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Apple Sues To Stop Leaks
citizen_bongo writes "MacCentral reports that Apple has filed suit against unnamed individual employees of Apple and of other companies who were trusted with Apple trade secrets. The suit names 25 "Does" and surely will increase if Apple "uncovers" any more people in the conspiracy. This comes after the leak by ATI on the new Apple product line and the leaks surfacing about the Cube weeks before the MacWorld Expo." The irony is that if Apple's legal hadn't gone after the sites with Cube images, everyone woulda ignored it or thought it a hoax.
...is the worst part of Apple. I love Apple, but their legal department has been responsable for trying to quash anything Apple related that they cannot control. Try going to www.adcritic.com, and doing a search for the word 'Apple'. You will find that all of their ads have been taken down, due to Apple's Legal department. In an era where advertising in the form of leaks has created much revenue, Apple's legal department is going to help them slide back into obscurity.
so you'd have company's confidential infromation stolen from them with no legal way for them to stop it? you think that NDA's are "just a piece of paper" that have no meaning?
look, i think this shit is lame, too. these leaks are helping apple, not hurting them. suing your own employees/fans may be a fad now (northwest, metallica, now apple), but that doesn't mean it isn't stupid.
however, unless you want to overturn our entire economic system (cute idea, but ain't gonna happen), you have to grant companies the right to keep confidential what they want to be confidential. NDA's have to be legally binding.
the most basic principal of any sound economy has to be that consenting adults should be free to enter any arrangement or agreement they choose, as long as doesn't directly harm anyone else. if i sign a paper, of my own free will, that you can tie me up and beat me for money, then that's the law, pal. likewise an NDA.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
- Apple commercial, 1984.
For those who came in late, those lines were supposed to be from the other guys, not Apple.
I'm not sure what you are talking about. Everything I've said about libel is true go look it up if you don't believe me. Rob & Co. could have a lawsuit about this if they wished.
That wasn't a troll, that was a statement of fact.
Very simple, because then people will be waiting for the new computer rather than going out and buying a computer now. This hurts apples bottom line in a big way, theyre well within their rights to try and stop leaks.
->mafiaboy
->mafiaboy
don't confuse political expression with vandalism
...on Apple's part. Publicity is most always good, but after awhile this method of drawing attention to themselves will stale in the consumer's eyes.
M$: "We're #2!"
Therefore I urge you not to do business with Apple until they check their lawyers at the door and recognize the proper purpose of a legal system.
The proper purpose of a legal system is not to enforce a non-disclosure CONTRACT?
It's time to punish Apple for these tactics. If they spent half as much time and effort trying to develop their products as they do trying to squash ordinary rumours, maybe MacOS X would have shipped by now. The rule of law exists to protect against egregious offenses that threaten life or property. There is no way you can possibly tell me that rumours and leaks threaten Apple's property.
The rule of law ALSO exists in order to enforce non-life threatening or property threating agreements or contracts between two adults who otherwise are engaged in a normal business relationship. It is up to those two parties, not us nor the court system, to gage the degree of damage done when one of two consenting adults entering a contract decide not to carry out his part of that contract.
To assume that the law should not extend to governing contracts is to assume that contracts are worthless constructs, and that our society should behave as "who can fuck you before you can fuck them."
At which point, if this is the society you are advocating, then an employee of Apple has no recourse when Apple decides to take away his last month's pay.
I'm sorry, but the non-disclosure CONTRACT is just that: a contract. Just because some people can't be bothered to honor a contractual agreement they've entered because they don't appreciate the agreement doesn't mean they should be forgiven when they violate the contract. And just because we think this particular contract may be silly doesn't mean we should not enforce it: otherwise, other contractual agreements (such as sales contracts and work-for-hire contracts) may also be effectively null and void.
They may as well sue to stop taking a leak. It'd do just about as much good.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The irony is that they layed claim to 1984 to appear as some kind of freedom-oriented company.
The great thing about evil is it destroys itself. Even if Apple becomes the #1 computer in the world, everyone will hate them sufficiently to bring them down at their own game. Just look at microsoft.
Man I have my best thoughts when I'm drinking!
Try MacAddict and this News.com article.
It appears that Apple is only suing so it can force the various leaks to rat on their links. I guess they want to try to kill the entire food chain. Oh well.
The subject line here says it all, my dear sir. Fuck having the best economy in the world if you don't have the right to enjoy basic freedoms. Besides which, you're wrong about this:
> if i sign a paper, of my own free will, that you can tie me up and beat me for
> money, then that's the law, pal. likewise an NDA.
You cannot under any circumstances make a legal contract to do an illegal thing. Such a contract is non-binding and not legally enforceable. That's why indentured servitude is illegal, why contracts to provide sex are illegal (except in parts of Nevada), and contracts allowing someone to do bodily harm to you are illegal. Of course, bodily harm can be done to you in the course of a job, and if you've signed a liability waiver then you can't sue over such injury, but you cannot have a legally inforceable contract such that one party is specifically allowed to do bodily harm to another in and of itself, without that merely being a chance of harm in a hazardous job. I'd explain the finer points and look up a case reference or two, but I don't feel like explaining this--it's easier to explain sex to a virgin than to explain the law to a non-attorney.
