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Arlo Rose use to work for Apple in their Human Interface Design Center and took a voluntary layoff. He then started his own little company and later launched Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a theme rendering engine for Mac OS 7 to 9.1. Apple later turned out a similar application to Mac OS 8, "Appearance Manager", which took a dig into his possible user base. Some people decided against getting Kaleidoscope (with it's hundreds of themes) and waited for Apple to turn out more than one theme or at least the tools to create Appearance Manager compliant themes. Two additional themes floated around ftp servers for awhile but since Apple never officially released them they were difficult to find. Well, "Platinum" was the only theme ever released and many felt Apple "strung" users along so Kaleidoscope would die off. (There's a lot more to this story and this is just a quick overview.)

Fast forward to today. Apple will soon be releasing Mac OS 10.4 aka "Tiger" with a program called Dashboard (although Arlo claims that Dashboard won't be out until next year). Dashboard is an application that allows users to have small javascript apps on their desktop that will access their calendar, different style clocks, control iTunes and lots of different things. The problem is is that Arlo has had similar and very popular program out for a year and a half called Konfabulator. Dashboard and Konfabulator both use small javascript "widgets" to create desktop applications. To many it seems Apple once again has used it's position as the creators of Mac OS X to snuff out another programmer that has a popular addition to their OS.

I'm not saying that Apple stole anything or did anything legally wrong but IMO they should've tried to work with Konfabulator. Maybe they could've bought some limited rights or bundled a stripped down version instead of just stepping on it. To me many of MS's past tactics and Apple's in this case are quite similar, and IMO unfair.

(FYI: I only know what has be put out on the net about the Dashboard vs. Konfabulator issue. Maybe they did try to work something out and the deal didn't go through. Apple hasn't said much about it, not out of the norm for them.)

Arlo Rose use to work for Apple in their Human Interface Design Center and took a voluntary layoff. He then started his own little company and later launched Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a theme rendering engine for Mac OS 7 to 9.1. Apple later turned out a similar application to Mac OS 8, "Appearance Manager", which took a dig into his possible user base. Some people decided against getting Kaleidoscope (with it's hundreds of themes) and waited for Apple to turn out more than one theme or at least the tools to create Appearance Manager compliant themes. Two additional themes floated around ftp servers for awhile but since Apple never officially released them they were difficult to find. Well, "Platinum" was the only theme ever released and many felt Apple "strung" users along so Kaleidoscope would die off. (There's a lot more to this story and this is just a quick overview.)

Fast forward to today. Apple will soon be releasing Mac OS 10.4 aka "Tiger" with a program called Dashboard (although Arlo claims that Dashboard won't be out until next year). Dashboard is an application that allows users to have small javascript apps on their desktop that will access their calendar, different style clocks, control iTunes and lots of different things. The problem is is that Arlo has had similar and very popular program out for a year and a half called Konfabulator. Dashboard and Konfabulator both use small javascript "widgets" to create desktop applications. To many it seems Apple once again has used it's position as the creators of Mac OS X to snuff out another programmer that has a popular addition to their OS.

I'm not saying that Apple stole anything or did anything legally wrong but IMO they should've tried to work with Konfabulator. Maybe they could've bought some limited rights or bundled a stripped down version instead of just stepping on it. To me many of MS's past tactics and Apple's in this case are quite similar, and IMO unfair.

(FYI: I only know what has be put out on the net about the Dashboard vs. Konfabulator issue. Maybe they did try to work something out and the deal didn't go through. Apple hasn't said much about it, not out of the norm for them.)

Arlo Rose use to work for Apple in their Human Interface Design Center and took a voluntary layoff. He then started his own little company and later launched Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a theme rendering engine for Mac OS 7 to 9.1. Apple later turned out a similar application to Mac OS 8, "Appearance Manager", which took a dig into his possible user base. Some people decided against getting Kaleidoscope (with it's hundreds of themes) and waited for Apple to turn out more than one theme or at least the tools to create Appearance Manager compliant themes. Two additional themes floated around ftp servers for awhile but since Apple never officially released them they were difficult to find. Well, "Platinum" was the only theme ever released and many felt Apple "strung" users along so Kaleidoscope would die off. (There's a lot more to this story and this is just a quick overview.)

