Developers Urging Boycott Of Apple & Google Until They 'Deal With' Patent Trolls

Some developers are trying to organize a developer boycott of iOS and Android offerings, getting them to pull their apps from the official marketplaces from both Apple and Google. At issue is that they feel Apple and Google haven’t done enough to fight on their behalf against patent trolls Lodsys and Macrosolve. To be honest, I doubt this will be effective, nor does it seem properly targeted. Apple, for example, has been quite aggressive on Lodsys, seeking to intervene in Lodsys’s lawsuits. And while Google was a bit slow and a bit more limited, it has also intervened. So I’m not entirely clear what more these developers want — and I’m wondering how many developers will actually cut off their two biggest sources of distribution over this. These patent trolls are certainly a problem and it would be nice to see a strong and swift response from companies like Apple and Google, but it’s not like the two have washed their hands of the situation and left developers totally hung out to dry.

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