But getting back to the main issues, yes, Apple can and if it wants to be stupid (and it seems to want to be *extremely* so) does file suit for NDA violations, but it CANNOT and SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT to file suit against the media outlets which ran the leaks. And that's who Apple is always threatening--news sites, the media, *the press*, who have explicit First Amendment rights to run stories on Apple's upcoming products if they wish to. That's who Apple is always threatening, and *that* is why they're evil. A third party has no obligation to obey an NDA, and the press has no obligation to reveal its sources. You obviously care about money more than freedom, and I pity that.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Howdy
While Apple may make products THEY think are neat enough, consumers purchase those products as well... because they think they are 'neat' to throw their dollars/pounds/yen at them.
Those products also do the job... as far as the consumers are concerned. Apple keeps the customer happy.
I wish you could publish the link about the focus group. I find it hard to imagine that a multi-billion dollar company like Apple would plunge a product into the market-place without the research that proved, at least to them, that their product would make sense.
As far as suing a bunch of employees... every employee in my company understands that outside our company walls there are no friendlies. Any employee who blabs to the press, friends (whoever they may), rivals, and competitors is a liability.
Apple have used the EXPO gatherings as a platform to launch new products over the last few years with Steve Jobs as the ringmaster. It is a formula which has worked in the past for them. It has become an essential marketing tool for them... directed to the developers, customers, resellers (most important), and the press.
You cannot blame nor curse any company who tries to stop such product announcement leaks.
It will be interesting to see the outcome of this legal "blast". It will, as it is designed in my opinion, throw a scare into the idiots who work at Apple who should know better than to blather away to "rumours" sites. They gain nothing by those leaks except "personal karma" and "coolness"... and they may harm Apple, and their jobs, in the future.
cheers
front
So you feel Apple has a right to sue news organizations for reporting? Huh?
To the best of my knowledge, Apple hasn't actually sued any news organizations. But if they did, yes, I believe they have the right to do so.
Apple pay you to astroturf for them?
Please.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
So a few weeks ago Apple sue a rumor site or two over the Cube and every scream bloody murder and tell Apple "the rumor sites are innocent, they didn't break any NDA. They just got info from people who broke NDAs, but getting the info itself is not illegal. You should sue the people who broke the NDA."
So far it makes sense. It was stupid of Apple to sue the rumor sites.
Now Apple does the right thing, i.e. suing the people who broke the NDA contracts and people are screaming bloody murder again.
Guess what? if the NDAs are not enforced, they become useless. If they become useless, companies will stop using them and bye-bye to early software & hardware seeding. Yep, Apple has hardware seeding too.
Well, they must have a pyromaniac at the company. Yesterday, Macintouch.com had users reporting macs catching on fire.
"We've had two reports of fires in recent Mac models, raising some concerns about leaving the computers unattended."
from Josh Barton:
"First, the hard drive in one literally caught on fire during the night. I came in to the office to the pleasent smell of burning plastic and electronics to find some fire damage to the inside of the computer. Thank goodness a thick piece of metal stopped the flames before they burned through the plastic of the computer and started a major fire."
from David Shenk:
"On Friday afternoon, May 26, my Powerbook G3 (333/Bronze) spontaneously caught fire while I was typing in my home office. It was a very small fire and I put it out in a few seconds, but there was real smoke and it was quickly melting the case on the bottom."
"I've gotten a strong indication from Apple that they will not be reporting it to anyone. Further, they informed me today that what happened to my computer is now considered 'proprietary' and 'confidential,' and that I am not entitled to any sort of explanation."
from Ty Davison
"Well this wasn't fun. New Pismo PowerBook 500-MHz trying to go into FireWire Target Disk Mode so that the hard drive would show up on my friends B&W G3/300. New FireWire cable connected in FireWire port 1 of both machines. The Pismo enters Target disk mode (FireWire logo on the screen) but no hard drive icon on the G3. I shut the PowerBook down. I change the FireWire cable to port 2 in the G3. I pull the FireWire cable out of port one in the PowerBook, and I get a crackling sound and SMOKE out of the FireWire port 2 as a plug the cable in. (And the PIsmo is off!)"
Get your bread ready, cos we're making toast! Solves all of those winter heating problems! Nothing beats the smell of melting macs in the morning!
;)
Brings new meaning to the term "firewire", eh?
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
In the rest of the world we've always wondered why the US legal system seemed so utterly screwed up, with everyone suing everyone else and only the lawyers winning in every case, but now we see the process in action, even here.
... but you're just not looking far enough ahead. A worm's eye view won't show you the monster lying in wait just over the hill.
Far from trying to introduce a note of sanity, even the techie community encourages the lawyers in their headless-chicken run with their sue-everyone guns blazing, as in the response to this item. At first glance the replies seem reasonable
Well, you deserve what you get. Just don't complain later about DMCA, RIAA, MPAA, and every other darn piece of lawyer predation.
The law is not a silver bullet. A pact with the devil may be a closer analogy --- eventually you will pay the price.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Osm never had any legal issues, you fucking moron. The whole thing was settled as a hoax barely one hour into its existence. I bet you believe what zik zak writes, too.
