

Steve Jobs: "I'll just sue you" (2010) - ootachi
http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/

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pohl
For comparison, here is a screenshot of Concurrence:

<http://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/Concurrence.gif>

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pmorici
This reminds me of a recent experience I had disputing some parking tickets in
federal court. I did some research ahead of time and going in I was certain
that if the case went to trial I would win based on the facts alone.

To avoid a trial the prosecutor first offered me 50% off my two tickets which
I politely declined citing that I was certain I would win based on certain
facts which I laid out.

30 minutes later while I was waiting for my trial to begin he came and offered
to drop one ticket and give me 50% off on the other. I again politely declined
stating that I was certain I would win based on the facts I had laid out
earlier.

Then right before the trial was about to begin the prosecutor came in and
dropped both tickets. I know many other people who got a ticket under the
exact same circumstances and just paid it.

Point being whether a dispute is about millions of dollars of software patents
or 160 dollars in parking tickets it pays to know the facts well and stand
your ground convincingly and unemotionally.

~~~
rdouble
_disputing some parking tickets in federal court._

Were you double parked in front of the White House?

~~~
phlux
You can get federal parking tickets in the Presidio, BTW.

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dailo10
Postscript: Oracle bought Sun and proceeded to sue Google with the Java
patents it had acquired.

Ironic given the "egregious" Kodak suit he writes about.

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ZeroGravitas
There were several reports of Jonathan actively shopping the patent portfolio
for offensive use as part of the sale. Could just be idle gossip though.

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joblessjunkie
Tip to bloggers: put your NAME on your blog somewhere.

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X-Istence
The URL isn't enough of a give-away?

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endtime
No, it is not.

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cyrus_
This is an utter minefield for any startup. While the big companies find
themselves in a state of mutually assured destruction, new companies can be
attacked by a billion dollars worth of lawyers if they start to compete.

~~~
loewenskind
I agree with PG: just ignore patents when you're small. If you ever get big
enough for it to matter than things are looking really good and you'll have
more bargaining options.

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cyrus_
This is a copout. If you are in a competitive space with one of these major
players you're basically going to be forced into a buyout on their terms or a
lawsuit. That's not bargaining.

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joe_the_user
Interesting - Sun didn't fold when Apple threatened them but there wasn't a
suit either.

The thing is, it seems there are examples of open source companies or
developers folding when presented with the "whiff" of a patent suit. See:
[http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archive/index.php/t-234073.htm...](http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archive/index.php/t-234073.html)

Further, as I recall, it has been speculated that Nokia's Apple suit involved
a demand by Nokia that Apple cross license its UI patents.
[http://www.businessinsider.com/did-nokia-sue-apple-to-
access...](http://www.businessinsider.com/did-nokia-sue-apple-to-access-multi-
touch-patents-2009-10)

The thing is, if Nokia had previously been "coding around" Apple's UI, it's
not surprising that their UI sucked.

It's easy to imagine that the more timid an organization, the more willing
they are to be pushed around by an over broad claim.

Altogether, It would be a good thing to provoke Apple into _actually_ suing
someone for violating "their" UI controls: _Threats people back away from_ put
a bully in a more powerful position than _threats carried through_.

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skymt
The problem is, most open-source developers don't have their own patent
arsenal.

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gst
That's the ugly part about the whole thing:

Apple takes quite a lot from the open-source community, starting at the
kernel, continuing with the user-space utilities, up to the HTML rendering
engine.

And at the same time they threaten open-source developers with lawsuites
and/or leave patent situations deliberately unclarified (such as in the case
of the patents against Freetype).

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berntb
I'm not that knowledgeable about Apple and open source, but:
<http://www.apple.com/opensource/>

>>Apple takes ... HTML rendering engine

From the Apple page: "Apple uses software created by the Open Source
community, such as the HTML rendering engine for Safari, and returns its
enhancements to the community."

Similar with contributions to the kernel, afaik? Didn't Apple buy CUPS, hire
the main developer -- and let it continue be open source? And so on.

Corporations, like countries, are a bit above (or, if you want, below) the
concepts of good/evil. But Apple is hardly Microsoft.

Edit: I checked, the HTML rendering is under LGPL/BSD licenses! A bit
ridiculous to complain about that, since it now is used by direct competitors
of Apple. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit>

"WebKit was originally derived by Apple Inc. from the Konqueror browser’s
KHTML software library for use as the engine of Mac OS X’s Safari web browser
and has now been further developed by individuals from the KDE project, Apple
Inc., Nokia, Google, Bitstream, Torch Mobile and others.[4]"

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thwarted
I think gst's point was not that Apple contributes back to the open source
community or not in terms of code, it's that Apple reaps the benefits of the
open source software and community and then attacks open source projects and
contributors with patent threats. While they are good citizens on the code
contribution front, they are not all around good citizens on the plays-wells-
with-others front.

~~~
adsr
That might be, but I don't see the logic in that. Everything Apple does is not
open source. The closed source or patented stuff can't be used regardless if
someone is part of the open source community. No one gets sued for using the
open-source stuff, if I got this right.

I don't take any sides here, just pointing out, that as far as I can see open
source has nothing to do with this.

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thwarted
_The closed source or patented stuff can't be used regardless if someone is
part of the open source community. No one gets sued for using the open-source
stuff, if I got this right._

(IANAL) Patented stuff can be used as long as the owner of the patent doesn't
seek to enforce their patent. Unlike trademarks, the owner of a patent doesn't
lose it if they don't enforce it, and also unlike patents, the patent holder
can choose to _selectively_ enforce/seek damages from infringing parties. Does
a company with as much market penetration and power as Apple really feel
threatened by open source projects such that they need to threaten them with
lawsuits, meanwhile not feeling threatened enough by them to use open source
software? Patent holders, including Apple, could take the high road and say
"While we own these patents, we're not going to attack or threaten open source
products that use our patents because 1) we benefit from open source 2) we
still have the advantage even if our competitors use the open source product
that is using our patented technology". But they don't, I suspect because it's
cheaper to set a precedent for the validity of their patent by attacking
someone who can't fight back.

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thwarted
Sorry, I meant s/and also unlike patents/and also unlike trademarks/.

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nika
I've been observing Apple and Steve Jobs since the late 1970s. I'm guessing
that many of you were born well after that point, and have grown up your whole
lives with this mythology about Jobs.

It's a load of bunk. Jobs is charismatic, but he found early on that due to
his charisma, reporters liked to tell tall tales about him. Always looking for
the "human interest" side of things, or something to spice up their reporting
they'd exaggerate. So he stopped giving interviews, figuring that would give
them less to work with, and in doing so he overestimated their integrity.
Instead they quickly figured out he wouldn't give them the additional
attention of debunking them, so they just started spreading whatever rumor or
gossip or fabrications sounded good.

Jonathan Schwartz is not a reporter, but he can say whatever he wants, knowing
that Jobs is not going to waste time disproving it. Doing so only brings more
attention to the faux controversy.

And of course, Apple haters, who really don't need much prompting anyway, will
simply take it as the gospel truth.

I'm sure Apple's right and attempting to point out this is just silly, because
those who believe will believe anyway because they want to.

Look at Job's stanford commencement speech. That's the real guy. Always has
been.

~~~
arethuza
What is your view of books like "Infinite Loop" - which certainly portray Jobs
in a somewhat unflattering light?

Clearly Jobs is a genius, but that doesn't mean he's a saint.

