"We've Always Been Shameless About Stealing Great Ideas" --Steve Jobs

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Summary: More information than Apple wants the public to know about its attitude towards copying and its latest patent lawsuit against Linux/Android

Yesterday we wrote about Apple suing Linux phones using software patents [1, 2]. Apple should be ashamed of itself and its followers ought to rethink their relationship with a brand that has committed the crimes of Hubris. As TechDirt correctly puts it (regarding Apple's lawsuit):

It's usually a sign that a company is worried that it can't keep up with the competition.

Gizmodo has this new post which brings back a good video from the past. It's the video we put at the top (and made an Ogg version of).

Oh, hello! A trip to the YouTube wayback machine shows that 1996's Steve "Great Artists Steal" Jobs might have taken issue with Steve Jobs 2010, and his patent lawsuit firebombing of HTC. Irony!

The comment was made during a 1996 PBS documentary called "Triumph of the Nerds," and looks a smidge hypocritical in light of today's events. As does this one:

Let's remember that Apple also invests in Microsoft's patent troll, Nathan Myhrvold, who argues that "intellectual property is the next software."

Here is an Open Letter to Steve Jobs:

But when you sue someone for doing something you do yourself, you become one of the bad guys. Can you name a company you admire that spends its time enforcing patents, instead of innovating? Remember the pirate flag you flew over Apple's headquarters when you were building the Mac? Is Apple part of the Navy now?

Apple is just upsetting it own fans, as we showed yesterday with an example. How about this new article?

Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch: Let’s Sue the Internet

So Apple is suing HTC, the premier manufacturer of Android-based phones, including Google’s Nexus One. And Rupert Murdoch is suing Google—or so he says.

[...]

It’s a Steve thing. Not just a temper tantrum. But an operatic one. It’s Steve Jobs’ signature: pride and paranoia. Behind it, too, is the motivation of all great competitors—they really don’t want to compete, they want the market for themselves. Now it’s Google, rather than Microsoft, copying him. It’s Google’s phone he’s out to get. He’s pissed off: Google controls the Internet and all he controls is his rotten phone.

One of the culprits here is also the patent system, which is worth reforming or abolishing. It does nothing good for society, say patent holders themselves (whose employers asked them to apply for patents). ⬆