As long as we are off topic, let me just call the collective bluff of a significat percentage of people posting to slashdot. Prompted by your post and based on what I have to wade throgh daily on slashdot (that hotmail thread being particularly represantative) it is clear to me that most of you linux zealots do not and can not have the intellectual capacity to run linux even half competently.
So, between you an me, you're all a bunch of fucking losers running windows 98 arent you?
Hmmmm, this is intriguing. I suppose even the most loyal Apple employee could be enticed to leak information, because while he's an Apple employee, he's most likely also an Apple user/lover/fanboy/cult-member. The employee side of him says, "I'm going to keep this awesome new product top-secret until it's absolutely perfect, and when it is released, it will take the world by storm." The fanboy side says, "My fellow Apple weenies and I crave news of upcoming Apple products! One little leak won't hurt."
Okay, so nothing's simple. But I think Apple is doing the right thing.
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
Are you saying that people who violate non-disclosure agreements should not be sued?
Or are you saying that Apple does not have the right to do anything in secret?
From the referenced url: a 500 MHz G4 is roughly equivalent to an 800 MHz PIII or Athlon
Still sounds like the G4 offers more bang for your buck.
Way to take a fragment of a sentence out of context. You must work in marketing. If you had bothered to read the sentence you are misquoting you'll note that it only applies to photoshop. You'll also note that there's a reasonably large set of benchmarks on the page.
You should also note that an 800mhz athlon is only $220 or and that you can assemble an 800mhz athlon workstation for less than the price of a 500mhz g4 and that you can get a better video card in the system too.
--Shoeboy
Suppose you were working for a large company that had behaved egregiously, for example, by releasing hazardous chemicals, or dangerous healthcare or food products... would an NDA overide your civic and human responsibilities?
Ethically speaking, I think that evidence of actualy criminal activity, and certainly the variety which has the potential to cause physical harm to individuals, would override the need to abide by an NDA.
I do not believe, however, than an employee simply being unhappy with their job is reason enough to provide inside information to an outside publication as retaliation. Too often this is the case. Journalists just love to eat up any gossip surrounding internal company conflicts, and often the facts are distorted as the story is only told through the point of view of the source. And getting back to the original topic, this happened to Apple several years back, and it was a disaster. Online news outlets were using unhappy employees (during the Amelio->Jobs transition) as pawns in a scheme to sensationalize the Apple/NeXT merger.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Even though it turned out that apple was working on the iMac instead, Apple Legal still asked rumors sites to remove material about the "network appliance" that didn't exist.
It's probably a little more complicated than this. Larry Elisson (Oracle fame) is very much inclined in a NC machine. He's on the board of director of Apple. He's a good friend of Jobs.
So, Apple may have been working in an NC in the past, but at some point in time, they realised that they couldn't effectivelly penetrate that market at that time (at least until Apple gained it's reputation/credibility back--this is back when Apple was "doomed").
So, they turn around, add a hard drive and bingo, the perfect home setup (3.7 million+ buyers confirms this). but, if you inspect this machine carefully, it's written NC all over it.
Dont beleive me? Fire up a packet sniffer, and boot an iMac holding down the "n" key. It tries to boot off a "netboot" server (a well advertised feature of MOSX). The interesting thing is that the iMac identifies itself as "MacNC".
Apple's intent in this lawsuit, as far as I can gatter, is it's need (yes, need) to protect itself against leaks of would-be product that could end up not being marketed as such, or released at all for various reasons. It's quite damaging for Apple if the bulk of it's followers expect a quad-processor machine (as rumored) when actually none were meant (or fit) to ship. Same thing for the "squeesable" mouse (another false rumour), or it's wireless mouse//keyboard (something that might have proved difficult to market at this time if, for example, Apple thought it sucked too much life out of ordinaty batteries, and decided to wait a bit).
More information on the lawsuit is available on MacSlash, including a discussion with a legal clerk at the San Jose courthouse where charges have been filed.
It appears that Apple has subpoeaned Yahoo to get the IP address of a Geocities user who posted pictures of the Dual G4 and mouse. Check out the story for more details.
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MacSlash: Your Daily Dose of Mac News and Discussion.
And really, what harm was done? This just seems so pointless and nothing but bad PR for Apple.
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rooooar
CNBC today revealed on air that one of the John/Jane Does (most likely the primary John/Jane Doe) that Apple is chasing after in their suit is a message board poster named "Workerbee" who posted on the Yahoo APPL message board as well as AppleInsider's Future Hardware message boards, and who posted pictures (on a Geocities website which disappeared today) of Apple's multiprocessing mobo and an early version of Apple's new optical mouse long before either were announced. Louismg on Raging Bull's AAPL stock board compiled a list of links to Workerbee's posts earlier today which can be seen here. The accuracy of Workerbee's posts on a wide variety of Apple hardware projects (Mouse, keyboard, Cube, MPs, iMacs, etc.) leads to the obvious conclusion that he or she must be an Apple employee. In one of his or her last posts before disappearing, Workerbee confirms the ZDnet story that Apple has a cinema-screened Powerbook packing a G4 ready to roll soon, and might even have been the source for the scoop.
Now is a leak about the look of the new cube going to put Apple out of business? Probably not. But it does permit their competition to take the new design into account in their strategic planning at an earlier stage. This provides a substantial advantage to that competitor. Anyone who has ever been involved with strategic planning for a company will verify this. The more you know about what your competition is up to, the better you can react to it. And yes, even the seemingly little things can matter.
