didn't start by playing it, but thanks to embarrassingly unprecedented success, got turned on from all sides, and drawn in to the fray. Now those throwing stones are realizing Apple (with 25 years of mobile device R&D the phone guys forgot about) can throw back.

I shared the timeline a year ago:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1166321

... to put this in context:

- Apple accuses HTC of iPhone tech theft (2 March 2010)

- Kodak prompts ITC to consider iPhone ban (18 February 2010)

- Motorola seeks ban on US BlackBerries (26 January 2010)

- Nokia sues Apple, says iPhone infringes ten patents (22 October 2009)

One test for patents' validity is whether the company is enforcing them. With Kodak, Sony, Nokia, Motorola, RIM, and others suing one another as a business-as-usual step in licensing negotiations, the value of Apple's defensive patent portfolio at the licensing negotiation table depends in part on Apple's perceived willingness to stand behind the validity of their portfolio and enforce their patents.

Kodak got their judgment. The other pigeons will eventually all come home to roost. In the mobile industry this is how it's always gone -- we're just noticing it because Apple made phones interesting to the general public so now the press is involved.
3 reasons why you should let Google host jQuery for you
I suppose. But it makes a lot of sense to contact the organization who's job it is is to manage the stuff, rather than tracking down a lawyer who specializes in radioactive materials law.
F*k you pay me, how to make sure you always get paid as a freelancer
If you work online, work from home, or do any kind of contract work, it’s vital to have a plan in place to make sure you’re paid for the work you do.
Term sheet questions
I'm a founder of a relatively hot start-up. We'll be break even by the end of the year, and we have ongoing dialogues with huge customers (who are also potential acquirers). We've been working on closing our series A for the last 3 months or so. This is my first start-up and therefore my first time going through the fundraising process.

We just received our first term sheet for a small series A from an institutional investor, and while we're happy with the valuation and liquidation preference, we're not sure about a couple of the other terms (they want participating preferred shares and 8% dividends).

So my question is this: when I hear about a YC start-up raising their series A to the tune of 1M on 3M pre-money or 1M on 4M pre-money, what is standard for the other significant terms? In particular, for the median YC company:

Are these deals participating preferred?
What is the liquidation preference?
What are the dividends associated with the deal (cumulative, non cumulative, what %)?

Any insight is much appreciated!
Someone just needs to desktopize Honeycomb even more and port it to x86. It shouldn't be too hard to make it work better than the mess KDE and GNOME are at this point.

That someone should be Intel and AMD I think - if they put their money we could really see some hope for Linux on Desktop via Tablets. Real threat to Microsoft if they can make it work great on both platforms.
Why settle for being mediocre when you can be extraordinary?
> why wouldn't we all wear GPS and RFID enabled collars at all times with our name, identification number and scan barcode being promptly visible on the collar

Like a smart phone?
Exactly my thoughts. Once Gentoo drops gnome2 it's Xfce for me. I used it before on a low-powered laptop and it was nearly as good as gnome2, in some cases better.
How to Build a Subscribers List
Just for clarification, this is NOT a Wordpress exploit, this is an issue with an external image resizing script timthumb.php which is used in many popular themes.
I don't think that Gruber was making a case for software patents.

But he was. He is arguing that only a small handful of patents -- those used to attack Apple and/or app store developers -- are the problem with the patent system. That is directly in the section quoted.

His argument seemed to be that instead of Google lobbying to rid the world of software patents, they seemed to be playing the same game as MS, Apple & Oracle by bidding on the Nortel patents.

Google is essentially the bitch of the patent world right now, simply because they're a younger company and a land claim occurred. They can both appeal for changes -- which that very blog entry does in droves -- while preparing for the reality that nothing is going to change overnight.

Google will likely acquire a lot of ammunition (the IBM purchase puts them in a very interesting position relative to Oracle, threatening Oracle's entire platform), make life painful for its competitors, and then will be in a position to call for change without everyone declaring, as they are now, that it is merely convenience.