Disgusted by Apple ripping off Konfabulator!

124

Comments

  • Reply 61 of 90
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,294member
    Look folks, this is not so complicated. Those who say this is just a little competition are deluding themselves. If I were to come out with a Konfab clone, that would be a little competition. If Apple were to do a clone in the form of an OS plus pack sold separately for $29.99, that would be heavy handed. What they did was a Borg style assimilation. It is obvious that Apple has no moral problem with the concept of bundling. It is a lot easier than competition. I guess Cupertino is saving a bundle on R & D these days.



    Perhaps the best point I have seen so far is this. Why is Apple spending time and resources implementing mature, existing utilities. Why not spend their resources on functionality that does not already exist? This is the sort of thing that makes people question "Apple innovation". This is not innovation. It is just cut and paste. How much of what Apple has implemented falls in this category? They acquired Next, the foundation of OS X. They acquired Soundjam, the foundation of iTunes. They copied Watson down to the look and feel after acknowledging that Watson was innovative. Now Dashboard. They buy what they are legally forced to buy. They just take everything else. The shame of it is that the people actually responsible for many great features of the innovative OS/platform are forgotten and swept away. They have been assimilated and Apple gets the credit for innovation.



    This will be my final rant on the subject as I believe it has all been said by now. People around hear know that I have been a long time hater of Apple, the company. And I am no fan of SJ. Yes, I like the products well enough and my iBook has served me well enough, but it is now showing its age (less than two years old).



    All of this will be easier to swallow when people give up the childish notion that this is a battle between good and evil, and that Apple is the good guy. Not true. Apple occupies no moral high ground. They do not care about you anymore than any other company cares about you. They are not a kinder and gentler business. They will cut your throat and stab you in the back as soon as the next guy if they see an advantage to it. SJ is not fundamentally different from BG. APPLE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! If they were as big and powerful as MS, they would be just as bad. In fact, they are just as big and powerful as MS in their own market segment and they do behave pretty much the same way. People need to quit trying to defend everything they do as if they were the good guys that need defending and just accept them for what they are. Love them or hate them, but do so on the merits of the products, not some preconceived notion that their the ones in the white hats.



    Well that's it for me. I think I'll go find one of those iMac threads and rant about that for a while. What's up with that thing anyway?
  • Reply 62 of 90
    mactechmactech Posts: 31member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ZoSo

    Agree 100%.



    Hell, Microsoft got sued, and now we have here a full bunch of apologists willing to take it under their tails just cuz it's Steve's...



    We're talking about developers here people, and this was a developer's conference. Arlo got screwed for being a developer! I would not, will not, develop for an Apple platform. Ever. Not after this.



    < snip >



    Thanks Steve, but after this you lost me (after 14 years).



    ZoSo




    Wow! I can't imagine someone dropping a platform because of this. Have fun developing for Windows. I hope someone else doesn't copy your work or ideas if you don't copyright your work.

    Welcome to the world of free enterprise in business. Did you ever think that this might give the same developers a larger market share once Tiger becomes mainstream? I do, and I can't wait to get my hand on the SDK.
  • Reply 63 of 90
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member
    Just to clarify something: The guys who made Konfabulator did copyright their work. They took the legal precautions they needed to take, but Apple could probably argue that 1) what they did is different enough and 2) this approach wasn't originated by Konfabulator anyway.
  • Reply 64 of 90
    zosozoso Posts: 177member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacTech

    Wow! I can't imagine someone dropping a platform because of this.



    It's called ideology. Or a matter of principles, if you will.



    Quote:

    Have fun developing for Windows. I hope someone else doesn't copy your work or ideas if you don't copyright your work.



    Mono (.NET in MS talk), C# and Open Source is the way of the future. Then you sell--and make money on--expertise, services, vertical solutions, you name it. Code becomes a platform on top of which you can add and sell value, not a tool to slow innovation down or crush your competitors (think Windows, IE, the rest--and Dashboard).



    If I'm the only one in here who holds true to his principles I don't care--I'm glad I do. I'm a thousand times better than those who bash MS for its anti-competitive behaviour and subsequently praise Apple for doing the same exact things.



    Some people should remove a few kilograms of shit from their eyes.



    ZoSo
  • Reply 65 of 90
    zosozoso Posts: 177member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon

    It's fair game.



    It's not.



    If you really think so you're deluding yourself and being an apologist for Apple. And they do not deserve an apologist, but are due apologies.



    ZoSo
  • Reply 66 of 90
    zosozoso Posts: 177member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by chilleymac

    Noone has implied that Konfabulator was some breakthrough piece of software but it was an innovative implementation. I love the fact that Apple is trying to improve the OS and give it more functionality, and they will probably do a better job with this than Arlo did. The problem I have is that this software was cool, people(geeks) were pretty crazy about it when it first came out. When a developer comes out with something like this they should be praised, not copied, crushed and discarded. Which we all know is going to happen. What better message could a company send to it's developers than admiring some innovation, offering to purchase it or working with the developer to offer a new implementation? Instead they just took it with no acknowledgement.



