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"Evaluate technology for its tech, not for the company's legal team." No. Doing so means that I can become complicit in legal actions that ultimately hurt me a

"Evaluate technology for its tech, not for the company's legal team." No. Doing so means that I can become complicit in legal actions that ultimately hurt me as a consumer by providing companies like Apple with the revenue they need to fund such attacks. One must consider the legal actions, the social actions, etc. of a company when buying their products; it's part of being a responsible and long-term self-interested consumer.

mitchty 14y ago
I'm curious then, what exactly do you buy? Almost every company on this planet has done things both legally and socially that would mean you boycott almost all corporations. This would asus is out, samsung, motorola, <insert any major manufacturer of anything here>, how do you correlate this view with the rest of the products you buy? Do you drive a car and fill it with gasoline or diesel? Then likely you're implicating yourself in the extraction of natural resources and disasters with this viewpoint. While I applaud the concept, it seems a bit restrictive. Note I'm not saying you should deny when companies do bad things like an oil spill disaster, but if we're going to glom on extra responsibilities for corporations that build devices we buy we're going down a very slippery slope that can only end with abandoning modern lifestyles. Also another question, if patents are granted and being infringed, are you saying companies should not act upon infringement? If yes, then why would companies get patents?
- cgranade 14y ago
  I get that there are compromises made in every decision I make, and that to that extent, I am complicit in the actions taken by the companies that I support. I certainly did not mean to exempt myself from that; rather, I was trying to argue against the philosophy that such considerations should be ignored. While I get that pragmatism is important, I disagree that we can disregard the actions of the companies we support. As for the point about patents, I think that there's a difference between acting on infringement and actively seeking to expand their patents post-hoc to shut down competition. More broadly, I think that the USPTO needs to be much more selective about patents, to avoid precisely these kinds of problems.
  - mitchty 14y ago
    No worries, sorry for the late reply, had to go watch sports and drink beer. :) I was just trying to find out exactly what it was that sparked your personal boycott and how that extends to other areas of life. Personally I can't be arsed to care about tech company patent litigation since there are much worse things to worry about. In essence I'm referring to things like child labor/environment damage etc.... I'm not absolving tech companies, but on a scale of 1-10 as to ethical considerations its not that high on the list I would rank. Basically that's my view in a nutshell, at work so I can't give a full reply, tschuss!

mitchty 14y ago

I'm curious then, what exactly do you buy? Almost every company on this planet has done things both legally and socially that would mean you boycott almost all corporations. This would asus is out, samsung, motorola, <insert any major manufacturer of anything here>, how do you correlate this view with the rest of the products you buy? Do you drive a car and fill it with gasoline or diesel? Then likely you're implicating yourself in the extraction of natural resources and disasters with this viewpoint. While I applaud the concept, it seems a bit restrictive. Note I'm not saying you should deny when companies do bad things like an oil spill disaster, but if we're going to glom on extra responsibilities for corporations that build devices we buy we're going down a very slippery slope that can only end with abandoning modern lifestyles. Also another question, if patents are granted and being infringed, are you saying companies should not act upon infringement? If yes, then why would companies get patents?

cgranade 14y ago
I get that there are compromises made in every decision I make, and that to that extent, I am complicit in the actions taken by the companies that I support. I certainly did not mean to exempt myself from that; rather, I was trying to argue against the philosophy that such considerations should be ignored. While I get that pragmatism is important, I disagree that we can disregard the actions of the companies we support. As for the point about patents, I think that there's a difference between acting on infringement and actively seeking to expand their patents post-hoc to shut down competition. More broadly, I think that the USPTO needs to be much more selective about patents, to avoid precisely these kinds of problems.
- mitchty 14y ago
  No worries, sorry for the late reply, had to go watch sports and drink beer. :) I was just trying to find out exactly what it was that sparked your personal boycott and how that extends to other areas of life. Personally I can't be arsed to care about tech company patent litigation since there are much worse things to worry about. In essence I'm referring to things like child labor/environment damage etc.... I'm not absolving tech companies, but on a scale of 1-10 as to ethical considerations its not that high on the list I would rank. Basically that's my view in a nutshell, at work so I can't give a full reply, tschuss!