I've read a great deal about the controversy surrounding Apple's introduction of Dashboard. John Gruber of Daring Fireball has the most in-depth analysis — and defense of Apple — regarding the two programs:
The post-WWDC peanut gallery is atwitter with the idea that Tiger's Dashboard is a blatant rip-off of Konfabulator. You can't read anything about Dashboard without hearing that it's a Konfabulator rip-off.There's much more on his site. I'm not much of a geek, so I can't comment with any authority. But after reading Gruber's article, my fears about some MacHeads are true: they're a bunch of pissy, whining punks. More at a later date.Bullshit. Dashboard is not a rip-off of Konfabulator. Yes, they are doing very much the same thing. But what it is that they're doing was not an original idea to Konfabulator. The scope of a "widgets" is very much the modern-day equivalent of a desk accessory.
What is original to Konfabulator? That its widgets are based on a scripting language? That's not original.
Posted by ronn at July 3, 2004 10:46 PM