[rektide]

It's so hard to imagine the entire industry being held hostage like this.

My second thought is that this radically enhances the need for good IoT standards. Right now many devices are built to grant Google & Google alone the capability to control & orchestrate. Our devices are all vulnerable to legal attach because Google is the sole arbiter of control over our systems, and no one else has much of a say in how these devices run or operate; their capabilities are not up for general use.

By making devices which are more API centric, by having them expose what capabilities they have, in a networked fashion, not solely controlled by Google, there would be the possibility for other folks to step in & try to navigate & make offerings here. The risk to product owners would be diffused, there would be more resilience in what would be possible with devices, rather than this being such a 1 vs 1 battle. Things like group volume control seem like ideal candidates for tech that even a bone-headed laymen could implement in a couple lines of code, if specifications like the upcoming Matter IoT specifications were available & in use.

Some of the capabilities covered by these patents may need to be baked somewhat closer to the firmware. But for many of them, it feels like the rigid, fixed, top-down control system we've relied on is an epic legal vulnerability, one Sonos is driving a mac truck through. Letting our devices be scriptable and controllable would be safer, healthier, & help shirk off such flamboyant legal assaults. Devices should be general purpose, scriptable, because anything else is unsafe & unfit for users.

[varenc]

I agree this is desirable for users, but platform lock in is a desirable property for most of the major device manufacturers. How do we motivate Sonos/Google/Apple/Philips Hue/Amazon/etc to actually build in better support for open standards? (small manufacturers already have that incentive, but they're a small part of the market)

[PaulDavisThe1st]

It's only a half-serious suggestion, but we could point them to the story of how accepting MIDI for electronic music device interoperability in the 1980s led to a massive explosion in that industry in which everyone benefitted.

[bluGill]

To start with we need one standard. (xkcd fans will note that I said one not 15). Until there is one good standard (good meaning no way to misread it so your device isn't compatible with anyone else - this is hard)

In the US congress can set standards of weights and measures, it isn't hard to see how other things could be mandated based on that constitutional text.

[vmception]

It is very routine to license patents

We have no insight into what a licensing agreement would have looked like to judge

We also have no idea if google just opted to not pay

I cant hop on the “hostage industry” train without that detail

[rektide]

Im uninterested in my devices & functionality i use being ever subject to legal brawls, these ones & in general.

Spotify is under no obligation to offer Fair Reasonable and Non-discrimatory license agreements. To say that license agreements are routine ignores the other half the time that agreements dont work out easily. A patent holder can hold the entire world back at their pleasure. In this case, over a couple line shell scripts we could teach middleschoolers in Hour of Code day.

I have little sympathy for what feels like ambiguous legal murk you've layered over my concern. These particulars seem uninteresting amid what seems like yet another nimwitted IP fuck up that idoot grade patents were handed out to bloodthirsty IP robber barons. Once again consumers are in the crosshair. And this time we cannot seek alternate remedy, our devices are all beholden & bound up, controlled by solitary companies, vulnerable to legal assault. This is an unhealthy technical ecosystem, & it's unhealth has made it subject to wide forms of cruel & vicious legal attack on endless fronts, from an incompetent legal system.

[vmception]

Also true.

I would be open to an attempt at uniform licensing agreements, or some kind of regulatory approval on the licensing arrangements with comparative licenses considered.