When you are in a commodity market (and the PC industry is increasingly becoming one) the more you can do to differentiate yourself from the competition the better off you generally are. There are very good reasons why all car companys are so secretive about the appearance of new vehicles. There are very good reasons why Transmeta was so secretive about its new processor design. And they all have to to with competitive intelligence.
Apple is being very intelligent by staying mum about new designs. Innovative companies that give away what they are doing will quickly find themselves put out of business by competitors able to react quickly. Read "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu sometime. It is the canonical text on strategic thinking, whether it be military or for a competitive business. Knowing what the competition is doing ahead of time is an incredible advantage. Apple knows and recognizes this and it acting in its best interest. I'm only surprised it didn't happen sooner.
Yes, although Apple themselves confirmed the developement of multi-processor G4 systems at WWDC a couple months ago. Nobody was really expecting them to release them at MacWorld, though; many suspected Seybold or perhaps even later (delaying the machines until Mac OS X was ready).
Note that Apple is apparently not chasing after the people who leaked the rumors about the cube, merely about the mouse/keyboard and the MP-G4s.
Note, too, that the early rumors about the new mouse were that it would be wireless, and have pressure-sensitive areas that could be configured (through software) to act as either multiple buttons with a scroll wheel, or as just a single button. AppleInsider had links to an awkward-shaped monstrosity with indentations where your fingers were supposed to go (similar to one of Logitech's trackballs, but without the ball).
While I'm on the subject, I find it rather interesting that everyone thinks highly of AppleInsider and bashes MOSR, yet on many of these rumors, MOSR had more accurate (if less detailed) reports.
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
It is *NOT* a First Amendment issue - employees has signed contracts that says you cannot tell outsiders this and that. If you do so it is a breach of contract.
If you have a big mouth you should not have signed that at the first place.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't think they are losing money NOW over these leaks, but it's completely their perogative to want to stop people who are UNDER NDA from leaking stuff. I do not agree with them suing websites who publish the leaked plans at all, but I am all for them enforcing their NDAs with their employees and contractors.
Comments about the quality of their OS are so offtopic it's ridiculous, let's try to actually discuss the topic at hand ok?
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See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
I don't know. As a rule, if my employer sued a bunch of my employees, I might feel the need to find a new job. This could be a Bad Thing (tm) for Apple.
That's not to say I don't think they should do this. I think they should try to protect their "trade secrets" as much as is feasible...I just don't think suing employees is feasible.
I do agree totally with your point otherwise though, I just don't think this is a case where the publicity is bad for Apple.
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See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
Also, you have to realize that a LOT of these people will no be direct Apple employees, but people from other companies, like that graphics card company who leaked the photos to the one rumors site.
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See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
I tend to think of it in the same way the number of tornados may appear to be rising.
Only the tornados near populated areas are reported; the populated area has increased greatly over the past two centuries.
Only the lawsuits within your bailiwick (geekdom, computers, Internet, techno-whatever) hit your awareness or favorite newsfeed; the size of that bailiwick has increased greatly over the past two years.
In either case, tornados or lawsuits aren't increasing, so much as people such as yourself notice them more, because they're happening within your domain of awareness.
[
Hey, I like contract law too. In fact, I advocate a "governement" in which all contracts, no matter how silly, are absolutely enforcible under penalty of banishment. Until I establish such a place, however, it's best to prevent obvious abuses of the current legal system, such as those perpetrated by Apple.
Nobody needs an admission from Jobs to know that Apple doesn't do market testing -- the iMac's mouse already told us that.
Once upon a time Apple tried to make products that the public would find easy to use. Now...I get the impression they're more about making products that are pretty than making products that are easy to use.
-- dR.fuZZo
And you are flapping your nether gums and know nothing of which you speak. Apple has had an SMP API in the OS since before the 9600, and has been developing it steadily for nearly a decade. OS9 uses that extra processor itself, it just can't make SMP available to Apps not specially written to use the API. But the daddy App, the finder, does take full advantage of dual processors. Apple has chosen not to make a big deal of MP until OSX is shipping because OSX will bring SMP to all carbonized Apps whether they are written to take advantage of SMP or not. That will be a HUGE deal. Imagine that on YOUR operating system! Today, on OS9 Photoshop isn't the only production app that takes advantage of the Mac's MP libs, MediaCleaner uses them, SoundJam uses them. Apparently even Q3A can use them. Today Apple has MP boxes shipping because in just a month or so OSX beta will be out, and all the beta apps that will come with it will be FULLY SMP aware. Imagine that on YOUR operating system.
Man, maybe it's time to quit getting your panties all in a wad over something as simple as Apple protecting its business interests. Businesses do far worse than Apple to maintain their trade secrets. I've had to sign NDAs, and if I broke them, I'd expect to get my ass sued. I don't care if it was something as simple as a rumor. A contract (which is what an NDA is) is a contract, and if you violate that contract, there are expected legal recourses.
It's just like an open-source zealot to jump on the "Quick, let's punish them! Boycott their products and fill their President's inbox with complaints!" Get over it. There are far more important things to worry about in the software community than whether companies are going to punish their employees for violating agreements.
