Bonum Certa Men Certa

Steve's Job

Steve Jobs



Summary: The king of showmanship remembered, but with a factual look at his achievements, not hype

STEVE JOBS was a very successful capitalist. He helped create a company that made a lot money.



Sure, the iPhone 4S is a sign of stagnation and more of Apple's usual delusion, deception, media hype, and reality distortion field, but Steve himself did a very good job after he had rejoined Apple. By the word "good" we mean effective, profitable. See my thoughts on Apple (video) and why the company was in fact unethical. Whether it was Jobs' decision to make those final decisions is not an issue we ought to go into because there is too much uncertainty there. Only people deep inside the company can shed light on these issues. We have some wiki pages about Apple to provide some more background information on some of these issues.

Apple's outrageous software patents have not gone away along with Mr. Jobs. A day after his death we read that "Steve Jobs Patents OS X Dock Day Before his Death". To quote: "A search at the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) site reveals 312 issued Apple patents where Jobs was one of the listed inventors; 269 of these of these were design patents, which cover ornamental design aspects of some device. (A search leaving Apple out found 317 patents issues to Jobs, implying he also filed a few patent applications in the years he was not at Apple.) There appear to be dozens more pending patent applications filed in Jobs’ name, as well."

Those were not innovations. Those were design monopolies. Many of those are not deserved due to prior art and generality. We saw these in the courtroom. Apple needed to doctor evidence (lie) to fool judges.

Richard Stallman's comment on Steve Jobs' death is polite and direct. He wrote in his political blog that "Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.

"As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.

"Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective." [source]

Stallman summed it up quite well. Steve Jobs' legacy was also mentioned by Jamie Love, who noted that:

Jobs was willing to build his newer products on free open source software and then use proprietary extensions and standards and patent litigation to marginalize free software. He was quite good at turning the operating system and applications into a store to buy things from Apple.


Over at Slated.org we found much harsher words about Jobs, including the following observations:

But no, it wasn't Gandhi, nor indeed anyone of even the slightest nobility. It was a patent extortionist with an apparent objection to altruism, called Steve Jobs. Even El Presidente fawned over this selfish racketeer, like he was the new messiah, or something...

[...]

According to the CIA World Factbook, 160,521 people die every day. Steve Jobs was just one of them.

I bet very few of the other 160,520 people who died that day ever made sinister threats to ‘go after’ an altruistic software project like Theora, or ran around suing everyone for making ‘rounded rectangles’ and ‘green phone icons’. I bet they also donated a helluva lot more to charity than Jobs too, given that he apparently had some kind of objection to it, which is sort of like having an objection to love and compassion. Or how about the time Jobs bribed the police to act like they were his private security agency, to kick down the front door to a journalist's home, seize his property and interrogate him like a criminal, just because of some crap iGadget accidentally lost by an Apple employee, after that journalist had already voluntarily contacted Apple and returned it to them?

So given the sort of monster Steve Jobs was, witnessing the spectacle of everyone from Joe Blogs to El Presidente gushing over him, like a bunch of schoolgirls at a rock concert, is absolutely sickening.

[...]

As for being a ‘visionary’ ... the only ‘vision’ Jobs ever had was the one he nicked from Xerox PARC. From that point forward he made a career out of shamelessly stealing others' ideas, shoehorning them into shiny but otherwise dysfunctional and DRM-infested toys, then branding an Apple logo on them (ironically also nicked, from the Beatles). And then to add insult to plagiarism, Jobs fraudulently stamped his ‘IP’ seal on those ‘shamelessly stolen’ ideas, then embarked on a hypocritical and vicious rampage of litigation. How's that for gratitude? Add that to the litany of virtues Jobs didn't subscribe to.


Paula Rooney chose another approach by doing PR for Mr. Jobs, essentially openwashing him. Her colleague did something similar. In a more respectful post from SJVN and from Muktware we find an openwashed Jobs whose relationship with FOSS is at least being described as "complicated". To quote:



For whatever reason, Apple holds its secrets in a death grip. When new products are rolled out, developers are threatened with being removed from the program if they leak any information. Obviously, this seems over the top when you’re used to open source development and the collaboration that comes along with it.


