[fpgeek]

Motorola, HTC and Samsung were all making smartphones long before Apple was. IIRC, they are all now being sued by Apple over, among other things, at least one feature that their smartphones had before the iPhone was even announced. So how's that previous history working out for them?

I'll also highlight my assumption: Apple's patent abuse continues unchecked. In other words, Apple's software patent assaults are delivering positive results without blowback. If that continues, why wouldn't they extend that to new areas? Wouldn't you expect them to attempt to maximize the return on their patents? If not, why not?

Now I'll admit I don't think it is likely that Apple's abuse will continue unchecked. I expect Apple's competitors to build their patent arsenal (e.g. notifications) and successfully hit back and eventually create a stalemate. But if they can't or don't, I'd expect Apple to see how far they can push things (just like any other corporation).

[taligent]

What are you talking about ? I was talking about Apple going after Linux.

[fpgeek]

So was I. You're asserting that vendors selling "nice Linux machines" (or at least nice machines that run Linux well once you install it) aren't among Apple's competitors? Since when?

To take just one example: the ultrabooks that Apple could easily try to go after with their "wedge" design patent, can run Linux, too, not just Windows. And that's clearly a form factor many people consider nice. Granted, this is a different area of competition than smartphones, but I specifically talked about Apple extending their patent assaults to new areas if their patent abuse remained unchecked.

Do you think Apple extending their legal strategy like that wouldn't have an impact on the availability of nice hardware to run Linux on? It seems obvious to me that it would. After all, there's more than one way to go after Linux.