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82 Comments
- jay314, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Have any of you actually read the article? The words borrow and steal appear nowhere in the page.
The exact quote is: "I'm not apologetic about the fact that we should, in a way that doesn't offend anyone else's intellectual property, study and learn and benefit from the work others have done."
There is nothing sinister or implicating about that statement. So many people here on digg and on slashdot whine their asses off about IP and patent abuse, but rag on Microsoft for using other people's ideas. You know what? Apple does the same thing. So does Linux. So does your beloved FireFox. And it's a GOOD THING.
Now shut the ***** up. - archer75, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Of course they borrow ideas. You look at similar products to find what works and what does'nt. Then you adopt those that do. Where on this planet is this not done?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ideas arn't just invented. They are all derived from somewhere. What is often the case is that many people think of the same idea way before it is actually feasible.
Regardless, claiming ownership rights of an idea is nothing more than *****. Without the people who came first, every idea would be nothing more than a crazy pipe dream. - zwilliams, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"stfu u ppl. Im sure Apple stole stuff too...like they did by stealing the name 'Nano' for the iPod...just an example." - abdultaiyeb
Its "nano" not "Nano" and you can't copyright a(n) unit of measure. So no, you fail.
"Good call, doafhat. Rent or download "Pirates of Silicon Valley." Both Jobs and Gates admit to stealing the mouse and the concept of the graphic OS from Xerox - the very basis of OSX and Windows. And so it goes today." - bdmcnitt
Apple did not "rip-off" the Macs UI from Xerox. Apple had hired some people from Xerox (like Jef Raskin, Bruce Horn) who believed in concepts of a Graphical User Interface. These concepts are pretty broad -- like making a computer easier to use by using graphics (icons), using menus, windows and making a consistent interface to do things. The work on these concepts predates Xerox PARC -- in fact it was many of these peoples individual work on those concepts that got them hired at PARC. So Xerox (PARC) brought them together to refine them.
Apple's work on GUI's predates Steve Jobs visit to Palo Alto Research Center. Apple had already had the same broad goals of offering an easier to use computer, and possibly using some of the same concept (like menus, icons, and graphics).
Jef Raskin had worked at Xerox, and he was tooting the "easier to use" trumpet, with his vision of what that meant. He brought some of those ideas from Xerox, but he had brought some of those ideas TO Xerox as well. Later, he convinced Jobs to visit Xerox PARC, and Jobs became an immediate convert (for ease of use).
Jobs was so hot on the concepts of UI, and the living Demos he say, that he, later, negotiated a deal with Xerox. He gave Xerox a large sum of stock in Apple (worth Millions) if he could come back, and bring some programmers -- to inspire them more on the concepts of GUI. This was like a one-day tour. This was agreed to by Xerox, and so by no stretch of the imagination could this be called "ripping-off".
PARC was a research center -- meant to inspire development. But they did not really develop products (in the commercial sense), they developed ideas. Saying that Apple learning some of the base concepts and then applying them was "ripping-off" is like saying that Air-Bags are ripping off Newton -- because Air Bags work because they adhere to some of the laws of physics first expressed by Sir Isaac. A silly silly argument. Knowledge builds on knowledge. Xerox didn't see Apple as competition, that is why they let them in -- but they charged Apple, since Xerox believed that their research had value.
"Geeze, all you Apple die hards STFU... Oh I guess Apple invented the portable music device too? And Apple invented the OS?
Ever heard of the Apple Walkman or the Apple Photocopier? (e.g. Xerox made it Apple copied it) where were you whining asses then? " - antitrace
Your logic fails on two levels. 1. Apple never claimed to have created the portable music device or the OS. So no, your analogy does not apply. 2) You obviously need to read the statement above. - adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1^^ the problem with that is Microsoft saying they develop everything in-house. Most of the companies say "well yeah we did borrow from that idea, but heres how we improved it." Microsoft takes the "We don't know what your talking about, we developed this in house all by ourselves."
- Dakiel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Did we really need them to say this?
I don't care but don't come out with an OS after having 5 years to steal stuff and it still suck...that is just wrong. - craigtheguru, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nothing new here. I already stay as far away from M$ as possible. Arrrr.
- L.T.Mama!, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Borrows. No apostrophe.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Linux KDE desktop GUI is stolen from Mac and Windows.
- Superfluous, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Guys, give them a break. I've read countless comments pre-vista where people say "OMFG Winblows sucks, they should be more like linux or OSX". Now that they are giving the people what they were asking for it becomes "Look how they are stealing from Apple". Yes they are taking ideas and concepts but this is science. People didn't Ptolemy he was ripping off Aristotle. If it all works out positively who cares if they are building upon others achievements?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And Apple stole Konfabulator, Right-clicking, Alt+Tab, etc. So what?
