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

Attacks on Techrights Are Only Making Techrights Bigger and Even More Popular
A week ago they offered to settle with us
EPO Staff Can Go Listen to Richard Stallman Next Week in Munich (Technical University of Munich, Rudolf-Diesel Hörsaal (MW2001) on Campus Garching at 18:00)
"The talk is open to the public and attendance is free. Registration is not required."
At IBM, Relocation Means Layoffs (Downsizing)
Silent or 'invisible' layoffs?
Dystopian Trends in Technology Make Richard Stallman More Relevant Than Ever
It's good to see him attracting vast audiences
Richard Stallman (RMS) Announced His Talk Less Than 24 Hours Before It Took Place and Still Filled Up the Auditorium at Sapienza Università di Roma
Photos from yesterday evening [...] It looks like it was a very successful event
 
The DDoS Attacks by Microsoft's Scam Altman and Other Slop Charlatans and Frauds is Hurting the FSF, Delinking It From Copyleft Projects
This impacts a lot more than access to the licences
Microsoft Scanning Faces in Photos People Upload to Microsoft (Even Unconsciously), Slashdot Turns Report About It Into "Microsoft Sez" (Says)
Or "let's repeat the lies from a PR person/Microsoft's publicist"
[Teaser] Angel Aledo Lopez the Manipulator (Nepotism, Poll Rigging, and Other EPO Corruption)
We'll discuss this later today or tomorrow, based on internal EPO material
Epic Metaphor for End of IBM: "The IBM Demolition is Down to the Last Shards!"
Nothing lasts forever
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 14, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Proprietary and DRM Prisons Spiralling Down the Sinkhole? Not Just Yet.
Let's hope that more people will flee to GNU/Linux
The European Patent Office (EPO), the Second-Largest Institution in Europe, is Cracking Down on Recreational Activities
Without AMICALE activities, and as staff already says it's pressured to work more for less, how can the EPO recruit bright people?
Transparency: FSFE financial reports exclude speaker fees and expenses
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Many Developers Have Many Political Views, They'll Never Agree on Everything
It's an effort to divide and destroy, not build
Gemini Links 14/10/2025: An Opportunity to Consider GNU/Linux and Another Simple IRC Client
Links for the day
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, LinuxSecurity, Google News, and the Serial Slopper Brian Fagioli
Nothing of merit here, just more slop
Links 14/10/2025: Lack of Trust in Slop and "Retirement Challenges"
Links for the day
Rhonda D'Vine, Gerfried Fuchs, Pronouns & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Central Staff Committee of the European Patent Office (EPO) Warns That EPO Management is Robbing or Manipulating Pension Funds Again
Faking "growth" is just about as bad as forgery
Probably a Lot Worse Than LLM Slop: GNOME Tying Itself to Divisive Politics, Even Where It's Clearly Not Relevant
Something has gone terribly wrong in GNOME
Links 14/10/2025: Microsoft OneDrive Scanning Faces in Photos (Without Asking First), "OpenAI Says It Will Move to Allow Smut"
Links for the day
They Generally Don't Like Scholars, as They're Less Compelled or Pressured to Repeat What Corporations and Oligarchs Say
People who loathe scholars have an agenda in mind that, unlike that of reasonable people, revolves around controlling people
Belated New Article About Last Thursday's Lecture by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
there are good reasons to pay with cash, not limited to privacy
Attacking Richard Stallman Has Become 'Career Suicide'
If you're going to viciously attack somebody, make sure your arguments are rock-solid
Microsoft's Failing XBox Business Has Turned Games Into Funerals
How does it feel to depend on Microsoft?
