3 ms·

I think if Apple wanted to kill this they could just C&D or sue them or something. They probably wanted this guy for his actual skills.

• jethro_tell 12y ago
  Yeah, but then they look heavy handed and the cost is probably relatively similar. Not to mention that they get the net gain of the skills. It seems highly likely that Apple has some interest in protecting their brand. Part of the whole "Most amazing phone we've ever made" is the implication that the things you can do on iPhone can't be done on commodity hardware. This would undermine that in a way. To say there is no way they would hire instead of doing a C&D if that was the motive is really silly. We don't know why they did it, but we can basically assume they know he was doing that before the hiring process.
• cookiecaper 12y ago
  It may not be cut and dry to kill it legally. While they probably could do so on a patent or EULA case, if the guy is willing, it's a lot cheaper to just offer him a run-of-the-mill salary and employment package. As soon as he becomes an employee, any substantive future contribution to the project is instantly tainted, even if it's just documentation or giving hints to the new maintainers. At that point, Apple would have a very solid trade secret case, amplified by copyright claims and the violation of the prerequisite NDA. Similar projects know to stay really, really far away from anyone associated with the company whose product they're duplicating. WINE wants nothing to do with you if you've ever come within 500 feet of Microsoft's source code. If the project's founder is willing to give up that easily, it's certainly an easy, cheap way to kill off such a project.