- harishsr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Microsoft may be evil, but Balmer's phrasing of what they do is actually standard. Stealing ideas is one thing, but borrowing and changing is what the industry demands, and I don't think it deserves bashing.
- 16x9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oops... Seems the Digg parser (or our browser parsers) seriously altered my previous comment. My fault, really. I should have known better than to use HTML tag brackets around some parts of my comments.
What I was trying to say is, stop the pointless "My Choice is Better Than Your Choice and Your Are Stupid" arguments. - 16x9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0neocitron wrote: "Apple is a good company, i would love to see them really compete with microsoft.. competition makes us the consumers win."
Finally, a common sense comment! I get so damned tired of these my choice of is much better than (nameOfCompetingProductOrService> arguments. Especially when the only arguments that are exchanged are rooted in childish insults. - davidg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Using someone else's ideas isn't stealing, it's simply learning.
The trouble with Microsoft is that they use other people's ideas badly. - F10x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0pda timeline.. http://www-db.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/0-2-PDAs.htm
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Its "nano" not "Nano" and you can't copyright a(n) unit of measure. So no, you fail" - zwilliams (0)
No...Im not speaking about the unit of measure. Im speaking about the Creative Zen Nano....use your brains...ofcourse you cant copyright a unit of measure... - neocitron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Apple is a good company, i would love to see them really compete with microsoft.. competition makes us the consumers win.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0oh btw zwillaims...i like your 'you fail' attitude....did u learn it from school when the teachers blasted the same phrase at you repeatedly???
- eric_n_dfw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Agree 100% with the need for competition comments.
Some of you need to lower your caffeine intake or something though; and stop with the "Apple stole the GUI from Xerox" crap. Countless interviews and books about it show that Apple gives a ton of credit to them and that Xerox voluntarily showed their stuff to Jobs and his engineers. (The Star developers may not have been happy about that, but it's their own management that screwed up.)
Jobs himself, in an interview I remember seeing said that he saw 3 things at Xerox that he knew needed to be done: the GUI, Ethernet and object oriented development. He said they "got" the first two at Apple and the 3rd at NeXT.
If Jobs himself credits Xerox PARC as their inspiration, how can you say they "stole it"? - TopGaler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Firefox stole the tabbed browsing idea form Opera."
Exactly. I don't consider it stealing, but it's nice to turn it around on the Anti-Microsoft Club. Where would Firefox be today if they hadn't use tabbed browsing? Should the Firefox team take out tabbed browsing, because they didn't come up with the idea?
As far as Apple, let's take a look at some of the new, "innovative" features of 10.3 (Panther) and 10.4 (Tiger):
Fast User Switching: Microsoft Windows XP shipped with that.
Spotlight: Essentially, a far superior and better implemented version of the Indexing Service in XP (they get credit, since this is an example of innovating and expanding on an idea). Of course, Windows may not have been the first Operating System to have this "feature" (again, it is far superior in OSX).
Safari RSS: They're almost as late in adopting this as Microsoft.
Dashboard: So Apple didn't "steal" this idea from Konfabulator/Desktop X? Considering Microsoft apparently attempted to purchase Konfabulator, it seems more likely that their Sidebar gadgets were inspired more so by it than OSX's Dashboard.
In short, let's quit condemning one company for doing the same as others, simply because they're not the underdog or our favorite. - MilfordCubicle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Arrrr, Matey! this gits a big DUH-IGG!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0microsoft has been ripping and copying from companies all it's life. this shouldn't be something shocking.
- adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah I read this and thought it was a pretty big "DUHH". Theres a difference between borrowing someones ideas, and just plain stealing their stuff. This is what Microsoft does and has always done best.
- anagami, on 07/02/2008, -0/+0borrow, it should say steal.
- Jules, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good companies copy stuff and improve it. Others just copy (and may implement it badly). Microsoft has done the latter many times.
- gmoney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow, BIG surprise.
- holmes101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0* a hypocrite
- lollerskates, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, but the difference is that Apple doesn't patent inventions that are integral to the internet, attempting to controll this medium.
- peace, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah ... borrow? How much is the down payment and APR? Should have been called steal instead.
- F10x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I like Apple. But People open your eyes Job does the same thing.
I guess it ok Job to steal not Microsoft. Gates just does it faster then Job can. - lollerskates, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Bah just get BSD you losers.
- anagami, on 07/02/2008, -0/+0"Bah just get BSD you losers."