Mr. Jobs was using patent monopolies to manipulate this market, so here at Techrights we stopped being apathetic towards Apple some time last year (after Apple had filed a lawsuit against HTC). Here is what Mr. Pogson wrote about the disinformation we keep seeing in the media:

I am being inundated with wild claims of fans of Steve Jobs about how wonderful he was. The facts are a different patchwork:

* He invented the PC – Nope. Not even close. I still have a working PC from 1980. The Macintosh did not emerge until 1984. * He invented the GUI – Nope. Not even close. He got the idea from Xerox who got it from … I was using crude GUIs in the 1970s and they were old then. * He inspires inventors – Nope. Many inventive people don’t even bother because some bully like Apple will sue them for inventing something.


And about the attack on Android he wrote:

The issues of patents is a house of cards soon to fall under its own weight. Samsung and Apple are in a mutually assured destruction battle and the same will happen to all the players unless patents are kicked out of software.


We wrote about this case earlier and also mentioned the likely demise of iPhone with the 4S. Apple has just lost a symbolic figure, not just a number or a brand.

People die every day. Over a hundred thousand of them. Even a celebrity dies every day, but we are not seeing press releases from the White House issues for each one of them. What troubles us is that the death of a person not only became a media feeding frenzy (they are trying to monetise this death) but also an opportunity for revisionism because nobody is willing to say negative things about a person who has just died. Here at Techrights we care about what's true, not just what's PC (politically correct). Jobs and Apple -- like Gates and Microsoft -- were copiers of other people's great ideas. They admitted this. So let's not give more credit than deserved just because of a tragic and undeserved death.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Silent Layoffs at Microsoft in 2026
Time will tell is there are investigative journalists out there who will quit parroting Microsoft (e.g. false layoff figures) and relying on LLMs controlled by Microsoft to spew out false "facts" for them
SLAPP Censorship - Part 91 Out of 200: Legal Aid in Support of Freedom of the Press and British Women (Attacked by Americans)
bolstered by prominent counsels
Codecs and Software Patents - Part XII - GNU's Web Site Will Soon Have Many Recent Talks by Chief GNUisance Richard Stallman (RMS)
GNU videos being transcoded or converted into AV1
The Fall of Slop (Even Microsoft Admits There's a Problem)
If Microsoft admits that slop is too expensive and is for "entertainment purposes" because it cannot be relied upon, why would anyone other than the pushers and profiteers still insist that slop bears potential?
 