Let's think about it. Nothing (to most people) is more interesting than gossip. Knowing other people's business is just plain fun to most, myself included. So I'm nosy. I love to read rumors (film myself, Ain't It Cool News and Dark Horizons just rule) and I like to gossip about them. Wonder if this is true or if that is a fake.
The most important thing that gossip generates is PUBLICITY. When people begin to talk about your rumored products, whether they be true or not, they still are talking about YOUR company. Why else would the film industry suddenly be escorting the webmasters of those aforementioned film rumor sites to very advanced preview screenings? (This super early review of How The Grinch Stole Christmas comes to mind.)
You should not condemn those who gossip. With gossip comes truth AND lies, but whats important is the talk, not the substance. Didn't someone once say that there is no such thing as bad publicity?
Are you listening Apple?
Oh, I'd definately prefer that people outside the company that violated their NDA get sued. I'd prefer that people inside the company that violate their NDA get sued. My concern, were I an employee of Apple, is the fact that this is a John Doe suit. How comfortable would you be at work if a co-worker or two is being sued simply because they WORKED on a project that was leaked, without evidence that they leaked anything? The article doesn't seem to indicate that there is much evidence as to whom they are specifically looking for.
And you shold be more up to date on the hardware you're badmouthing...you now get a dual-processor machine for the same price as the old 450 or 500-Mhz G4's.
I'd like to see a dual-Athlon box that didn't need liquid cooling to keep from melting components inside the case.
And you should at least understand that MacOS 9 doesn't support dual procs. If you aren't using photoshop, you can't see or use that second proc. Oops.
If you'd like to explain how my 8 proc xeon server keeps from melting, but a dual athlon couldn't, you go right ahead.
--Shoeboy
You're right though, if the people at Apple did feel mad over it because it's John Doe'd so far I would agree, but I have a feeling they know not to worry and aren't tearin their hair out or feelin persecuted over it. But who knows!
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If Mattel didn't file a lawsuit and restraining orders, most people would not have heard of CPHack.
If Mattel didn't file a countsuit for libel against me, most people would not have heard of it, and it would have been over by now. And there would not have been the press coverage (two newspaper artcles, two on-line articles, or any TV appearance.)
Fight Spammers!
I guess while the government hasn't quite become "Big Brother" yet, Apple is trying hard to be "Big Brother" to their employees. Yes, the legal system allows them to do this, but that doesn't make it the right thing to do, in particular for a company with the pretensions that Apple has.
The impression *I* got, is that Apple was also applying pressure to stop the media who got their hands on that leaked information from publishing.
It's one thing to try and punish somebody who is violating a contract they signed with you, but its a whole new ball game when you try and use the legal system to muzzle the press who signed no such agreement.
Frankly, I don't care if Apple sues its employees who violate NDAs--it's possibly a mistake depending on their intentions, and the answer to any problem usually shouldn't be lawyers, but it's not violating anyone's rights.
;-) Apple is attempting to take away our First Amendment right to freedom of the press, and the right of the media to protect its sources. Why else would they be suing John/Jane Does? in the hopes of forcing media outlets who ran these advance stories into naming their sources.
What does violate basic rights is when Apple threatens or sues the press outlets which have run stories about its products. Even if someone has violated an NDA in giving info to that news outlet, the news outlet still has a First Amendment right to run the story, and is not liable for a damned thing. That's what I object to: Apple has been strong-arming the web-based media with their lawyers to keep info under wraps, and is now trying to squeeze the media for info on who broke what NDAs. That's what this suit is about, and that's why Apple is being evil. Now I know that evil tastes like a blueberry G4 cube.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Make no mistake, apple is a cult. You don't break the rules, you transgress against the will of the founder.
I understand that mac users are forbidden from visiting http://www.jc-news.c om/parse.cgi?pc/benchmarking/xplat/ppc-x86 and learning the truth about how the g4 really stacks up against the p6 and athlon.
Those who break the rule are required to say 10000 "hail steves" and an "our founder".
--Shoeboy
I hit submit rather early. I meant to include this ZDnet article and this MSNBC article. Sorry bout dat. :)
To me, this is just a sign that whatever resurgence Apple might currently be enjoy is just the waning days of a once innovative company (even if their centerpiece was stolen from Xerox PARC).
I remember once upon a time when Apple employees used to actually care about the products, they made, and with good reason. Now, though, it looks like their rabid legal department is going after them. I can't wait to see what this will do to employee morale.
I can certainly appreciate Apple wanting to protect its trade secrets -- my company has an unfortunate number of these issues crop up from time to time -- but there is the right way to handle things, and then there is the dead-wrong way to handle things. Care to guess which this is?
Thanks for the memories, Apple. And who knows, maybe you'll retain a majority (or at least a plurality) of the desktop/graphics market share.
Think different, my ass.
yours,
john
Of course, there are other Apple innovations, such as extreme hyperbole in advertising ("twice as fast as the fastest [insert name of processor]"), a grand tradition of crappy keyboards, hockey-puck mice (with only one button), missing floppy drives, and an all-encompassing goal of making damn sure that the software and peripherals that you want to move from your old Apple to your new Apple just won't work any longer.