Yesterday's "Distinguished Lecture" by Richard Stallman Possibly Attended by Close to 1,000 People
The capacity of the place is about 900
Slop Poisons Everything
Imagine wanting to find what Torvalds has just said or what has just been released
Taking Software Freedom 'Mainstream'
interest in Software Freedom must have grown
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 13, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 13, 2025
Gemini Links 14/10/2025: Ada Lovelace Day, Sony CLIE PEG-TG50 Review, Why to Avoid Network Solutions
Links for the day
The EPO's War on Techrights Was a Massive Mistake
The EPO started the SLAPPs after we had published a few hundreds of articles; we've since then published close to 6,000 because the attacks on us emboldened insiders to help us
General-Purpose Computers to Become Growing Area of Coverage
Without them, we have little left for controlling our lives
"They missed a great opportunity to shut up." -Jacques Chirac
Brett Wilson LLP has been trying to cheat the legal system many times
Harassment evidence: Switzerland, overcrowded fitness and yoga centers, incompetence and racism in accident response
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Vincent Danjean & Debian NXIVM collateral, blackmail risks
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
In Sweden This Past Friday Richard Stallman Explained Why Copyleft is Important
And he didn't have to 'bash' BSDs, either
IBM Layoffs Due to a Lack of Money and Company Debt Rising by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in 6 Months
IBM didn't buy Red Hat for any ideological reasons; it was a fast "cash grab" for revenue
Forbes Already Stopped Being a News Sites. Now It's a Spam and Propaganda Platform for "Paying Partners" (Companies).
news from Forbes became very scarce
Is the Second-Largest Institution in Europe (EPO) Gradually Becoming More Like a Sweatshop?
Underpaid, unqualified, inexperienced and incompatible people are already recruited to replace veteran examiners
The Register MS Has No FOSS Coverage Anymore
The Editor in Chief is like a Microsoft plant
Links 13/10/2025: "Toasty Subwoofer" and WiFi Speakers "Are About To Go Dumb"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/10/2025: iNaturalist and Tove Jansson’s Moominpappa at Sea
Links for the day
Microsoft Does Not Deny That Large Retailers Like Walmart, Costco and Target Are Giving Up on XBox (and Not Stocking It)
No doubt XBox is in trouble and rumours suggest that more mass layoffs are imminent
We'll Encourage Richard Stallman to Talk About Software Patents at the EPO Next Week When He Visits Munich (EPO Headquarters)
Go listen to Richard Stahlmann
Investigative Journalism Protects Society From Corruption, Crimes Against Women, Assaults on Civil Society
"what is the point of men doing military practice to defend a system that is so rotten?"
Swiss pimp usurping reputation of legendary Tissot boss Francois Thiébaud from France (BaselWorld, SWATCH Group SA)
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Paris 'Love Nest' & Debian Outreachy: from Lycée Lakanal to ENS Cachan, Cr@ns, nepotism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman to Give Public Talk in 3 Hours, Then in the Technical University of Munich (Germany) Next Week
Richard Stallman at TUM on 21.10.2025 18:00, MW2001
Arnaud Parreaux lost case defending rogue employer
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Mathieu Elias Parreaux declared bankrupt in Switzerland
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Breakdown of the Rule of Law and Patent Law in the European Union (EU)
The EPO cannot recruit suitably qualified patent examiners this way, let alone retain them
Gemini Links 13/10/2025: Good Films, Wizard of Earthsea, Upgrading the Steam Controller's Stick
Links for the day
Leaks and Whistleblowers: Our Plan for Today
Society simply cannot advance when too many people self-censor
It's Not Justice When One Side Denies the Other Side the Ability to Even Speak
At this stage, Brett Wilson LLP is in my humble opinion acting in contempt of the Court
Links 13/10/2025: Australian Catholic University Uses Slop to Libel Students, Canada Threatens to Kill Beluga Whales
Links for the day
How Not to Silence Tux Machines (It'll Only Backfire, Badly)
defending Microsoft while attacking this site
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT and Google News
It seems abundantly clear that Google News and Google in general participates in the slop epidemic
Vincent Danjean (not INTERPOL), Claire Bardel & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Christmas lynchings: Martin Krafft (madduck), Penny Leach (mjollnir) & Debian pregnancy cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 13/10/2025: Birthdays and "Committee Unable to Contact Nobel Prize Winner"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 12, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 12, 2025