Censorship of Information Unflattering to IBM (or GAFAM)
Years ago we gave a platform to a censored Microsoft whistleblower
[Video] Richard Stallman's Rapperswil (Switzerland) Talk Online
accessible without proprietary software
Trusting Trust is an Old Issue, Predating Rust and LLM Slop by Over Half a Century
Microsoft Lunduke wants to make a case against Rust and slop (LLMs), but the issues he addresses aren't exactly new or unique
California Should Have Abandoned So-called 'Age‑Verification Laws', Not Make Exemptions (for Now)
This has nothing to do with 1) children 2) safety 3) safety of children
Links 29/05/2026: Cory Doctorow on Why the Internet Feels So Broken, American Pope on Defederation
Links for the day
Techrights Does Not Censor Information About IBM, It Platforms and Retains Suppressed Voices From Inside IBM
They don't like it when people criticise the management [...] panic attacks mentioned
Bob (Robert) Cringely Devoted Three Years of His Life Trying to Profit From LLM Slop and Now He Sounds Off, It's Just Not Working and It Can Crash the Economy Soon
"The labs raising money at valuations with too many zeros are happy"
Techrights After About 60,000 Articles in 20 Years
Sites fail if they don't offer anything new or if they wrongly believe that adopting slop to parrot other sites will give them exposure
Organised Plunder or Robbery: GAFAM and Hardware Companies Rely on Media Bribery to Perpetuate False Narratives and to "Drive Sales" (and Drive Prices Upwards)
The price-fixing seems plausible and, if so, we need to demand action
Linux Foundation Destroys the Identity and History of Linux
Groklaw's PJ was thorn on the side of LF sponsors
The Problem of Microsoft Crimes
Opposing crime isn't "hatred"
Red Hat Will Die Inside a Dying IBM
IBM isn't where Red Hat came to thrive but where it came to die
Very Large Strike at the European Patent Office Today, "Production" Sank a Huge Deal
At this pace, we might be looking at tens of thousands fewer European Patents being granted this year
Gemini Links 29/05/2026: Leadership and Religion, the Board Game (Second Edition)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 28, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, May 28, 2026
Links 28/05/2026: Pakistan and Afghanistan Are Still Fighting, Iranians Back Online
Links for the day
"LLMs Are Not Much More Than Plagiarism Engines"
the impact of LLMs on communities and software projects
Is Slop Profitable Yet? No.
Everything is a giant minus
Bob (Robert) Cringely Has Just Explained That After 3 Years of Hard Work It Became Apparent LLM Slop is Unfit for Purpose in Courts
Added moments ago to Daily Links
Links 28/05/2026: LibreSSL 4.3.2, "Jeff Bezos Is Afraid Of What Comes Next", Measles Making a Comeback
Links for the day
PCs That Are Made to 'Expire' and 'Secure' Boot Contributing to Planned Obsolescence
People who are responsible for this ought to be held accountable
Evil, Faceless Corporation: Google Steals Money From You If You Don't Purchase an Android Device for MFA
At this point, under the guise of "hey hi" (slop) Google is firing tens of thousands of workers
People Go Back to Basics, Abandon Microsoft's GitHub to Avoid Slop
The media didn't pay any attention to GitHub's de facto chief quitting Microsoft only a few months ago
SLAPP Censorship - Part 90 Out of 200: When Efforts to Silence His Spouse and Also the Wife of a Blogger in Another Continent Only Give More Exposure to Embarrassing Information
The Garrett trial ended in October 2025
IBM - Much Like the European Patent Office (EPO) - Gives the President (Head of Board and CEO) All the Money While Staff Drowns in High Inflation Rates
They're discussing the same sort of thing we often see mentioned in the EPO
"THE REGISTER EXPLAINER" as "Paid-for SPAM" at The Register MS With "AI" 40 Times in the Short Page
What will be left of The Register MS in a few years?
2025: EPO President Campinos Breaks the Cookie Jar, Steals Another Million Euros While His "Brother-in-Law" Does Cocaine at the Office and Staff Prepares Rolling, Indefinite Strikes
any additional month of Campinos in charge of the EPO is a liability not just to the EPO but the EU as well
Gemini Links 28/05/2026: Dumping Microsoft GitHub, Gopher Rabbit Hole
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 27, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Links 27/05/2026: TSMC Workers Next to Consider Strikes, Ceasefire Cracking
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 89 Out of 200: SRA Admits Malfunction, That's Why Transparency is Paramount
There have been more efforts than we can to count or can enumerate (probably over 100 such efforts) to gag us and to prevent us writing about what has happened
Our Free Software Activist in Connecticut (USA)
We'll soon revisit the latest round of legislation on "age" (surveillance, ID)
Links 27/05/2026: Living Without 'Smartphoones' and "Russia’s Biggest Attack on Ukraine in 18 Months"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2026: The USA as an "Experiment" and Some Ubuntu Manuals
Links for the day
[Video] Full Video of Richard Stallman's Talk in Rome
It seems inevitable that the official GNU site will have it
Slop is a Passing Fad, It's About Faking Productivity (Plagiarism, Misinformation, and False Positives)
Slop is a bubble. Some people accept it later than others.
Anderon - Like Kyndryl - Could be Far Deeper in Debt Than Its Alleged Worth (Vapourware)
Time will tell, but it seems like a Federal-enabled (by the Federal Government) accounting scam, nothing more, nothing less
The Media That Keeps Covering "AI" Because the Pushers of It Pay for Spam
23 times in the page they mention "AI"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 26, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Codecs and Software Patents - Part XI - The Stance of RMS (Dr. Stallman) Reassured GNU Regarding AV1
cautioned against software patents since the early 90s if not earlier