Fast forward to today. Apple will soon be releasing Mac OS 10.4 aka "Tiger" with a program called Dashboard (although Arlo claims that Dashboard won't be out until next year). Dashboard is an application that allows users to have small javascript apps on their desktop that will access their calendar, different style clocks, control iTunes and lots of different things. The problem is is that Arlo has had similar and very popular program out for a year and a half called Konfabulator. Dashboard and Konfabulator both use small javascript "widgets" to create desktop applications. To many it seems Apple once again has used it's position as the creators of Mac OS X to snuff out another programmer that has a popular addition to their OS.

I'm not saying that Apple stole anything or did anything legally wrong but IMO they should've tried to work with Konfabulator. Maybe they could've bought some limited rights or bundled a stripped down version instead of just stepping on it. To me many of MS's past tactics and Apple's in this case are quite similar, and IMO unfair.

(FYI: I only know what has be put out on the net about the Dashboard vs. Konfabulator issue. Maybe they did try to work something out and the deal didn't go through. Apple hasn't said much about it, not out of the norm for them.)

Arlo Rose use to work for Apple in their Human Interface Design Center and took a voluntary layoff. He then started his own little company and later launched Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a theme rendering engine for Mac OS 7 to 9.1. Apple later turned out a similar application to Mac OS 8, "Appearance Manager", which took a dig into his possible user base. Some people decided against getting Kaleidoscope (with it's hundreds of themes) and waited for Apple to turn out more than one theme or at least the tools to create Appearance Manager compliant themes. Two additional themes floated around ftp servers for awhile but since Apple never officially released them they were difficult to find. Well, "Platinum" was the only theme ever released and many felt Apple "strung" users along so Kaleidoscope would die off. (There's a lot more to this story and this is just a quick overview.)

Fast forward to today. Apple will soon be releasing Mac OS 10.4 aka "Tiger" with a program called Dashboard (although Arlo claims that Dashboard won't be out until next year). Dashboard is an application that allows users to have small javascript apps on their desktop that will access their calendar, different style clocks, control iTunes and lots of different things. The problem is is that Arlo has had similar and very popular program out for a year and a half called Konfabulator. Dashboard and Konfabulator both use small javascript "widgets" to create desktop applications. To many it seems Apple once again has used it's position as the creators of Mac OS X to snuff out another programmer that has a popular addition to their OS.

I'm not saying that Apple stole anything or did anything legally wrong but IMO they should've tried to work with Konfabulator. Maybe they could've bought some limited rights or bundled a stripped down version instead of just stepping on it. To me many of MS's past tactics and Apple's in this case are quite similar, and IMO unfair.

(FYI: I only know what has be put out on the net about the Dashboard vs. Konfabulator issue. Maybe they did try to work something out and the deal didn't go through. Apple hasn't said much about it, not out of the norm for them.)

Nono, that's Konfabulator's line...

http://www.konfabulator.com/

sortof.

Heh, and the Konfabulator people, Watson folks, et al., might've something to contribute to that discussion as well.

Well, they couldn't make it an exact ripoff of Konfabulator!

"Jaguar seemed pretty polished to me, and Panther is simply the bomb. Tiger, I think, is going to be utterly and undeniably HOT."

Oh God. Can we talk objectively for once? This nonsense of admonishing everything Apple creates on Slashdot is getting a little insane. And this is coming from someone currently typing on an iBook.

Apple makes very good UIs. They also tends to come out with some hardware hits (iPod) and misses (tie-dye iMac anyone)? They're a corporation like everyone else. They remain silent on security issues, continue to charge an arm and a leg for software updates (10.3, despite what some people felt, wasn't worth $100), and steal from the few developers that actively support the platform.

The fact that I'm hearing people say "I'd pay $100 just for Dashboard" is absolutely nuts. Look at what you're getting. Think sensibly for once.

The current Konfabulator home page more than makes up for that. ("Cupertino, start your photocopiers")

On the other hand, here is the official response from Arlo, the developer behind Konfabulator.

I think the most interesting point is that he knows about the 6-month head-start he has before Dashboard is available to the public.

What can be done in the mean time? Making more useful widgets. Porting to other platforms (the Windows port was announced in December). More importantly, enhance the application (maybe adding the same appear-only-with-key-pressed), and reduce the CPU load (using WebKit, it might also be possible to make Konfabulator Dashboard-compatible).

First, look at the Apple Developer Connection Inside Macintosh: Devices Device Manager chapter on Writing a Desk Accessory. Next, read Netscape's Sidebar Developer's Guide. Then, read the Konfabulator Widget XML and Javascript Reference documentation. Finally, read Apple's own marketing description of the Dashboard technology. Now, do Dashboard and Konfabulator sound to you like two unrelated descendants of Desk Accessories (on parallel branches), or does it sound to you like there's a progression in development technologies from Desk Accessories to Sidebars to Konfabulator to Dashboard?