This evening, friends and I went to Fry's in Sacramento. My friend Sue bought herself a new Apple notebook because her old Apple notebook couldn't access the Internet any longer because her various i/o drivers all managed to conflict with one another creating a complete inability to go on line despite uninstalling and reinstalling all the software - obviously a triumph of Apple's superior crash-free and easy to use user environment. She also has to find another way of hotsyncing her Palm to her notebook, because Mr. Jobs & Co. kindly removed the extraneous serial port that no one was really using anyway. And she's just one of "the rest of us" average users. I thought that the idea of the computer for the rest of us was to support the needs of the consumer, rather than force the consumer to change the way they work whenever the official style changes.
Apple has to defend their innovations in style, because once you strip the style to get to the substance beneath, you can't find anything all that more creative and reliable than Windows 98.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
If you sign an NDA, you willingly give up your right to speak freely about that subject matter. This is not a difficult concept. In order to be free you must also have the right to voluntarily give up that freedom. This is why we have contractual agreements.
Apple can and if it wants to be stupid (and it seems to want to be *extremely* so) does file suit for NDA violations, but it CANNOT and SHOULD NOT ATTEMPT to file suit against the media outlets which ran the leaks. And that's who Apple is always threatening--news sites, the media, *the press*, who have explicit First Amendment rights to run stories on Apple's upcoming products if they wish to.
Apple also has the right to protect their trade secrets. While they can't sue someone who has run a leak (unless it's libelous) they can and should sue the person who leaked it, since that person obviously violated his NDA.
What Apple likes to call "leaks" are what other companies call "expected". Whenever you have a new product or concept in the pipeline, people start talking about it, a few employees drop hints to friends in the media, and then the rumour mill generates this positive expectaion about a product. Normal companies consider it a part of the advertising process, because it's better to build up anticipation about product releases than to just dump them on an unsuspecting world. Publicity is good.
But look at what Apple is doing thanks to that fruity control freak Jobs. The leaks in question happened, most of them, a few days before the product announcement--that's to be expected, and had a positive impact for Apple in that it got people excited and made them anticipate the big revelation, so that on the day of the expo people got online just to see the new Apple products, who otherwise might naver have bothered. That's free advertising. It's a common thing in all industries, and to sue the press and Apple's own fan base is utterly insipid--and that's who these John/Jane Does are going to turn out to be, people who love Apple and wanted to share these great new products, to tell people "look at your favorite tech or Apple sites on expo day, because there's big stuff brewing."
And no, Apple has no right to keep a secret. Case designs released with too little time for a competitor to steal them are not trade secrets. The fact that new products will (would have) carry Radeon graphics is not a trade secret. NDA or not, what Apple is doing is morally and ethically wrong, and business-wise it's completely unsound--foster fan sites, don't make them hate you due to cease-and-desist letters the very night before you're going to announce the fucking product anyway. What complete and utter assholes. Freedom of the press guarantees that as long as the press doesn't sctively induce the breaking of an NDA, that they can run whatever info they want about Apple as long as it isn't libelous. Apple wants to fuck with our fundamental freedoms, then we should fuck Apple right back.
I used to be a big fan of Apple, but now I'm looking forward to other PowerPC based boards. I would never, never, buy a new Apple computer now, after all this misbehaviour. Jobs has just proven that he's still about 12 years old in terms of maturity, what with his lawyer-whoring and his retribution against ATI for minor leaks just a few days before the official announcement. All credit for Apple's coolness and revolutionary nature in the old days will now be given by me to Woz, and I'll just consider Jobs no better than a good car salesman--good at his job, makes a lot of money for his lot, but is still a sleazy piece of scum underneath. If I ever buy any more Apple hardware, it'll be used, so that not a cent goes directly to Apple. If you beleive in freedom of the press, I hope you're with me on this. Cool hardware and a great GUI isn't worth my soul or my principles. Someone ought to start an anti-Apple-lawyer-whoring site and post about it here and elsewhere, in order to get attention to the fact that what Apple is doing now is at least as bad as what IBM was doing back when that famous, unforgettable commercial aired. Way to kill the spirit of your company and its fans, Jobs...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Apple hasn't learned the difference between an employee shipping their competitor the fab mask for a new chip and a few people leaking vague rumours to the press about upcoming designs. In truth, Apple's tactics are nothing but blatant abuse of a legal system too foolish to know that it must be prevented. Therefore I urge you not to do business with Apple until they check their lawyers at the door and recognize the proper purpose of a legal system.
I am hereby leaking a huge new piece of information about Apple: their next product, so new and hot that nobody but I and a few trusted Apple employees know about it, will be - get ready, mac junkies, here it is - A COMPUTER. It'll have a CPU (sources confirm it will be a PowerPC CPU), dynamic random-access memory (a new Apple (TM) (R) innovation (R)), and probably will ship with one of several optional mass-storage devices. Apple, my name is Keith M Wesolowski, I live in Reno, Nevada, USA, and I don't have, want, or need a lawyer. Do your worst!
Innovation, innovate, and the concept of doing what everyone else did 20 years ago are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other buzzwords, euphemisms, and blatant lies are trademarks of their respective owners.
I have a theory that Jobs' real goal was to get to the new OS, from the very beginning. Without a modern operating system, Apple was dead. It was just a matter of time. However, he had to keep the company afloat in the meantime. All the fruit-colored iMacs, then the G4's, and now the Cube, in a real sense, were just means to an end.
