Woz, Others Ask Apple To Go Easy On Tiger Leak 521
tabkey12 writes "Drunkenbatman posts this impressive article with a pointed quote from Apple co-creator Steve Wozniak and 24 others from all parts of the Apple Software world, criticising Apple's stance against a 23-year-old pre-med student, desicanuk, who distributed a pre-release Tiger build over a popular Mac Bittorrent site. There's also an interview with desicanuk on drunkenbatman's site. (Original Slashdot article here.)"
Re:Credibility (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nah - Let the case continue (Score:1, Informative)
Not the legal cases against the sites that released information early. Apple have stopped these anyway, or put them on hold until everybody has calmed down.
Re:What's his defense? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Apple's Dilema (Score:5, Informative)
What? Apple had $213 million in 1Q05 [apple.com] in software sales, and estimates $1 billion [macnn.com] in software revenues for this year. And you think Apple doesn't really sell software??
Re:Intellectual Property (Score:3, Informative)
He doesn't work for Apple. He's a medical student.
Re:Prerelease (Score:2, Informative)
Here's a hint: If you take the last posted build of an OS before the retail version, you have the retail version. Software Update works on it. Apps install and work on it.
Millions of Mac users would sign up and download Tiger build 8F61 (or whatever the hell the build number is) and Apple wouldn't make nearly as high of a return on their product,
(This was posted from a machine using the last posted build of Panther, updated all the way to 10.3.8.)
Re:Woz is too much of an idealist (Score:4, Informative)
About Steve Jobs.... (Score:5, Informative)
I never knew that Jobs was such an ass. Egomaniac? Sure! Asshole? it seems so.
Re:Woz is too much of an idealist (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's his defense? (Score:4, Informative)
He doesn't need to defend himself. He actually did everything he was accused of. Hiring a lawyer is simply throwing good money away.
You obviously don't understand the civil system. This isn't about guilt or innocense, it's about damages and liability. This isn't a criminal trial where a judge/jury determines if you're innocent or guilty of a crime. This is a trial where the plaintiff says how much monetary damage they had inflicted on them, and the defendant has to defend against the amount of damage, liability for that damage, etc. The lawyer would take apart all the ridiculous "damage" claims that Apple will likely fabricate, and/or argue the defendant isn't liable for said damages.
Re:Woz is too much of an idealist (Score:3, Informative)
Expose desktop window management, etc.
Of course I could name lots of other things, but you would consider them "eye candy", which sometimes is every important to the overall user experience...
Microsoft will charge you around 3X that? No. (Score:2, Informative)
No, they don't.
If you buy the retail version of Windows XP it will cost you a couple of hundred dollars, but if you want to upgrade from a previous version of Windows to Windows XP, it costs $99 (for regular consumers or business people, not students).
That's $30 less than Apple charges regular folks for an OS X upgrade, according to your post.
SP2 for XP is a free download too, so I'm not sure where you're getting your information. I don't like Microsoft any more than the next guy, but prices are pretty easy to check.
Windows XP Upgrade $99 [amazon.com]
Re:Microsoft will charge you around 3X that? No. (Score:2, Informative)
From Microsoft, Windows XP Pro for $299, Upgrade = $199 [microsoft.com]
Now... also keep in mind that $129 gets you the full version of the OS. So its $129 vs. $299.
RTFA.
Re:Microsoft will charge you around 3X that? No. (Score:3, Informative)
If you buy the retail version of Windows XP it will cost you a couple of hundred dollars, but if you want to upgrade from a previous version of Windows to Windows XP, it costs $99 (for regular consumers or business people, not students).
All of this is trying to compare apples and oranges. For example the difference between Windows 98 SE and Windows ME was window dressing and bug fixes. The difference between ME and XP was mostly bug fixes and some new features (from an end user point of view). In fact, the only reason I upgrade to a new version of Windows is because my company pays for it, or because the old version will not get vital security fixes. On the other hand, each OS X release (aside from the free one) was mostly new features. All the major bug fixes and all the security updates are available for the older versions.
I guess what I am saying is yes, Windows can be upgraded more cheaply than OS X if you always buy the most current release of each OS. Apple is faster to add new functionality and release new versions, and each version costs slightly more than a typical Windows release. On the other hand, you get a lot more for your money in terms of new, useful features. Also, since each version of OS X gets faster instead of slower, you don't have to buy new hardware as often and when you do, you can bring you OS license over to the new machine, if you so desire. With Windows, each OS version is tied to a machine and cannot be transferred to a newer one. It is a very unequal comparison.
federal law, not state (Score:5, Informative)
That has *absolutely* nothing to to with the state.
The bankruptcy code definces certain types of debts that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, including debts for
1) support payments
2) recent taxes
3) intentionally caused harm
4) fraud
5) student loans for several years
and many others
Liability for disclosing the information in this case would be far-fetched. *HOWEVER*, if he "induced" the employee to break the NSA, that could be the tort of interference with contract, and could come under the intentionally caused harm category.
hawk, esq.
modify that last paragraph (Score:5, Informative)
Uploading it to share it would certainly be an intentional copyright violation, no matter how many he expected to download it (1 or 1,000,000). It's not the general liability, however, that would be nondischargeable. It's the intent to cause the harm that matters.
hawk, esq.
Re:Intellectual Property (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Microsoft will charge you around 3X that? No. (Score:1, Informative)
XP is $299. Microsoft has always priced it at that. Apple OS X is $129. So while not quite 3x, it's 2.32 times as much. The point is still the same.
Of course, you can find people that sell copies of Windows or OS X for slightly less, but that's true with any product.
Re:What's his defense? (Score:3, Informative)
How unclear is patent law? The patent is published. The rules governing patents are published. The enforcment of patents has been the same since day 1 in this country, and it benefits the small-time entrepreneur every bit as much the megacorp.
Parent law isn't as unclear as much as it's unfair. Anyone with a suitcase full of money can sue any competitor they think they can take on with a trumped up patent portfolio. Patents are weapons, and unless you have the money to defend yourself, you lose no matter if you're in the right or not. See power of large corps above.
Defamation is defamation. Free speech is free speech. The boundary between the two has been an ongoing debate since before the founding of this country. Take out "megacorps" and insert "Nobility" or "Celebrity" and you have the same cases going back for centures.
Kinda sounds like you're saying the law IS unclear. Why does the fact that evil bullshit has been going on for centuries make it allright? Murder, rape, and theft have been going on since recorded history, but yet stranglely we still think they're wrong.
As far as trade secrets go, a trade secret can be between 2 people, or 2 million. The size of the distribution doesn't matter.
Don't give me that. 2 million people knowing something is NOT a secret. Trade secret relies on something ACTUALLY being a secret. If it's generally known, guess what? It's no longer a secret.
And as far as monetary damage goes, if someone takes your product and starts minting a cheap copies, that hurts your bottom line.
Except that's not at all what happened here. You've only invented your false scenario because if you stated the truth, it'd be quite obvious there's no monetary damage. No one minted cheap copies, as of yet there's not an actual final product yet! This was a BETA, not the final product. If anything it would only increase sales of the final product since no one runs a beta OS once the final release comes out.