The sad thing is, it's bad either way. On the one hand they can't let people get away with stealing their secrets and on the other hand forcing Think Secret to reveal its sources looks bad too because it appears as though they (Apple) are trouncing on peoples rights when they're only trying to protect their own.
Apple is protecting it's rights here. Trade secret law is a complicated thing. Apple is entitled to protect it's corporate secrets.
Companies aren't open, companies aren't free, companies are typically closed, proprietary, and restrictive. Apparently some Apple employees blabbed and they shouldn't have. Things like this can cost companies millions in lost profit.
Is this bad PR for Apple? Yes, I think it is. Is it within Apple's rights? Certainly. Does it make Apple the next Microsoft? No, last I checked Apple only controlled a fairly modest portion of the market.
This is because some people don't understand the difference between operating in a market-space (in this case digital music) and *dominating* or *monopolizing* that space.
Some idiots reason that "Apple has a monopoly on iTunes"... well.. of course they do, but it's a legal once since:
1) iTunes is their creation and 2) iTunes does not dominate the digital music space to the tune of 90+%.
I wonder what would happen if Bill suddenly woke up one day and said "What the hell are we doing, I should have seen that Open Source is the future!" And after this revelation decided to be truly open, instead of playing the current games they're playing?
Of course they wouldn't make everything open source. What impacts would a REAL change in strategy mean for the community?
There are companies which still use OPENSTEP, from way back. There are also companies which write applications for Cocoa. It's not a matter of it catching on, as it already has "caught on".
Also, often times, it's not the API or the App, it's the company selling it. NeXT did a poor job in marketing what they had. It's a documented fact that Steve Jobs (although the man is a visionary) made several poor business decisions.
Go pick up a copy of "The Second Coming Of Steve Jobs". It gives a great amount of detail around the potential deals with MS, IBM and Dell which were botched so badly. Any one of these deals, or all of them would have changed the face of computing today.
It speaks to the purity of the language. Being able to deal with *everything* as an object is a distinct advantage since it allows you to, potentially, extend basic types into more complex ones and it also prevents you from having to "box" primitives in objects and "unbox" them on the way out.
BTW, JDK1.5 (aka Java 5) has a new feature called "autoboxing" which does the above boxing for you. This doesn't really count as those types being objects, it's more of a kludge than anything else.
This difference means that C#, from an OO standpoint, is a more pure language as opposed to Java which is a "hybrid" OO language.
As someone who actually works for one of these companies (Lockheed), I can say that you know absolutely nothing about what the hell you are talking about.
I once worked for Raytheon and with Lockheed on a NASA project for about three years.:)
While that project didn't suffer from the problems I describe, there were other projects which, in my opinion, were pure fluff. Now this is, of course, *Raytheon* I'm talking about, not Lockheed.
Large companies, in my experience, are less agile than smaller companies simply because of the processes and other corporate cruft which takes place.
In fairness, I didn't say that I once worked for one of these companies.. so, you had no way of knowing that I actually do know what the "hell" I'm talking about at least when it comes to the one I worked for.
All companies like Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, etc. really do is figure out how expensive and over costly can they make the project so that the result we be this huge iron beast which is neither practical nor fully reusable, as there has to be a "sustainable revenue stream".
Hehe. Well, given that GNUstep's development tools are much better than KDE or GNOME, I think it's obvious.
It's too bad the community at large would rather play with toy languages like C# or Java. C# and Java are the refuge of those who don't wish to learn real programming.
If I interpret you correctly, you're not calling GNUstep a joke, you're calling the rest of the open source community a joke for not recognizing GNUstep. Correct? This isn't clear from your posting if this is what you mean, but it certainly seems like it could be interpreted as such.
This is a shortsighted view. The public domain can is an easy feeding ground for corporate america. And the truth is, no matter how "important" one's contribution is, nothing can prevent it's misuse by an evil corporate entity if it's determined to do so.
The best way to protect against this type of abuse, is to use the GPL.
Please leave any and all advanced research which might lead to breakthoughs at the door, on your way in. We don't understand what stem cells really are, but our media tells us they're "bad" and we believe 'em, so get ready all you scientists to be told what you can and cannot do by people who are at least an order of magnitude dumber than you are.
Oh, and by the way, forget that, through stem cell research, a woman in Korea who hadn't walked in 20 years was able to regenerate enough tissue to walk again... so lets leave all of the potential behind and put all of our energy in prayin' ta JE-SUS for health, 'cuz we all know *THAT* a hell of a lot more effective than any of those old gee-netics them scientists have.
Slashdot Mirror
The sad thing is, it's bad either way. On the one hand they can't let people get away with stealing their secrets and on the other hand forcing Think Secret to reveal its sources looks bad too because it appears as though they (Apple) are trouncing on peoples rights when they're only trying to protect their own.
It's unfortunate.
GJC
Apple is protecting it's rights here. Trade secret law is a complicated thing. Apple is entitled to protect it's corporate secrets.
Companies aren't open, companies aren't free, companies are typically closed, proprietary, and restrictive. Apparently some Apple employees blabbed and they shouldn't have. Things like this can cost companies millions in lost profit.
Is this bad PR for Apple? Yes, I think it is. Is it within Apple's rights? Certainly. Does it make Apple the next Microsoft? No, last I checked Apple only controlled a fairly modest portion of the market.
Later, GJC
This is because some people don't understand the difference between operating in a market-space (in this case digital music) and *dominating* or *monopolizing* that space.
