Dashboard rips off Konfabulator

kendall

kendall

Registered
konfabulator is an awesome utility and Apple straight jacked them. have they NO SHAME?

and despite how optimistic konfabulators website is now, dashboard is gunna put dem out of bidnus!

to my knowledge, this is the second time Apple has straight ripped off a 3rd party developers work. why do they do this then use it to promote their next OS? i dont find anything revolutionary about ripping someone off. Apple is lucky someone takes the time to make such an awesome app for their platform and how do they thank them?!

i really like konfabulator, one of the few shareware apps ive actually purchased, and it disgusts me what Apple is doing to them.
 
I thought the Tiger presentation was very impressive. They could have left Dashboard out without diminishing it's impact.

Too bad there isn't a patent on Konfab, else Apple could be in deep doo-doo. Nevertheless I spoke with my pocketbook and bought a Konfab. license. Of couse I'll be upgrading to Tiger when it comes out, but I doubt I'll use Dashboard.
 
kendall said:
to my knowledge, this is the second time Apple has straight ripped off a 3rd party developers work.
Click to expand...

No argument here.

I wish they hadn't done it the first time.
 
Are the konfab widgets compatible to apples dashboard? If not, I see no reason why the developers of konfabulator should feel bad about this. The widgets are the fruity part and there are many more available for konfabulator and the way the developers are increasing its features, ppl will still favour konfab..
 
Pixoria got a ton of pity registrations today for Konfabulator (Including one from me for my little bro). I really hope they hang in there. As a Widget developer, I'm really appalled to see this all happening. It's very disheartening.

I got to chat with Arlo about three or four weeks back about this. He was devastated, mentioning that he may not ever develop another Mac application. :(

For everyone that thinks that Apple's only expanding on the functionality of Desk Accessories, may I point you to this forum post? I think it sums things up best.
 
I'm tired of hearing people say that Dashboard is a rip off of Konfabulator. I can't stand Konfabulator. Konfabulator isn't even an original program. I have been a mac user for 4 years, and before that I was a Windows user. I was actually listed as a developer for windows programs, and was constantly shipped Windows and Office Betas. Konfabulator is nothing more then a nicer version of Active Desktop which to this day still exists in Windows world. Active Desktop has been around in one form or another since at least the summer of 1997, I think it actually came out in the winter of 1996. Active Desktop allowed for you to "subscribe" to these URLs that created active information applets on the desktop. It would get updated information from such places as CNet, or ZDNet, or stock portfolio's, airplane maps to see where your friends plane is and etc. It does the exact same thing Konfabulator did, and it did it in 1996. Why did it not take off? Because most people only had 28.8 connections so the program was incredibly slow. With as slow as the Active Desktop elements were, you might as well go to the site to see the updates.

So lets look at the facts.
1. Dashboard is a way to view different types of information with mini applications
2. Konfabulator does very very similar things
3. Dashboard is highly dependent on Expose
4. Konfabulator's concept is a "rip off" of Active Desktop
5. Active Desktop has been around since IE4 came out for Windows 95

Don't believe me about this? Well then, lets look at these links
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/previous/gallery/default.mspx
http://www.computertim.com/howto/article.php?topic=windows&idn=45
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?970929.eaurora.htm

The concept that Konfabulator, Dashboard, Active Desktop, RSS/Atom are all going for is something we called "push" technology which was a big term used back in 96-97, because it made it easy to get information. There were programs like Pointcast, that pretty much does what we use RSS/Atom for, but it did it through one company. The success of Pointcast is what spawned off such things as Active Desktop, and I believe it was Netcast by Netscape.

People keep making a big deal about them using Javascript as the scripting language for Dashboard. Well, Javascript puts Dashboard programming in more hands then any other scripting language I can think of. Every webmaster should know Javascript, and that would make it within the capabilities of any webmaster to make their own widget.

Please people, keep an open mind when you say this stuff. Konfabulator is definitely not a new idea. It was part of a plan Microsoft almost bet the entire Desktop operating system of. It was part of the basis of the Anti-trust case. Apple uses it, and people accuse them of copying Konfabulator.
 
Ricky, how could you have had a conversation about the Konfabulator's supposed rip off a few weeks ago, when it was first shown today, or the earliest Saturday if you read Macrumors.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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. :mad:
 
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.
 
did konfabulator ripoff java? Using a certain technology (no matter if licenced or not) is no ripoff to me.
 
The sad thing is, Watson and Konfab were some of the reasons that I switched to X. At the moment, similar programs don't exist in Windows (at least that are of any quality). Quite a few small, very useful, well-designed apps like this are unique to OS X, and increase the user experience on the platform today

Dashboard is a(nother) slap in the face to these developers, saying, "hey, develop cool stuff for our platform! It's the best! And if you come up with a really good idea, we'll steal it and integrate it into the OS, effectively making it pointless for anyone to reward you for your efforts!"

It certainly is feasible to think that innovators will think twice before innovating on Mac. Even Microsoft hasn't done that sort of thing in recent memory (their moves are far more well-thought out and calculated)

Apple's taking a similar strategy with their retail stores and their resellers, eventually I have to imagine they're going to start seeing the aftereffects of what they're doing here...
 
OK. I didnt want to get into this, cus it will end badly. But now you made me.
A) Does dashboard support third party widgets? I havent seen anything saying so.
B) Does dashboard support literally hundreds (thousands?) of existing widgets?
C) It's america. Capitalism is about making money. If you don't make money, you fail. Arlo & Pery didn't copyright/patent ANY part of konfabulator. Apple took an existing idea (which it seems they pretty much came up with 20 years ago) and re-engineered it. Where's the crime?

If you feel so strongly about it, give them your money. Otherwise build a bridge and get over it already. Anyone would think arlo & perry were living on the street eating out of bins the way you lot are going on.
 
Pengu said:
C) It's america. Capitalism is about making money. If you don't make money, you fail. Arlo & Pery didn't copyright/patent ANY part of konfabulator. Apple took an existing idea (which it seems they pretty much came up with 20 years ago) and re-engineered it. Where's the crime?
Click to expand...

That's right, in business it only has to be *highly* illegal to be wrong, deplorable, scandalous, etc. If I force an old lady out onto the street with no financial remuneration, it's legal! And it's okay because it's in the name of business.

I suppose this mindset in America is why Microsoft is still one company and not three...
 
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