Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

An 'Open Letter to Apple'

Posted by Hemos on from the proteron-complains dept.

ndpatel writes "It looks like Apple has a a success in Panther, but it also seems like they've ruffled a few feathers over at Proteron by incorporating a new Windows-esque task switcher that mimics (most of) the functionality of Proteron's LiteSwitch X utility for Jaguar. Proteron has written an "Open Memo" to Apple, but it doesn't seem like Apple really cares. Shades of Karelia, Watson, and Sherlock 3? Is Apple screwing its smaller developers, or just refining their software with relatively obvious improvements?"

2 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Reintroduced copied Windows feature? by eXtro · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I recall that this was available natively in MacOS 9 but then was dropped for X. So Proteron was more accurately copying a dropped MacOS 9 feature (which may have been copied from Windows) and now Apple's re-including it. I doubt that Apple looked at Proteron but do believe that Apple looked at Microsoft. I don't really see anything to get up in arms about here. Watson v.s. Sherlock was much more obviously a rip off of a 3rd party piece of sofware.

    --

    Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware

  2. To quote Jean-Louis: Get over it. by RetiredMidn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Jean-Louis Gassee addressed Apple developers at their World Wide Developers Conference several years ago (after he had left Apple, IIRC), and he touched on this topic then.

    To summarize his points, the platform is made richer by creative people writing system enhancements, but don't be surprised if Apple (or any other system vendor) provides those enhancements in a future version of the OS; just move on to another good idea.