i'm not sure what to make of the whole mess of konfabulator, a really cool applet environment for OS X with a great open developer API, and apple themselves, who seem to have announced this exact idea in the next version of OSX, codenamed Tiger.
we've all seen this done before by both microsoft and apple, putting small independent developers (as well as big ones like netscape) out of business by putting the same identical features into the OS. when the features become free, consumers no longer lay down the $30 for the pay app, and pretty soon the independent developers spend a ton of time on the support tail of software with no future revenue, and thus either wither or move on to the next idea.
on one hand, if confabulator thought they really had something, they should have protected their IP in some manner. but patents are expensive and time consuming, and copyright doesn't always make sense for software. certainly, their API should have been copyrighted (and maybe still can be), as well as their example code and such - but even if they did patent konfabulator, are two independent developers going to have the money and time to sue apple? probably not. also, i never heard of konfabulator until today - i bet they had more downloads today than any other day.
on the other hand, apple doing this is just plain wrong, and crossing the line...but it's their decision, and if it causes ill will and prevents future developers from developing something on their platform, well, i'm sure they know that. (here's what russ thinks. )
so konfabulator's public stance takes the high road... they have a great API, more developer support beyond any other product i've seen, and just a better implementation than what it looks like apple will release - however, whether that's a $25 difference is another story. sounds like they have 9 months to innovate beyond what apple can do or figure out another way that makes people have to have confabulator over the apple dashboard.
it's a fine line. the same will happen for the slews of RSS/Atom readers out there. apple has already announced rss/atom support in safari, and surley longhorn/outlook will also have this feature as well. client developers will need to innovate or provide features that tie their users in. anil dash said the other day that an RSS reader has become the new "hello world" and he's right...it's that easy to parse XML in any modern computer language...but just because some independent developers have some great RSS tools, should the OS companies stay away from this? no way. the OS companies compete against each other. perhaps apple is putting this feature in to Tiger as a response to a feature that will be in longhorn (of which i have no idea).
always remember - make hay while the sun shines, build a better mousetrap, and don't get caught in a land war in asia...and of course, "never go in against a Sicilian, when *death* is on the line."
Posted by Steve at June 29, 2004 11:46 PM | TrackBack