4 ms·
Speaking of licensing and Jobs's quick decision-making, the following is what you don't usually hear from Jobs's inner circle: (https://jonathanischwartz.wordpr
by tooltalk 8y ago
Speaking of licensing and Jobs's quick decision-making, the following is what you don't usually hear from Jobs's inner circle: (https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/ https://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-arti...)
"I feel for Google – Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too.
In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass*, Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were 'stepping all over Apple’s IP'. (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, 'I’ll just sue you.'
My response was simple. 'Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?' Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they’d found inspiration. 'And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too.' Steve was silent.
And that was the last I heard on the topic..."
so this is one example in which Jobs's poor decision making didn't pan out as he had hoped.
- sundarurfriend 8y agoIs the * after Looking Glass part of the name, or did you mean to put a footnote on it and forget?
- tooltalk 8y agoMy bad; that's not my footnote. Please see the original post: * To see a Looking Glass demo, click here – it starts at the ~2:00 minute mark.
- coldtea 8y agoI remember the project Looking Glass. It was one "few days work" demo somebody threw around when they first were able to manipulate windows in 3D in a compositor with Java, but it got traction in parts of the OSS blogosphere/forums as some revolutionary new desktop experience (even though there were already several similar commercial offerings, and itself was little more than some little-thought 3D manipulations and in no way an actual full SUN project). It was touted as "SUN innovation" example, and predictably, it got nowhere. Here it is in all its glory. Even then it was a derivative, no-sense concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JwfgBv5bg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JwfgBv5bg I've seen the same story play out several times. E.g. there was a node.js based editor that was the talk of HN for a while. Got nowhere, was just a simple editing window + crude syntax highlighting, and it was obvious from the start that it wont go anywhere with its direction and chops, but not if you heard the gasps just because somebody powered an editor with Node: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020673 Or the Lighttable editor -- itself being abandoned for the next shiny endeavor, which again makes sense as it was just some inline REPL touches on top of a crude editor. At least that explored the design space a little, but the promises where touting it as the next thing that will revolutionize programming...
- notofox 8y agoThe Lighttable Saga is def a sad one and occasionally kind of irritates me. I have no idea of what "really happened", but my layman's interpretation of how that went down is... - Make a great thing w potential. - Kickstarter it. - Rush to meet the KS deadline. - Get frustrated. Abandon it. - Take VC money to take "the next step" (Eve) - Spend VC millions over X years, release some ideas in WIP repos, nothing holistic or truly practical. - Fold. - Then go to work for a proprietary Database Tools Vendor who will implicitly inherit any learning made during the previous projects. Sadness and "loss" everywhere. If I was a VC in that early deal, I'd be pissed when Looker "finally releases" Eve as some middle-ware BI system.