Some idiots reason that "Apple has a monopoly on iTunes"... well.. of course they do, but it's a legal once since:
1) iTunes is their creation and
2) iTunes does not dominate the digital music space to the tune of 90+%.
Later, GJC
He's an admitted scam artist! He blatantly hacked into Sun and other companies! Please do not see this guy as some twisted hero!
Sheesh!
GJC
I wonder what would happen if Bill suddenly woke up one day and said "What the hell are we doing, I should have seen that Open Source is the future!" And after this revelation decided to be truly open, instead of playing the current games they're playing?
Of course they wouldn't make everything open source. What impacts would a REAL change in strategy mean for the community?
GJC
Will wonders never cease??
GJC
There are companies which still use OPENSTEP, from way back. There are also companies which write applications for Cocoa. It's not a matter of it catching on, as it already has "caught on".
Also, often times, it's not the API or the App, it's the company selling it. NeXT did a poor job in marketing what they had. It's a documented fact that Steve Jobs (although the man is a visionary) made several poor business decisions.
Go pick up a copy of "The Second Coming Of Steve Jobs". It gives a great amount of detail around the potential deals with MS, IBM and Dell which were botched so badly. Any one of these deals, or all of them would have changed the face of computing today.
Later, GJC
Any possibility of getting them to donate that code so it could be ported?
# Gorm is an unintuitive name for an interface editor.
:)
I not really sure that "Glade" is a much better name. At least Gorm stands for (G)raphical (O)bject (R)elationship (M)odeller.
GJC
Just curious... What's wrong with that?
It speaks to the purity of the language. Being able to deal with *everything* as an object is a distinct advantage since it allows you to, potentially, extend basic types into more complex ones and it also prevents you from having to "box" primitives in objects and "unbox" them on the way out.
BTW, JDK1.5 (aka Java 5) has a new feature called "autoboxing" which does the above boxing for you. This doesn't really count as those types being objects, it's more of a kludge than anything else.
This difference means that C#, from an OO standpoint, is a more pure language as opposed to Java which is a "hybrid" OO language.
GJC
Despite it's origins, C# is a much better language that Java.
In C#, everything is an object, there are no funky "beans" and everything is introspectable. With Java, this just ain't so.
GJC
It's a documented fact that Objective-C was an influence on Java, at least as far as some of it's dynamic features are concerned.
While this is reflected on the first link, it's not reflected properly on the second.
GJC
As someone who actually works for one of these companies (Lockheed), I can say that you know absolutely nothing about what the hell you are talking about.
:)
I once worked for Raytheon and with Lockheed on a NASA project for about three years.
While that project didn't suffer from the problems I describe, there were other projects which, in my opinion, were pure fluff. Now this is, of course, *Raytheon* I'm talking about, not Lockheed.
Large companies, in my experience, are less agile than smaller companies simply because of the processes and other corporate cruft which takes place.
In fairness, I didn't say that I once worked for one of these companies.. so, you had no way of knowing that I actually do know what the "hell" I'm talking about at least when it comes to the one I worked for.
GJC
All companies like Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, etc. really do is figure out how expensive and over costly can they make the project so that the result we be this huge iron beast which is neither practical nor fully reusable, as there has to be a "sustainable revenue stream".
Look more towards the underdogs in this fight.
GJC
Hehe. Well, given that GNUstep's development tools are much better than KDE or GNOME, I think it's obvious.
It's too bad the community at large would rather play with toy languages like C# or Java. C# and Java are the refuge of those who don't wish to learn real programming.
-- Real programmers don't program in Java. --
GJC
If I interpret you correctly, you're not calling GNUstep a joke, you're calling the rest of the open source community a joke for not recognizing GNUstep. Correct? This isn't clear from your posting if this is what you mean, but it certainly seems like it could be interpreted as such.
GJC
This is a shortsighted view. The public domain can is an easy feeding ground for corporate america. And the truth is, no matter how "important" one's contribution is, nothing can prevent it's misuse by an evil corporate entity if it's determined to do so.
The best way to protect against this type of abuse, is to use the GPL.
GJC
To whoever modded the parent down: You only did it because you know I'm right.
:)
I've got karma to burn. Modding this one down'll only prove my point!
GJC
Please leave any and all advanced research which might lead to breakthoughs at the door, on your way in. We don't understand what stem cells really are, but our media tells us they're "bad" and we believe 'em, so get ready all you scientists to be told what you can and cannot do by people who are at least an order of magnitude dumber than you are.
:)
Oh, and by the way, forget that, through stem cell research, a woman in Korea who hadn't walked in 20 years was able to regenerate enough tissue to walk again... so lets leave all of the potential behind and put all of our energy in prayin' ta JE-SUS for health, 'cuz we all know *THAT* a hell of a lot more effective than any of those old gee-netics them scientists have.
Thank goodness I'm an atheist.
GJC
With an attitude like this you might as well give it up now.
GJC
Indeed this is true. I should have said that it was free for the use of FLOSS. But, still a better contribution than Sun's. :)
GJC
Thanks to Enterprise I discovered how shot my old Sony 20SE was and had to buy another damn monitor. Thanks guys!
:)
Gamma correction??
GJC
Sun, according to thier license, reserves the right to sue if the software is released under another license. :)
IBM opened the 500 patents it opened without restriction.
GJC
Enterprise has had almost no respect for the continuity of the ST universe. It is, perhaps, the main reason I don't watch it anymore.
GJC
Eventually someone's bound to slip up and say "YES".
GJC