Mac OS X is based on BSD, if you don't want to pay there's DArwin and OpenDarwin.
Just don't call others losers for not using BSD, it may take people that really need an alternative away from BSD. - zwilliams, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"And Apple stole Konfabulator, Right-clicking, Alt+Tab, etc. So what?" - donwilson
You fail. Apple had created Apple Desk Acessories over a decade ago.
http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/dashboard_vs_konfabulator
http://daringfireball.net/2004/07/konfab_confab - eric_n_dfw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0hossein8_m said, "Have you guys ever opened a third-party (non microsoft) application in windows???? I don't know if you've noticed but practically all of them have the menu/toolbar system that was first developed in MS Office, but do you see Microsoft bitching about it?"
Not that I really care about this arguement too much, but the File, Edit, ... Help pulldown menus have been around since Mac System 1 - even earlier in a similar fashion on the old Lisa. The toolbars, in a basic form, were around on MacWrite too. I'd venture to guess some of them were on the Xerox Star too (although none of the screenshots I've even seen contain them)
In fact, as I remember it, Apple's human interface guidelines pretty much mandated the pulldown menus with very specific standards. (Something the Amiga Workbench could have used) - williamgates, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is interesting...now imagine Apple announced the i-Tablet today. I wonder what the self righteous apple fanatics will say. Will it be "Apple stole from MS" or "What innovation? I have never seen a laptop like this before! Praise Apple! Praise Jobs!" ?
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? - jfritz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0We don't need Ballmer to tell us this. Just like we don't need Ballmer to tell us that Apple "borrowed" GUI from Xerox.
- zwilliams, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@ antitrace: "Actually my logic stands, zwilliams, your logic is flawed because it doesn't relate to the article, you obviously don't read the article to understand how to even reply to my comment. Also, your logic of capital and lower case is flawed too, since I used apple in my sentence, you knew I meant Apple (tm) (r) (c) (etc.) and I'd be damn sure Apple would sue me if I used Apple or Apple, hence Nano and nano, so pull the apple (c) (tm) (r) out of your jaw, and start to see the light that there is more to human life than Apples and apples." - antitrace
It doesn't matter how it relates to the originally linked article; I was replying to you. All I have to maintain is relevance to your comment. Regardless of capitalization in wording, it still does not affect anything to do with the fact that you cannot trademark or copyright a(n) unit of measure. And, you also might want to realize the fact that Apple did not trademark, copyright, or register the word "apple" or "Apple," but the combination of "Apple Computer" and "Apple Computer, Inc." Just because a word implies or is used as a reference as such; doesn't mean its protected. Also I'd suggest replacing "don't" with "didn't."
"I think that since nano is quite smaller than the actuall piece of crap Apple (tm) (c) (r) produced, we should sue them for not providing the accurate sized Sony Walkman wannabe we all know as an Ipod (tm) (c) (r).
But of course, you probably just choked on your apple reading that (no not Apple becuase you can't eat a computer- oh wait, maybe you can, ohhhh Steve???)
have a nice day." - antitrace
Oh, I'm sure we should also sue all restaurants that sell "jumbo shrimp" or "mega size" or any other combination of exaggerations to describe a product. Oh, we should also sue Sony for their "Walkman" not actually being able to propel its own motion through bi-pedal methods. Oh, lets also sue you because you've chosen to use the screenname "antitrace" yet your IP and hostname information is probably readily available to anyone that wants to look at your ISP's logs or even Digg's own logs. As to your opinion of the iPod (nano or entire series) as being crap, thats your opinion. More people like it and use it than anything else. They must be doing something right. Please try again Wintroll.
@ bdmcnitt: While I agree Pirates of Silicon Valley is a very interesting movie, there are a few things wrong with it. There are several biographies and other websites that as you put it "paint a different" picture. The major downfall of Movies is, often they won't spend enough time investigating on a subject, and they can't possibly compress everything into something so small. You just can't compress years and years into two hours. Don't get me wrong, I've watched the movie and enjoyed it mostly. Thank you for being a courteous person and responding in a logical and intelligent manner. - frontbrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Everyone borrows ideas from everyone else, the old "The best ideas are borrowed and improved upon". Get over it. I'm no fan of Microsoft, but this is obvious and everyone does it.
- centauri, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, well everyone ripped off unix, but I dont see AT&T crying. Linux and all of the BSD's out htere have pretty much killed UNIX. Apple and Microsoft both got their idea's from Xerox. Microsoft used a lot of UNIX and VMS ideas in their creation of dos. Its not news that its been done, its news that microsoft is finally owning up to its own ineptness at software engineering
- bdmcnitt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0zwilliams - right or wrong, the movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley� paints a very different picture of the relationship between Apple, Xerox, and Microsoft. The penultimate scene in the movie is a conversation between Jobs and Gates where Jobs accuses Microsoft of stealing from Apple.
