Dashboard rips off Konfabulator

[gerbick]

bah. if Microsoft did it, all of you would be up in arms. Face it. Apple did a bit of "stealing" here from an idea that wasn't original - in the scheme of things - but sure was original on the MacOSX platform.

by some of the rationale in this thread, if MS does it - which they just might with their XAML plans for Longhorn - I guess it should be chalked up to "good business" right? As long as they make it better.

bah.

[mi5moav]

Is not the calculator or QT movie player or and small Apple component that has been there since 1984 just a widget with a container being the OS? So, basically they just built a secondary OS over Mac OS to run these without borders, that's it. You need to run Konfabulator before you can open a widget don't you? So, there is no difference between konfabulator and LiveObjects... just that Konfabulator came ten years later.

Yes, there is a huge difference between Apple Microsoft thing and Apple Konfabulator... it is the idea!!! Only Apple as a Company saw that ordinary people wanted to see their computer interface related in a graphical manner. Xerox didn't, a few individuals within the company but if Xerox had the foresight of Apple thinkers they would have done something about it.

Marketing your ideas that is all it comes down to. Microsoft took the idea and the design and made it look and work like crap in their first try. The only thing Apple may have done was take the design(though they created the aqua look and feel first) and made it look better and work better... they've already been working on components and widgets ideas of computing for 12+ years and in essence 20+ since they knew that people didn't want to have to open up Word or Excel to calculate... that is why they built the widget called calculator that runs outside of its own window in a container called Mac Os.

[Zammy-Sam]

point me one feature of macosx, windows or any other os that wasn't "stolen". I will find you the application that performed something similar to it and was published before.
Ok, maybe there are some, but you will be very surprised how less there are actually. What do you want? A naked os where you have to get all your apps/tools and customization features seperately? Apple to add a little textbox within the Dashboard saying: special thanks to konfabulator/launchbar?
Peeelease!

[kainjow]

Originally Posted by Zammy-Sam

Apple to add a little textbox within the Dashboard saying: special thanks to konfabulator/launchbar?

haha!

I think the Konfabulator guys are fing babies. They need to embrace Dashboard, and start porting all their widgets over, and become the #1 third-party widget creator...

If Apple stole my apps' ideas, I wouldn't pout and complain. I'd be happy and honored that they copied. So the konfabulator guys need to do the same.

Maybe we don't want childish, pouting developers working on our platform anyways..

[gerbick]

kainjow... Pod2Go?

[GroundZeroX]

Oh, and as far as Arlo is concerned, this is what I found out yesturday. He worked for Apple, working on the theme manager with others for 8 I believe, and was fired. The guy then went off, and started off kaleidoscope which changes the themes for you without the theme manager. So let me get the straight, he works for a company, gets fired, steals the work that he was working on with other people, publishes a product based off of that and gets several years of revenue for. Then he steals Active Desktop, and Apple copies part of their implementation, and you guys are calling Apple thieves? Do any of you realize that what Arlo did with Kaleidoscope can be considered illegal? When a person is let go from a company as a software engineer, they have for very long time been made to sign contracts stating that they wouldn't work on similar products or features for competing companies for X amount of years. I believe it is typically 4 or 5. You can't BS your way out of that as far as I am concerned about the guy who got canned from Apple then stole their IP for years of his own profit.

To me, it is clearly the truth that Arlo scammed Apple, and then he scammed MS, and now he is pissing and moaning because Apple is bringing back something that used to be part of the ORIGINAL MAC OS.

Heck, need proof? My girlfriend is a software engineer, and if she was fired or quits she would have to sign similar contracts. She also has one of the original Macs. I've messed with the "Desktop Accessories" before, or "Widgets" or "Active Desktop" stuff, that Arlo claims that he worked on all by himself, and was in NO WAY motivated by stuff that was out for nearly 20 YEARS before Konfabulator came out. Active Desktop has been out for 7 years, and they blatantly copies them too. But hey, lets say that he is the victim.

[Ricky]

GroundZeroX, I suggest you get your facts straight before you start bashing people. Arlo did not steal any work for Kaleidoscope (and actually went through a costly legal battle with Apple over this, which proved this). Arlo didn't even program the utility. The program was the work of a fellow named Greg Landweber.

As for Kaleidoscope vs. Active Desktop... Widgets' functions are not limited to the Internet. They can hook into the system and give you information like CPU usage and AirPort signal strength. They can run just about any shell commands you please. They can interface with applications using AppleScript. And they can be written in a day. I'd like to see you try all that with Active Desktop.

Kaleidoscope vs. Desk Accessories... Refer to my earlier link .

Kaleidoscope vs. DesktopX... It does not matter who came first. Konfabulator's implementation has always been rock-solid and has been repeatedly requested by DesktopX users. I can attest to this... We're always razzing the people who post about K for Windows at the K forums.

[kainjow]

Originally Posted by gerbick

kainjow... Pod2Go?

Uh yea, whaddya want?