    If Microsoft added a new functionality(and they probably will) to Longhorn that behaved almost identically to Exposé, everyone on this board would crucify them. And rightfully so. What Apple did in this case was wrong not legally wrong, but morally and ethically bankrupt.




    Greatly expressed.



    Cheers,



    ZoSo
  • Reply 67 of 90
    zosozoso Posts: 177member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac Voyer

    All of this will be easier to swallow when people give up the childish notion that this is a battle between good and evil, and that Apple is the good guy. Not true. Apple occupies no moral high ground. They do not care about you anymore than any other company cares about you. They are not a kinder and gentler business. They will cut your throat and stab you in the back as soon as the next guy if they see an advantage to it. SJ is not fundamentally different from BG. APPLE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! If they were as big and powerful as MS, they would be just as bad. In fact, they are just as big and powerful as MS in their own market segment and they do behave pretty much the same way. People need to quit trying to defend everything they do as if they were the good guys that need defending and just accept them for what they are. Love them or hate them, but do so on the merits of the products, not some preconceived notion that their the ones in the white hats.



    Most exactly!



    I'm sick of the fact that SJ and Apple in general have been living on this notion for years. Maybe it didn't give them more market share, but it certainly was basically free advertisement.



    Lots of people--as you can see here--still believe in this. Hell, a MOVIE was made depicting them as the good guys!



    Un-dammit-believable...



    ZoSo
  • Reply 68 of 90
    mactechmactech Posts: 31member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ZoSo

    It's called ideology. Or a matter of principles, if you will.







    Mono (.NET in MS talk), C# and Open Source is the way of the future. Then you sell--and make money on--expertise, services, vertical solutions, you name it. Code becomes a platform on top of which you can add and sell value, not a tool to slow innovation down or crush your competitors (think Windows, IE, the rest--and Dashboard).



    If I'm the only one in here who holds true to his principles I don't care--I'm glad I do. I'm a thousand times better than those who bash MS for its anti-competitive behaviour and subsequently praise Apple for doing the same exact things.



    Some people should remove a few kilograms of shit from their eyes.



    ZoSo




    There is no shit in front of my eyes. If you are implying otherwise, you are free to express your opinions. I can see the picture quite clearly.

    As a developer of software for 20 years, I have had people steal my ideas, even capitalize on my company's software products name in their meta tags, press releases, etc. to earn themselves more business. If I had a leg to stand on, I sued them, if not, I made my product better.

    The only difference here is that it is Apple, and not some other small developer. How is DashBoard slowing innovation? Konfabulator is a great product, but hardly anything revolutionary. It is like Desk Accessories for OS X. I hope Arlo and company can take the free press they are getting and run with it and come out with an even better product.
  • Reply 69 of 90
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    Does anyone actually KNOW the official story? Does anyone maybe KNOW if Kinfab was bought or licensed by Apple or whatnot?



    Why do we automatically jump to the idea they ripped it off without discussing with theKonfab developer?



    I can imagine they DID, but lets get the facts straight first mm'kay?
  • Reply 70 of 90
    zozo Posts: 3,117member
    ok... i'll shut up now...



    i guess this is pretty self explanatory.



    At least it gives him almost a year to get people to pay for Konfab.



  • Reply 71 of 90
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    ZoSo, you can leave anytime you want. Bye.
  • Reply 72 of 90
    zosozoso Posts: 177member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ZO

    Does anyone actually KNOW the official story? Does anyone maybe KNOW if Kinfab was bought or licensed by Apple or whatnot?



    Why do we automatically jump to the idea they ripped it off without discussing with theKonfab developer?



    I can imagine they DID, but lets get the facts straight first mm'kay?




    The facts, just check The Register:



    "While Redmond is stealing ideas from Cupertino, it seems Cupertino is stealing ideas from its third-party developers," said Rose in an open email. He described Konfabulator as the "template" for Mac OS X Tiger's Dashboard.



    "We'd like [to] let the Mac OS X community know that if they'd like to get their hands on Dashboard now rather than wait 'till 'the first half of 2005' they can," he wrote.



    ZoSo
  • Reply 73 of 90
    zosozoso Posts: 177member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacTech

    There is no shit in front of my eyes. If you are implying otherwise, you are free to express your opinions. I can see the picture quite clearly.



    It wasn't my intention for you to take it personally. Sorry...



    I was referring to a whole set of obtuse ideas, to a forgive-them-all-because-it's-Apple mentality that it seems is quite widespred and hypocritical.



