I can’t agree here – this is a feature that hurts a small developer while not adding something that will materially help their market. And, as Om points out, they could simply have licensed Konfabulator. The fact is that they can get away with this because small developers don’t have the resources to fight back. Even if there’s a legal argument that could be made, they simply don’t have the resources.

I generally prefer precision thinking, and this post + comments are close to making Michael Moore look like an objective truth teller.

Om, I expect a higher standard.

jokes aside, look i am for the little guys on this one – sometimes even in brutal cold capitalistic body, you can find a bleeding heart. i just am angry with this blatant rip-off.

Simple critical thinking, ie asking penetrating questions, and a dap of research/industry knowledge is all thats needed to cast doubt about what you assume to be causal connection or a mere concidence.

One case in point: Konfabulator is hardly unique, or special, etc. see: http://gdesklets.gnomedesktop.org/

One device of critical thinking is to play the devil’s advocate, and it should be quite clear that Apple probably has a long list of items on the drawing board that have been queued for years, etc.

As a sidenote, I once worked with Jef Raskin, and you’d be surprised how much UI innovation was mapped out years and years ago.

What if Apple did approach these guys, and the Konfabulator guys were assholes and told Apple screw you? Who the hell knows? Perhaps this is the real story here.

My comment about Moore, while rooted in jest, is also applicible because you and Damian are prematurely jumping to (what you should know to be) unsupportable conclusions.

I could go on, but shirely you get my drift. I wouldn’t complain if I didn’t expect more.

You seem to suggest that Apple break the law. Selective and early disclosure of future products without proper confidentially protections, etc. could be seen as a violation of “Full Disclosure”.

Secondly, thank god we are not (yet?) a socialist country. The burden for Konfabulator’s future and the obvious risk of being co-opted by Apple, Microsoft, or anybody else belongs to Konfabulator alone.

While the idea of desktop gadgets has been around for a long time, the implementation has usually varied (remember ActiveDesktop?). The nearly identical appearance and JavaScript makes me believe that this isn’t simply stealing a concept so much as pretty ripping off a concept + implementation.

As much as I feel for the developers, I’m mostly pissed that Apple, with it’s limited resources as opposed to Microsoft, actually wasted developer resources re-doing something someone else has already done that adds so little real value. I’d much rather more time went into Spotlight or perhaps Exchange server support.

Selective disclosure goes on all the time, under NDA. There’s no issue of breaking that law as long as an NDA is in place – MSFT does NDA briefings (or used to, I’ve been to a few), I assume Apple does as well.

Sean stated well the reasons people are annoyed (pretty exact copy, secondary features, etc), but keep in mind that this whole thing happened with Sherlock/Watson not that long ago.

And the ad hominem attacks (assuming calling someone a Michael Moore clone is considered an attack) are out of place.

I’m not trying to pick on you, but your lastest post is equally false and weak.

I was a software developer at one time, wons lots of acclaim, awards etc.

It sounds like you are not a developer, or have that kind of experience.

Software is an Iceberg.

That is to say that the visual part is only 10-15% of the total application. So as far as wasting valuable resources on this endeavor is another unsupportable conclusion, because we have zero knowledge of the two products internal structures and the future plans for each product.

If Konfabulator is da bomb, they should get on the phone and sell it to Microsoft or Redhat/Novell, er forget about Linux, because the Dashboard idea is already present in that world, and its also called “Dashboard”.

The stealing of concepts is age old. Did Lotus ripoff Visual Arts? Did MSFT ripoff Lotus?

The point here is that creating a piece of software and creating a business based on software are two entirely different things.

Now if Om really wants to do a bang up article on the parallels of this episode and the Telecom business, now that would be a story.

For example, name the four biggest new software companies to hit the scene? I’d suggest the real answer here is Amazon, Yahoo, Ebay, and Google. They are merely newfangled software companies that are not liable to be co-opted by Microsoft, at least not yet.

What form will the voice telecom take in the future?

By romantically lamenting the abuse Konfabulator may or may not have suffered, you are overlooking the signaling information in the event itself. (ever read Hayek, von Mises?)

Change is good, but also painful. Beware the lure of the status quo.