Long-term, I don't see anything more important to the platform's survival than OSX, then OSXI, etc.
But I'm curious about my own assumptions about this group. Do you see a difference here, and to what do you attribute it? Do you see yourself giving OSX a try, even, or is it of no interest? What effect are the changes at Apple, including all the product hype and the new OS, having on your own assumptions about what constitutes a good computing experience?
But I guess that isn't such a bad thing, though it is weird to see a company act that way. I think most companies would rather have hype than surprise. Maybe its all a control/power thing.
What it's about is Steve Jobs wanting to have his little surprises on stage. Where would the fun be if everyone knew what he was going to say? I suspect that the people at MacExpos would applaud if Steve Jobs took a sh*t on a plate and told them to eat it. Heck, he's already made them believe that Apple invented streaming mpeg. Rule of thumb, when Jobs uses the words "we've never seen that before", he means never before on the Mac.
A penny for your thoughts.
A witty
I'm sure all of those people were under NDA, and they leaked the info anyway. Seems pretty open and shut; they made the choice to violate their contract and now they'll have to pay the piper. This of course assumes that Apple can actually pin it on the few people/person who did it, which will probably be very tough. They'll probably lose if they just go after "everyone who knew."
Apple has always had their own way of doing things. They amaze me because they have no product research like other companies do -- Jobs has admitted that they don't do focus groups, etc. (Wish I still had a link around to back that up. I had always suspected it, and I was delighted to read confirmation a while back.)
Apple makes the products THEY think are neat. It just so happens that that set overlaps with a set of products that are desireable by the public. It's this overlap that keeps them in business. Sometimes, a truly neat product will fail to intersect the set of salable products, and then you have the Newton.
Enough of their products are innovative hits that I can see why they would want to keep them secret. Suing a bunch of EMPLOYEES will have a chilling effect on other folks with loose lips. It would make me shut up for sure.
> We have a double-standard for privacy issues on the internet.
... do I really need to continue?
s/Apple/Microsoft/
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
My soul. Current price is $9.99 + S&H.
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
> Apple also has the right to protect their trade secrets.
Where were you when Microsoft was protecting their Trade Secrets? Where are you now while the MPAA is protecting theirs? You are an Apple apologist, and I doubt your basic integrity.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
True story :)! - And this was before the internet got big :).
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M$: "We're #2!"
They're subpeonaing records to get the names of the people who are leaking data, and then I wager the suits will be dropped. It's been done before (remember the yahoo lawsuits a couple of years ago when employees of various companies were suing john doe defendants who were posting defamatory content about their own company to yahoo message boards?).
This is clearly a weak troll. Slashdot are notoriously, even admirably, impassive about all the shit like this that they have to put up with. They've stoically ignored a lot of crap from ab/users; I can't imagine your beer ASCII posts would break them, unless their pet peeve is ASCII art that doesn't line up right. Further, I have a bit more respect for the Partnership for a Drug Free America (more than I have for you, anyway) than to believe that they would go after some pissant spammer on an internet message board which accepts anonymous posts. They would probably start harassing someone who was verifiably responsible for the offending content, like maybe Smokedot, before they would attack Slashdot for a flood of comments for which they were not responsible.
Hardcore free-speech zealot though I may be, I wouldn't mind one bit if Slashdot banned you. I wish they would, if there were a way to do it that wouldn't ban innocent users as well. Ordinarily I would be opposed to banning you because if we ban one person, where will it stop? But I'll make an exception in your case because of how badly you need a muzzle. You're the reason there needs to be a moderation system.
I've done some spamming before, myself. You know why my spam was better than yours? Because it was funny. People replied to it and told me so. I also limited it to one post per story.
Here's a short list of people I dislike less than you:
This "Slashdot is threatening me legally" crap is lame. It might be funny if osm hadn't done it already. But the important difference between him and you is that he never said he was being sued, he just planted evidence and got everyone else to invent a complete story themselves. Next time you feel the need to bite off someone else's style, try writing a play about Natalie Portman. It might be worth reading. I've never even been able to maintain the interest to read your MDMA posts all the way through, despite how short they are, and despite how much I love trolls (not that anything you've posted was ever as good as a real troll). 45 days of silence from you was hardly enough. I have little love for Slashdot, but even less for you. You make the karma whores look good.
I would suggest that you get off your ass and do something purposeful with your life, but it's obvious you lack the necessary creativity or intelligence. I'm amazed that you managed to craft a post with so few grammatical and typographical errors. That's probably what took you 45 days. Rejoice in the fact that you have probably made many people break down and raise their thresholds to 1. It's likely the most exciting accomplishment you'll ever achieve.
Please stop breathing so much. There are many others who could put all that oxygen to good use. Next time you take a breath, which should be in a couple of seconds, think about all the creative, funny, beautiful, and constructive things other people have done with all the other breaths they've taken. Think about following their example.
Congratulations. You've managed to suck enough that it makes me appreciate what a great place Slashdot was without you. It was easier to read the trolls. In short, the only remotely enjoyable or amusing thing about you is flaming you. I wish you would reply so I can do it some more. Unfortunately, you are most likely using a script, and may never read this. Well, to this script, I say, fuck you, script.