    ZoSo
  • Reply 74 of 90
    zosozoso Posts: 177member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    ZoSo, you can leave anytime you want. Bye.



    This story is too important for me, before I leave I want to at least try to shake all those carved-in-rock opinions. Then I'll move along, for your general relief...



    ZoSo
  • Reply 75 of 90
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Widgets aren't a new idea like everyone else said, it's just that Arlo implemented them the best. Stinks but like everyone has said he can't do much. They should just hire the Karelia guys and Arlo, I mean if they want the same things these guys have already made it! So who better to implement it. They do fantastic stuff. Still waiting for Kaleidoscope X...Nah just kiddin but Apple could hire those Unsanity folks too.
  • Reply 76 of 90
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    People seem to have a short memory, relatively speaking. Are people here old enough to remember the Mac OS before the multi-Finder, before the Classic OS extensions, before the control strip, app switcher, etc.? Just keep in mind that Apple has co-opted the ideas of many third party utilities and put them into the OS since 1984. It's nothing new. Watson, Konfabulator and LaunchBar are just some more recent examples.



    While ethically, I think it's a fair argument that they're stealing thunder from developers, I think Apple is doing something right in that these features are, at least with our most recent examples, extensible and open to developers as SDKs. So take some solace in that Apple isn't stealing the goodies and keeping the booty for itself.
  • Reply 77 of 90
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ZoSo

    The facts, just check The Register:



    "While Redmond is stealing ideas from Cupertino, it seems Cupertino is stealing ideas from its third-party developers," said Rose in an open email. He described Konfabulator as the "template" for Mac OS X Tiger's Dashboard.



    "We'd like [to] let the Mac OS X community know that if they'd like to get their hands on Dashboard now rather than wait 'till 'the first half of 2005' they can," he wrote.



    ZoSo




    Sorry, but I just had to jump in here...



    You're taking *THE REGISTER* quoting *THE ALLEGED VICTIM* as 'the facts'?



    Um.



    I really hope you're never called for jury duty.
  • Reply 78 of 90
    zosozoso Posts: 177member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Kickaha

    I really hope you're never called for jury duty.



    Don't worry, it doesn't work like that over here



    It was the only direct quote I've seen of Arlo's email--I wasn't quoting them about a future CPU



    ZoSo
  • Reply 79 of 90
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    ( I also wrote this in the other (news) thread)



    Of course Apple got the idea from Konfabulator.And it was developed after Konfabulator. Internal Apple people will probably agree. The legal issue is irrelevant. It is probably legal. The moral issue is relevant. And the economic issues. Searchlight clearly copies Launchbar, and RSS Safari has possibly destroyed the market for RSS readers. And then there was Watson.



    So the only part of the Apple developer community that is in fact relevant; not the old dinosuars but the new exciting shareware and downloadware, developed in Cocoa mainly, has had Apple fire this warning shot across their bow:



    "We have given you tools to develop your applications quickly and efficiently, but please do not try and be innovative - we have hooks into the Operating System and vast resources and we can steal your ideas, integrate them into the OS, and get defended by the Mac "community" who will argue that we do it better, or you idea wasn't original anyway. We will humiliate you in Public as a developer's conference to boot."



    I actually would trust Microsft more than this shower. Why write software for the Mac if Apple is going to rip it off in more than a year because it's lazy designers cannot think of original ideas?



    These innovative developers have nothing to lose but their chains to the Mac, and nothing to gain but their dignity if they move to Windows development; a crowded field surely, but one where Microsoft is unlikely to waste it's time on an RSS reader - leaving that, wisely, to it's developers.



    And good luck to Apple and Apple's users, in hoping to compete with Microsoft and all it's resources; and Microsoft's developers and all their resources.



    Meanwhile the declining Apple cult will use Apple's operating system only, and Apple's applications only; a situation guaranted when Apple creates it's verions of Office and Photoshop. As it surely will.



    In future Apple should hold it's WWDC in-house. For internal developer's only.
  • Reply 80 of 90
    webmailwebmail Posts: 639member
    Whatever, there's a million apps just like Konfabulator for the windows world, why don't we start a thread about how Konfabulator is a bunch of ripoff artists? What made you decide apple was a ripoff? Was it the fact that their widgets aren't anything like Konfabulators javascript, ones with limited interaction? Or was it just the fact that they both used the word "widgets", a term Apple has used FAR longer than any Konfabulator, and a pretty generic term in this world.



    Or was it Apple's use of desk accessories? Stop complaining so much.



    This is how the world works. You don't get paid for an unoriginal idea. Maybe the original inventor of this "widget" style desktop accessories would like to step up and charge Konfabulator and Apple, and all the Windows companies a fee. Since Konfabulator "could" be considered a rip off of someone elses idea, especially in the windows world.
Sign In or Register to comment.