Next, ask yourself this question: if Konfabulator were made by Real Technologies, and Dashboard were part of Windows, would the DoJ be investigating? Even if Apple isn't copying the technology of Konfabulator, they are clearly poaching on Konfabulator's market. Now, there's nothing either illegal or immoral about this - that's the way business is done, sometimes - unless you happen to be a monopoly trying to drive competitors out of business.

Apple's position is not as a monopoly trying to fend off potential competitors, but as a platform champion which SHOULD be trying to expand its market share by expanding the capabilities and the desirability of its platform. By embracing Open Source and UNIX-based technologies, Apple seemed to be moving to expand its developer base and thus the capabilities and desirability of its platform. Apple could choose to be offer a wide-ranging alternative, or it could choose to marginalize itself in the pursuit of total control over its niche.

So it was depressingly stupid marketing of Apple to introduce Dashboard at WWDC. The audience of the WWDC isn't an audience of potential dashboard widget developers - they aren't HTML/JavaScript folks. The audience of the WWDC are independent developers - and they were treated with a wonderful object lesson of how Apple treats independent developers who try to improve the platform and introduce new technologies with the potential to increase the adaptability and desirability of the platform: Apple crushes them in a Keynote. Adobe dropped Premiere because of Final Cut Pro - and we all thought it was OK (I thought it was OK; I have a copy myself) because Final Cut Pro is a better product and is focused purely on the Apple Platform. MS is dropping IE, probably because of Safari - and we thought it was OK (certainly I thought it was OK) because Safari was based upon an Open Source framework (KHTML) and was giving back to the community, and IE is IE - it controls the market, it's Goliath, and it was good to see Apple give us a David to root for. What are we going to do when Apple goes after Alias, or BareBones, or Intuit? Probably root for Apple. But when Apple crushes all the Arlo Roses of the world, who's going to be left to write software for our precious Macs?

I hear that Konfabulator won a prize too, but it's the kind that you don't want to win and doesn't come with a shiny plaque.

It's been said before don't be a sharecropper.

If you must work on proprietary OSes then don't do something that extends the Operating System itself. Widgets are a classic example. If you read Konfabulator's post about it - they do not seem totally surprised.

Software development is a Red Queen Race - you've got to stay ahead of the competition by being better faster cooler. The race that Apple is running is not against its developers but Windows. All power to them. Sure it would be nice for them to buy up innovative products like they (supposedly) did with the original multi-finder.

Not sure why they don't. It seems obvious that Windows developers half hope that MS would buy them out. But it could be argued that this would open Apple up to problems of intellectual property challenges that they couldn't afford to pay for. If you've another idea way they don't play more fair then post here.

But they do buy out good software products. Some of the Pro software has been bought from other developers.

But if you develop software too close to Apple's core business then I guess you have to look at that Sharecropper paradigm again and avoid it.

So lookout if you work on the following plots of ground...

Search (Watson)
Music (Audion)
Networking (Dave)
Desk Accessories / OS extensions (Konfabulator)
Browsers / Internet Content & Search (Camino, NewsNetWire)
Video editing

I think you'd be foolish to develop a PVR for Mac OS X for instance - that covers several of the above fields... basically a Video iTunes with search and networking - perhaps that RSS stuff as well. Expect Apple to run with this for sure - that new codec H.264 should run pretty well over AirPort Express... and wait until wireless UWB Firewire hits silicon.

Still - shame on Apple - seems like they could do better. They even had the gall to present this stuff at the WWDC - where the developers would surely know where they were getting the inspiration from.... amongst the ranks of those in the audience. Hell the Konfabulator guys, Arlo Rose & Perry Clarke, were probably in the audience!

Copycats. Get it? They're all cats, and they get copied. (Or copy other things, in a couple cases. See? It's a double entendre. Or something.

We Will Decapitate Competitors?

Excuses, excuses. It doesn't matter if the "possibility" of Konfabulator widgets was built into the OS; operating systems have the possibility for pretty much ANYTHING built into them. If MS adds expose into Longhorn, are you going to leave MS alone if they say that the capability was built into the OS? I don't think so. The possibility of Dashboard was there, the idea wasn't, and the implementation certainly came long after Konfabulator, Samurize, Karamba, and gDesklets. So how you can say Apple originated widgets like this without laughing is beyond me.