(warning movie spoiler…don’t read if you plan to watch!)
Gates replies: You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor - Xerox - who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you're yellin'? "That's not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first." You're too late.
Perhaps it happened quite differently, and I am willing to accept zwilliams account of history, but it hardly matters does it? So what is the solution? Borrowing and, yes stealing, is going to happen in software development. The only way to prevent it is to allow software patents, and I believe most would agree that software patents represent a far worse problem. Imagine if you could not use or had to license a scrollbar object from Apple or perhaps misspelled word underline class from Microsoft each time you wanted to create a new piece of software?! Sure, it would be nice if Microsoft innovated more, but if all they do is steal, well that’s fine. Stealing represents a far smaller problem than the alternative – allowing software patents – which is the only real solution to the given problem, so if you seek innovation and affordable software products be very careful what you ask for. - TopGaler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"(Too much to quote)-zwilliams"
I'm a bit unimpressed with Apple's creation of a decent Operating System by purchasing Next, while Windows built NT from the ground-up, but it's certainly legitimate. Microsoft's businesses practices are appalling at times, but Apple has a history of patenting technologies in a similar manner.
I would also like to say, Apple and Microsoft aren't true competitors. Apple is certainly a software company, yes, but the success of their hardware hinges on the incompatability of their software with other hardware. OSX and Macintosh and iTunes and iPod are both examples of this. Furthermore, if OSX was the dominant operating system, but still restricted to Apple hardware, it would be much worse for everyone than Microsoft monopolizing the Operating System market. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yeah well...i find it cute...and its funny if you think you have got any education at all...if you any education you would know that learning is a process rather than being stubborn and thinking that Apple created the universe....anyway there are better topics to comment on than this one....OPERA is free
- zwilliams, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Speaking of borrowing; I want to borrow my brother's gun and shoot all of you gad-damn-mac-hippies. How about you stop crying and occupy your free time with playing games on your MAC... oh .. no .. YOU CAN'T ***** DO THAT NOW CAN YOU!
Microsoft Siiiiide |.|." - kingamoon
Oh yeah, everyone knows Macs don't have games like Doom 3, Splinter Cell, and those others. Oh wait, they do! Oops, looks like someone should research things before they say stuff like that. http://macgamestore.com/
"I did not want to read all the post here. But, lets be host. Microsoft borrowed Apples Design and Apple Stole xerox design... You might want to check the movie out : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0009NSCS0/qid=1125387332/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-3867030-7848125?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846
Remember Mac is not a software company and MS is not a hardware company. When APPLE was in trouble MS invested 100Mil into the company..." - azrichard
Again, you need to research. Apple didn't steal anything. They had already began work on a GUI before they visited Xerox's PARC or bought over the employees. Yeah, and M$ was also given its position of power by stealing the designs of the first Macs. You don't think M$ would have the same position in the market if they hadn't of put out a comparable OS to the Mac do you? I seriously doubt many companies would put up with MS-DOS (which was also pretty much stolen, yeah, they paid for it, but they still ripped the creator off.)
"'You fail. Apple had created Apple Desk Accessories over a decade ago.'
Apple made the first PDA as well, does that mean it was successful at all? No. They only jump on the bandwagon when it's popular or soon to be fairly popular (right-clicking, iPod, Intel processors, etc). You fail." - donwilson
They only jump on the bandwagon when its popular? Do you know anything of computer history? M$ had no intentions of becoming a consumer product, they went for the businesses. Apple went for consumers. M$ followed later by offering their product to the average Joe.
Right-clicking, against all the uninformed masses opinions, has been around for years, and years, and years. Ever since Mac OS 8 (1996-7) there has been built in support for poly-button mice. Its nothing new, but time and time again Apple reiterated that they wanted to shy away from the right-click because of design issues with developers going "contextual menu crazy" like they do now, bloating up menus. Apple only released the Mighty Mouse to give new users a base mouse that they'd be more comfortable with.
There were quite a handful of MP3 players out for years before Apple introduced the iPod to the Mac community. Not a single MP3 company got the same sizable market, or the mind-share as Apple has done. I don't how you can claim it was "popular or soon to be," considering up until the iPod there was never a stead increase of sales of Creative or any of the other companies. Apple is the one that pushed it out into the light. Up until then most people thought MP3s were something you could transfer to other computers or burn to CDs to steal music.
