Dashboard rips off Konfabulator

[gerbick]

First Watson, now Konfabulator. Sorta "Microsoft-ish" imho.

[Zammy-Sam]

I still think, that konfabulator is not lost after apple included something similar to it. There are so many widgets with different functions, that will keep konfabulator still alive. And hey, wasn't everyone asking, why apple doesn't have such functions like konfabulator included? Now we have it and why do we mind it now? In these days, every little thing you add was somehow done by a tool before. I don't consider this as a sort of rip-off. And where would we have ended up, if apple wasn't allowed to include such great tools in our macosx versions? Probably still in some macos9-alike environment.
It's a nice thing to see all those usefull options now in one DVD. I don't have to look for such tools, download them, pay for additional licence keys and bother with new updates and bugfixes.

[diablojota]

I just wish Apple had collaborated with the developers of Konfabulator before doing such. This could've provided Apple with quite a benefit as they wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. Oh well... Apple should at least acknowledge the work of their 3rd party developers.

[Cat]

Hm, widgets, docklets, dashboard all have been around for several years in various incarnations in various OSes. So what? Is Apple really ripping off konfabulator? Well, I didn't see 3D effects ripple effects when I launch Konfabulator widgets or make them turn around to change my settings or make them appear and disappear at the touch of a button. Oh wait, I can, now that Konfabulator recently ripped off Exposè to implement a similar function ...
Apple showed us a handfull of innovative features of Tiger, one of them resembles technologies we have seen around for more than 15 years and we say they ripped it off the last one who implemented it ... not really fair ... There have been interactive, live-updating docklings in various Linux docks for years and the word "Widget" simply is a contraction of "Window Gadget" IIRC and not a copyrighted, owned concept. Do we say Apple ripped of Adobe because it made a better PDF viewer? Should be we say Apple ripped of Konfabulator because it re-implemented in a better way something that has been used and re-used for years and years by Apple itself and NeXT and GNU/Linux? We've seen docklets in OS X at the very beginning e.g. for Airport signal strenght. Then we've seen them back as Menubar items, then we got ProcessViewer as interactive Docklet. Now we get Dashboard which takes Docklets out of the Dock and gives them a window environment of their own and so you have Widgets.
No, I'm sorry, I can't agree with all the harsh criticism of Apple ripping Konfabulator off.

[gerbick]

but they are competing with the people that support them on both sides of the fence. final cut pro/shake basically made Premiere an afterthought, Sherlock made Watson into an afterthought, Motion looks like it'll be taking on Combustion and Aftereffects head on, and this... well, they just knocked out Konfabulator perhaps.

The people that support the MacOS X platform have been complaining for a while that Apple does not offer the correct tools - such as Konfabulator having to use Javascript as opposed to AppleScript because those things were not "open" to them - or access to deeper API's.

To reiterate... very Microsoft-ish imho.

[powermac]

GroundZeroX is correct. No one ripped off anyone, consider this:

* 1984: Apple introduces desk accesories. Little programs that go anywhere on the desktop and can be run in parallel to other applications.
* 1986-ish: Apple introduces Multifinder.
* 1990-ish: Apple introduces System 7, and deprecates DAs.
* 1998: Windows 98, complete with active desktop and on-desktop widgets.
* 2000-ish: Apple introduces Mac OS X. Widgets now go in the dock.
* 2002-ish: Apple moves widgets to the menu bar.
* 2003-ish: Konfabulator is born.
2004: Apple moves widgets to the desktop and adds javascript.

People are acting and assuming Konfabulator invented this. take a look at the history.

[kendall]

look at dashboard. not knowing anything about it id assume it was konfabulator. THAT IS HOW SIMILAR IT LOOKS.

similarity aside, it does the exact same thing konfabulator does, brings javascript widgets to the desktop.

nobody is arguing that there wasnt small desktop/dockapp/menubar apps in the past but konfabulator was the first to use javascript to bring them to the desktop and do it so VERY VERY well.

apple sees this and completely rips them off, lock, stock and barrel. put it this way, if you cant glance at dashboard without being reminded of konfabulator, its a blatant ripoff.

[Zammy-Sam]

did konfabulator ripoff java? Using a certain technology (no matter if licenced or not) is no ripoff to me.