APPLE IS KILLING ANOTHER THIRD-PARTY APPLICATION. That's the FACT. Konfabulator is DEAD. Just like Watson is DEAD. Just like MS gave up on IE for Mac when Apple started bundling Safari. And the list goes on and on and on and on.... Apple pushes their OS control advantage to steal ideas from the little guys, just like Microsoft does. There is NO difference. NONE. And if you weren't such an Apple fanboy, you'd realize that this is very bad for Apple over the long-term. My boss knows I'm a mac user, and asked whether we should port our business software over to the mac. I TOTALLY discouraged him. I know for a fact that Apple waits to see what's popular, then apes the idea nearly perfectly without apology, killing the TRUE innovators, who quickly fade into nothingness and bankruptcy. So the OS X platform has lost a much-needed piece of business software. Apple users can suffer for all we care. Someone else can risk their company on serving a fickle and ungrateful 2% market. We won't. We would've, but not with the shark we call Apple hunting everybody who wanders into their waters. We'll port it to Linux FAR before we support Apple.

Mac fanatics crucify Microsoft for stealing "their" icons and a GUI; mac fanatics crucify Linux for some rogue users who copy the Aqua look and magnifying icons on their taskbars; but the same Mac fanatics steadfastly defended Apple after they stole Watson. They defended Apple for treating their employees like crap. They defended Apple for often making shoddy products and charging through the nose to fix them. They defend Apple for everything they won't let anyone else get away with.

And now, when Apple has OBVIOUSLY ripped off Konfabulator, right down to duplicating the same widgets nearly icon for icon, mac fanatics jump in to defend them again. Un-BEE-LEEV-able! What hypocritical arrogant bullshit.

I wouldn't be surprised if you also said the Holocaust never happened; you all seem to get your kicks out of rewriting history.

Go ahead and mod me 'Flamebait', but some of the new features very strongly resemble applications written by independent developers. Dashboard? Meet Konfabulator. Spotlight? Meet Launchbar. Safari's new RSS feature? Meet NetNewsWire. IIRC, Apple did the same thing involving Watson when it added channels to Sherlock.

Maybe this is why Apple distributes the Developer Tools free of charge; so they can coopt any product that is created using those Developer Tools?

No they didn't.

Here's a link to the konfabulator message boards, in which Arlo Rose says:

"Nope, no offer"

Cupertino, start your photocopiers (oh, and don't forget to print those big posters about Microsoft stealing Tiger features).

I (heart) what Apple does as much as and probably more than the next guy, but you have to admit the simularities are suspicious. Apple had/has "desk accessories" in 10.1, 10.2 and 10.3, but the implementation of those desk accessories were always application level. "Dashboard Widgets" are sub-application level desktop citizens, written in Javascript -- just like "Konfabulator Widgets".

Backing up a bit, what I guess I'm trying to say is that Apple gets a lot of milage out of being the "Good Cop" to a good portion of the computer industries' "Bad Cop", and has reaped the generous benefit of this good karma over the past few years with an outpouring of support from Mac users, the open source community, the press, etc. "Borrowing" these ideas and then ingenuously pretending that competing products never truly existed (Watson, Konfabulator, LaunchBar) is simply Bad Karma, and if there's any company that should be mindful of the Karma Index, it should be Apple.

And, practically speaking, it's not like Steve doesn't have a wheelbarrow of cash handy.

~jeff

I don't know, man. I use Konfabulator and this is probably a little more theft than innovation on Apple's part. On the one hand, we'll have to wait to see how Dashboard works out to know how similar the two systems are (frankly, the little video they have on apple.com doesn't look as smooth as Konfabulator), but basing it on JavaScript and calling them Widgets is... disingenuous. Coming from Apple, you'd think it'd be based on AppleScript and the objects would be called... um... iApps or something.

Also, Apple DOES have a history of buying up and using innovative 3rd-party extensions. The best example is probably WindowShade, which was a 3rd party CDEV until Apple bought it and rolled it right into the OS. At first, I thought that's what Apple had done with Konfabulator (like what Apple SHOULD do with LaunchBar and PathFinder).

In the end I'm glad this kind of functionality will make it to all of Apple's users, but it WOULD be nice if there were a tradition of Apple recognizing existing quality implementations of good ideas by buying, improving, and distributing them. Don't you think?

It's not.