Apple is the one that turned the online-music industry into something that could be profitable and legal at the same time. Creative, nor the others went to music labels and tried to get an online store going as big as the iTunes Music Store. Apple pretty much ushered the entire legal music store that pushed the iPod to success. Up until then, most people thought the only way to get digital music was to steal it from P2P services, and pirating is a big hassle.
The switch to Intel was a strategic move to stick it to IBM. IBM was, lets face it, doing poorly on keeping up with its promises. Steve is an easily angered man, and when things aren't done right, he makes drastic moves. That's who he is. He was sick and tired of waiting for IBM to make good on its promises. IBM claimed "Oh you'll have Dual 3GHz in a year! Oh you'll have 65nm versions for laptops!" None of which materialized. Steve was pissed. He moved to Intel because Intel is the 800lb gorilla of the processor industry. Not only do they have more fabrication plants than anyone else, they also put out a wider range of hardware. Apple didn't move to Intel because it was "trendy," they moved to save money, and to stick to IBM (IBM's managers had made some pretty nasty comments as to Steve's pushiness and attitude.)
Sorry, but if you're going to state something you should at least make it a viable rebuttal. Sorry, but you fail.
"As far as Apple, let's take a look at some of the new, "innovative" features of 10.3 (Panther) and 10.4 (Tiger):
Fast User Switching: Microsoft Windows XP shipped with that.
Spotlight: Essentially, a far superior and better implemented version of the Indexing Service in XP (they get credit, since this is an example of innovating and expanding on an idea). Of course, Windows may not have been the first Operating System to have this "feature" (again, it is far superior in OSX).
Safari RSS: They're almost as late in adopting this as Microsoft.
Dashboard: So Apple didn't "steal" this idea from Konfabulator/Desktop X? Considering Microsoft apparently attempted to purchase Konfabulator, it seems more likely that their Sidebar gadgets were inspired more so by it than OSX's Dashboard.
In short, let's quit condemning one company for doing the same as others, simply because they're not the underdog or our favorite." - TopGaler
Fast User Switching, Spotlight, and RSS feeds (not really RSS but a very comparable technology, but not based on XML like RSS) were all parts of NeXT OS long before XP shipped. In fact, BeOS had Meta-Data/Index searching years before XP did. So I doubt they should get credit, but they did push it a bit more than BeOS could ever.
Desk Accessories had been around for a while on Mac OS. While no one can say Konfabulator's "creator" stole the idea from Apple, he just wasn't the first to come up with it. So he had no right to claim that Apple stole "his" idea.
M$ is condemned for its business tactics; they simply don't want to play fair. They try to copyright, trademark, patent, and steal anything they can. Just recently M$ applied for a patent for the method of "removing spaces at the end of statements or sentences." That's just plain wrong, they also tried to patent using XML to format documents. M$ had no part of creating XML or nor was it the first to develop editors that formatted in XML.
"No...Im not speaking about the unit of measure. Im speaking about the Creative Zen Nano....use your brains...ofcourse you cant copyright a unit of measure..." - abdultaiyeb
Creative owns the trademark of "Creative Zen Nano" and "Zen Nano" not Nano. So what are you whining about? The fact that Apple describes its latest portable player small? Cause I sure don't see Apple calling its product "Apple Zen Nano" or "Apple Creative Nano." So how is it stolen?
"oh btw zwillaims...i like your 'you fail' attitude....did u learn it from school when the teachers blasted the same phrase at you repeatedly???" - abdultaiyeb
Nice try. You try to turn around and use it as a personal attack. Funny, you try to mock my education but lack the basics of English composition and grammar. Almost cute. - Loudog121, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I just "borrowed" a copy of Windows XP, thanks Bill
- holmes101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I like the Idea submitted by kingamoon... windows will play any game in the world. Mac count-0. I like windows and I'm not going to bash on osx that much. we have to give it some credit seeing as how there is not one virus or spyware app out there for it. other than that, I think windows has a much better GUI. Oh ya, and it plays games!!! But really guys, stop bashing on windows, I'm not going to get into the whole stole and borrowed thing but have to say, its not healthy to be hypocrite...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Firefox stole the tabbed browsing idea form Opera.
- Doomhouse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i can see how microsoft borrow's the ideas of apple.. cause everything apple is slick and cool.. i love my PC.. cause i play games etc on it.. and u can't really do that as well on a apple.. but still.. i just love the style of the apple stuff... its just soo... sweeeeettt
- nickm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0MS dont 'borrow' anything, when you borrow something you give it back. MS gives nothing back to anyone.
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