Sorry if I overstated my case, but there are certain things one can almost never be too keen on defending, and Constitutional rights to free speech, press, and expression fall under that category. There are those who would gladly give up those rights for fleeting gains, and I'm glad you're not one of them after all.
But there is one thing I do take issue with in your response. I'm not into regulation of sexual behaviour, and in fact think that prostitution is a necessary part of promoting a healthy society--just look at the sexual behaviour of the Bonobo monkeys to see how natural prostitution is. But there are other things which one should not be able to enter into a binding contract for, consenting adults or not.
The classic example is indentured servitude--basically, paid slavery for a term of years to be specified by contract. It was outlawed because just allowing it produces an economic imperative for poor people to become basically slaves--imagine indentured servitude in a modern corporate world, with people signing themselves into slavery to big companies just to be able to get employment. That's why you cannot sign your life away like that, and why it's not considered a violation of your rights--it would be both damaging to yourself, and to all economically underprivileged people. So, there is a damned good reason why consenting adults can't do things which violate certain rights, even if they enter into such contracts "voluntarily."
NDAs are an example of a necessary evil--it's necessary to ensure non-disclosure of certain trade secrets, else the ability to innovate would be undermined. But always remember that although a necessary evil, it's still an evil, and should be avoided whenever possible--the more abilities you give companies to control what employees do, say, write, and think, even outside the office, the more of your rights and the rights of everyone who has a job, you've just given up.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
First of all, when the osm thing happened, noone mentioned any names. There was a reason for that. There is this little law that regards this thing called LIBEL. Since the people behind the osm thing knew it was a joke, they were smart enough to make allusions, and people from /. took the bait and ran with it, coming up with conspiracy theories ranging from ddos to Natalie Portman.
You on the other hand have commited libel, so I really hope you ARE getting sued, or else guess what buddy? YOU'RE GONNA! And they will have a case. You have named 2 seperate corporate entities in a lawsuit, and that's libel as far as the courts are concerned.
Have Fun!
The (pretty unethical) people who are leaking this data are already afraid of being caught - Apple could ruin their careers for doing so, regardless of any lawsuit. The lawsuit is just Apple saying to its employees "Fuck you and your little morale. Our secrets regarding a product we've already begun marketing are more important than your confidence in us as a company. So go do your work."
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Ah... correct that Ford can't patent the car. And if the patent office would stop smoking crack Amazon wouldn't be able to patent half the shit they have. However, Ford can patent the shape of the Thunderbird!! Ford can patent their pull-out cup holders!! Ford should and can patent those things that differentiate their car from another car! Imagine if every car just copied off everyone else, then all cars would look the same and you'd have the same problem of lack of competition. Design is patentable, and though Apple may not have a patent over a cube shaped design, then may have a patent over their dinky mouse, and their funky monitor. So, either way, it is bad practice for a company to leak out their designs and other information before hand.
kick some CAD
It's quite ironic that so many people in this thread have attacked Apple for ethical issues in this situation, as we are overlooking one very important point: these people that work in Apple and leak secrets, do you think they just do it for the fun of it? Do you think they do it without compensation?
How ethical is it for some entry-level employee who happens to work in Cupertino to take photos or screenshots of new Apple products (something (s)he had no part in creating), and hand them over to rumor sites in return for whatever compensation? That is stealing for personal gain. It's that blantant. Even if the personal gain is merely being "the one" to leak it. And you do realize that many of these sites make money from these leaks, right? They also do so for personal gain. This isn't an "information wants to be free" issue. It's a "make me some quick cash without having to do any real work" issue.
Despite the fact that some people will always hate Apple because they make a one-button mouse, you have to realize that there are a lot of people that work at the company that really are incredibly passionate about the work they do, and are really looking to improve computers as a whole. When an individual going to ruin all that work for everyone, that's simply disrespectful. How do leaks affect Apple, you ask? Apple was able to get considerably more eyeballs looking at the iMac and stories written on it because it was unexpected. Apple has every right to do this. Sony does similar things. Humans like surprises. At the very least, it breaks up the static in an otherwise very dull and stagnant industry.
This is not the US government covering up the discovery of an alien species. This is not a free speech issue. This is theft and sale of private information. Should Apple just let this go unchecked? Just ignore the problem and allow random people to announce Apple's products before Apple does? And sometimes it doesn't stop there. Sometimes these sites discuss products that MAY ship, and the mainstream press picks up on this and critiques them. In these cases, Apple gets grilled for things it hasn't even done yet.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. We have a double-standard for privacy issues on the internet. Privacy of a person is paramount, but privacy of a group of people (an organization) is irrelevant. Some people really truely feel that any information that belongs to an organization should instantly and immediately be the property of anyone with a TCP/IP connection. That doesn't make any sense to me.
For once, can we step back and look at this from a non-slashdot-centric perspective? Can we look a little deeper, and realize that there are maybe more factors to take into consideration when running a successful multi-billion dollar company than we realize?
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Can the 'packaging' of a computer be considered a trade secret? If the employees had leaked information regarding a new chip design, then sure, but can the 'packaging' of a computer be considered a trade secret? Since Apple's strategy seems to rely on surprise announcments, they may have a case. Also, if the employees have signed NDA, then Apple's got them.