Wheelbarrow of money could make this all better, Steve. Wheelbarrow of money.

~jeff

I mean, really.

Dashboard looks like it does everything konfabulator does, with possibly a smidge more tossed in. Oh, and no registration reminder. Bet those guys are happy.

The Konfabulator home page suggests that it wasn't licensed.

Those banners have taken on a newer, more conflicted meaning for me, as I can't help but to notice two of Tiger's biggest features, "Dashboard" and "Spotlight" are carbon copies of some of the nicest third-party apps available for Mac OS X today, "Konfabulator" and "LaunchBar", respectively.

I'm of the opinion that UI advancements like LaunchBar and Konfabulator are of such high-quality that everyone should be able to take advantage of them, which means to break them out of their niche market (third party mac apps are by definition a fraction of a fraction of a market) they need to be rolled into the OS. So I'm happy about that. I'm happy that my Mom will be using "Widgets".

And "Dashboard" and "Spotlight" or whatever seem to be at least high-quality implementations of said UI advances; as they should be, as they are carbon copies of already thoroughly refined products.

But if Steve doesn't personally show up to Arlo's house with a cartoonishly overflowing wheelbarrow of cash, I'll be pretty fucking disappointed. Konfabulator was clearly Arlo's labor of love for several years, and overnight Apple has relegated it to second-ran status by slavishly copying it.

~jeff

I think you'll all be surprised how low Apple has sunk on Monday.

It seems even the Konfabulator authors are surprised by this. Even as a mac fan, I think it is reprehensible.

Remember Watson? Remember how Sherlock 3 basically became Watson?

Remember Konfabulator with all of its widgets? Well, now Tiger's going to have Dashboard. I wonder if it will accept Konfabulator widgets (which I've been using) or if there will be an "import" program? And Konfabulator 1.7 just added Expose-like features (press F8 to get your Widgets in front - useful).

Granted, Apple had something like this back in the older Mac days (or so I've read here and there), so it's kind of like they're "bringing back" something old into the new - but if you're an Apple developer, it seems as though there's always the fear that your favorite app will get assimilated into the next version of OS X.

Granted, I like OS X (my work is buying me a new Powerbook in about a week - yay me), but it does kind of make you go "Hm".

it looks like apple's giving konfabulator the same treatment with dashboard as they gave soundjam with itunes, watson with sherlock... i don't get it. on one hand, they're bringing their developers closer with all these great development tools-- XCode 2.0's OO diagramming features look very sweet as well as the Java tools-- but they have the gall to blatantly steal the finest fruits of the third-party developers' labors?

Apple's basically gone and done their own version of the coolness that is Konfabulator, little widgets that do a variety of things.

I second Konfabulator. It's so well done it feels like it was always part of the system.

http://www.theonion.com/onion3604/doesnt_own_telev ision.html

Props to someToast@Konfabulator Forums.

Specify a script in a single XML file, run by an interpreter specified by the filename extension? This sounds alot like how Konfabulator works, and many of the widgets available have all the scripting information in a single .kon file

Tons of iTunes related apps. Great program anyways...

Thanks, I was wondering why so much fuss was being talked about a "MySQL error: too many connections" page...

I have something similar to this for Mac OS X, called Konfabulator. It's very neat, but suffers a bit from a problem already mentioned several times here: pretty widgets are usually big widgets, because it takes more icons to be pretty and functional than it does to just be functional. And big widgets are much more likely to be covered by open windows.

Mind you, I could hook my spare 17" monitor up to $RANDOM_BOX and just have it showing a bunch of these things all the time. That'd rock.

So basically they're all just knock-offs of Konfabulator...

Here is a Gnome desktop widget that is actually quite a bit more interesting: Dashboard, software that gets fed "clues" from other applications, and searches some databases for related information.

So this is kind of like Konfabulator?

The Mac already has something better. Konfabulator

Try konfabulator which does the same for Apples. I've bought it and love the way I have so much eye candy on the screen that I end up only using about two thirds for productive work!

Also on the Mac, I've reversed the gamecast applet protocol that ESPN.com uses and created a Konfabulator widget that does the gamecast. There is NOTHING stopping you from doing the same thing (and it's much easier, assuming you're comfortable around packet sniffers and writting HTTP clients) for yahoo or gamecast.

Sujal

Err, that link should be to here. Sorry!

And for those who want to foster more cross pollination (in either direction), I present...

Konfabulator!

I know, the K makes it look KDE... it isn't :)

This looks very much like konfabulator for os x.

While certain features of OSX (such as the movie listings) don't work properly in .jp

Looks like a Super Konfabulator to me..... THis could be pretty cool. But not anything anyone really needs. Personally i like native os widgets in my apps, not 2 tone vector ones..

I sure as hell hope that the makers of Konfabulator submitted their app. They're hands-down a winner in almost all of the categories.

Man, I LOVE Konfab! So....COOL....must....register......

When you start it up, it says something to the effect of "I'll walk you through the startup." and then does a number of things WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. First, it creates a ~/Documents/widgets directory. It doesn't warn me about this until after it is done.

Guess we'd better also string up Adobe (Acrobat), Oracle (Corporate Time), Qualcomm (Eudora), Apple (Final Cut family), Microsoft (Office), and Connectix (Virtual PC) for putting things in ~/Library/Documents...

Then it launches a bunch of mini-apps; again, it does not ask me if this is ok.

That's the authors' judgement call about how to start the application. Your comment would be the same as saying "Microsoft Office started the PROJECT GALLERY without my permission!"

I ended up in a state where I had all these weird things on my screen

The setup assistant tells you it's opening up a few sample widgets for you, just to get you familiar with it. It also tells you that you may close any or all of them.

and no application in my dock/ This thing is running but I have no way to shut it down. I had to open Terminal to kill the app.

LOL! The setup assistant also tells you that Konfabulator is controlled and accessed via its menu extra, which is represented by two little gears on your menu bar. It's got a "Quit" option right there.

This thing breaks the entire Apple human Interface guidelines

No it doesn't, as everything you've said so far is wrong.

it sticks applications in the users Documents directory which should never be done

They're not applications at all. (You could also argue that this, and quite a bit of the other stuff placed in Documents, would be more appropriately placed in ~/Library, but that's another discussion altogether.)

and to add insult upon injury, it only runs clocks and stuff -- there is no way to write your own application that I could see.

Oh, this is especially hilarious! You apparently didn't look at Konfabulator's website at all, nor did you take two seconds to look at any of the widgets, which are all just text JavaScript code that can be rewritten or modified in any way, nor did you see the fully documented reference for creating widgets, nor did you apparently even READ the post you responded to! Do you think that it's through some magic that the widget library exists? That there is no way to write code, yet people somehow manage, by miracle of miracles, to be doing it?

Konfabulator: USELESS and HARMFUL.

Your post: USELESS and HARMFUL.

When you start it up, it says something to the effect of "I'll walk you through the startup." and then does a number of things WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. First, it creates a ~/Documents/widgets directory. It doesn't warn me about this until after it is done.

Guess we'd better also string up Adobe (Acrobat), Oracle (Corporate Time), Qualcomm (Eudora), Apple (Final Cut family), Microsoft (Office), and Connectix (Virtual PC) for putting things in ~/Library/Documents...

Then it launches a bunch of mini-apps; again, it does not ask me if this is ok.

That's the authors' judgement call about how to start the application. Your comment would be the same as saying "Microsoft Office started the PROJECT GALLERY without my permission!"

I ended up in a state where I had all these weird things on my screen

The setup assistant tells you it's opening up a few sample widgets for you, just to get you familiar with it. It also tells you that you may close any or all of them.

and no application in my dock/ This thing is running but I have no way to shut it down. I had to open Terminal to kill the app.

LOL! The setup assistant also tells you that Konfabulator is controlled and accessed via its menu extra, which is represented by two little gears on your menu bar. It's got a "Quit" option right there.

This thing breaks the entire Apple human Interface guidelines

No it doesn't, as everything you've said so far is wrong.

it sticks applications in the users Documents directory which should never be done

They're not applications at all. (You could also argue that this, and quite a bit of the other stuff placed in Documents, would be more appropriately placed in ~/Library, but that's another discussion altogether.)

and to add insult upon injury, it only runs clocks and stuff -- there is no way to write your own application that I could see.

Oh, this is especially hilarious! You apparently didn't look at Konfabulator's website at all, nor did you take two seconds to look at any of the widgets, which are all just text JavaScript code that can be rewritten or modified in any way, nor did you see the fully documented reference for creating widgets, nor did you apparently even READ the post you responded to! Do you think that it's through some magic that the widget library exists? That there is no way to write code, yet people somehow manage, by miracle of miracles, to be doing it?

Konfabulator: USELESS and HARMFUL.

Your post: USELESS and HARMFUL.