On Monday, Michael Robertson of Linspire (née Lindows) preannounced two new applications, Lsongs (screenshot) and Lphoto (screenshot). Although details are scant, the applications appear to fill a gap in the Linux world currently being filled by iTunes, WinAmp, RealPlayer, iPhoto, and other apps on other platforms. The latest Michael’s Minute has more, as does this flash presentation on Lphoto.
Linspire Introduces New Linux Applications
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Adam Scheinberg
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Wow, for all the Apple fanboys complaining about copying, I have 2 words:
XEROX PARC!
Most of you might be too young to remember, but once upon a time, Apple sued Microsoft for copying the look-and-feel of the Mac OS by creating Windows 3.x…
Anyone remember how that case turned out? Anyone? Bueler? Anyone? OK, here’s how – you can’t patent or copyright the look-and-feel…
That means that anyone can create an app just like yours, and you can’t do a friggin thing about it…
Long ago Apple lost their command of the market by trying to keep MacOS restricted – only they could shove it into their machines (ok, one or two exceptions once they realized what was happening, but I digress). Windows didn’t give a crap, and let anyone put it on whatever hardware they wanted… Guess who won?
Apple consistently engineers fabulous interfaces and they fucks themselves by not getting it into as much hardware as they can… They try to control too much. If iTunes or i{whatever} were available on Linux and it worked, and some of it were GPL’d, who would really want to go and build a replicant?
The Linux userbase is growing – and fast. We’re sick and tired of closed apps that force us to rely on the vendor for so-called patches, or which try to pigeonhole us into their stuff… The genie is out of the bottle and we’re not gonna take it anymore.
I for one welcome the linux versions of these apps… It can only be good for Apple as it should tend to increase their iPod sales and music downloads…
See the above GPL post for the links to the source,
and the packages built fine. (debian/rules binary)
Lphoto works for me, but Lsongs requires the Python2.3-lame deb which I can’t find… and isn’t downloadable (unless you run Linspire)… anyone help?
This is pure theft. How anyone can defend this kind of intellectual property theft with a straight face is beyond me. If this kind of work is the heart of open source, than I may have to agree with Mr. Gates that OSS is a cancer. Why put resources and money and talent into an application, only to have your work stolen and distributed freely?
And I don’t care if the underlying code is different. The code is a science. The code is irrelevant. The UI design is the NUMBER ONE issue that is important for the user. The UI is the product. It’s what makes iTunes better than WMP and Real. It’s what makes iPhoto better than the countless garbage apps on windows.
Plus, Apple’s software and OS are by far the most fairly priced of any commercial software. They are also open source friendly, and DRM/Activation free (minus iTMS). You want iPhoto? Buy a mac. You want iTunes? They give it away for damn FREE!!! Ripping off Apple like this is just so wrong on so many levels. I can somewhat understand copying Windows and Office UIs since Microsoft has illegally forced them on the world and locked people in. It still doesn’t change the fact that Open Source at this point is an innovation-less void when it comes user interface.
If this kind of blatant and unapologetic theft is going to be the Linspire business model, I hope they disappear. Here’s hoping that Sun and Novell
Here’s hoping that Sun and Novell bring some genuine focus and real innovation to linux UI dev.
“I really like the UI, but when you import 60.000 MP3s”
You have 60,000 MP3s??
“I’ve seen plenty of photo organising apps and music player apps that look similar to iPhoto and iTunes anyway, the interfaces of those 2 apps were never 100% original. theres only a certain number of ways to make a certain function look.”
Absolutely. These two apps look generic enough to me. This is what Apple is so proud of…apps like these? All they are is colorful file managers with a few extra buttons. What’s the big deal?
You are WRONG about the Mac – Windows lawsuit issue
I have done extensive research on this issue, and here is the true story:
Apple became embroiled with Microsoft over its Windows 1.0 operating system and the way it closely copied from the Mac Operating System (OS). After a rather copious amount of back and forth arguing, Microsoft finally agreed to sign a document that basically said Microsoft would not use any Apple developed GUI technology in Windows 1.0.
The wording of this document proved to be then-Apple CEO Sculley’s greatest mistakes; while the document prohibited Microsoft from using pieces derived from the Mac OS in Windows 1.0, it said nothing about future releases of Windows.
Microsoft’s lawyers had managed to slip the company what would prove to be a permanent loophole. This document would prove to be of great importance in Apple Computer’s future attempts to sue Microsoft for infringement.
I hope the complaints of copying don’t offend you linux folks. We Mac OS X people get clowned on for copying Linux with our ‘nix code with a “pretty” interface on top.
So now the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak.
You dont know what your talking abour regarding Apple and Xerox PARC.
Steve Jobs made a visit to Xerox PARC in 1979, where engineers were working on an early example of a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Jobs and several other engineers were developing what they felt would be the next generation of computing in a project called Lisa, the prototype deployment of the Macintosh GUI concept. This would eventually be Macintosh.
The Lisa project had begun before Apple visited Xerox PARC to look at their technology. While the PARC OS project may have served as inspiration for some of the elements in the Apple GUI, the Macintosh GUI was definitely no copy.
If you have to resort to sueing people it means you have run out of innovation and your developers suck. iTunes was obviously a copy of winamp. And iMovie a copy of Premiere.
If microsoft had lost their lawsuit and not found aloophole and apple had copyrighted the desktop then we would all be screwed, KDE and Gnome included. Steve Jobs wouldnt even speak to the CEO of Real Networks… do you the open source desktop wouldnt have had a chance?
As a open source developer we have also had to deal with Apples ego and were told to go to hell for thinking of developing competing applications when they ship apache with Osx and a ton of other open source apps.
Kudos to the guys at Lindows for giving them a ego-check!
Linux alredy has more share of the desktop market and climbing, yet the mac was around formuch longer. They should be building the developer channel instead of killing it off, what are they thinking?
Seems like Apples going to be making headphones and mp3 players for a long time
I am by no means any kind of staunch supporter of Linspire. I actually disdain the kind fo distribution that Linspire(Lindows) is and cannot imagine using it myself. Yet I saw this posting here and decided to check out the apps for myself. I downloaded the source-and 10 minutes later I had both running on my gentoo system. I already had pythong-2.3.3 on my machine and a bunch of other python stuff already installed(having recently begun to write apps in pygtk+).
Lphoto installed easier than any app I have ever installed under Linux(which was not already packaged for my system)-I did not even bother to write an ebuild for the program-I simply typed in make-that’s it, no config, no make install, no nothing. If you look at the make file it contains one important line”python2.3 install.py”-the rest of the make file simply removes files which are dynamically generating during linking….As for Lsongs I found I need to install two pieces of software- pyid3lib-0.5.1 and pyxine-0.1alpha2. I googled for pyid3lib and it was the 2nd link returned-for pyxine goole returned it as the 1st link-I downloaded both packages-too about 30 seconds with dsl(pyxine is 184k and pyi3dlib is 21k-but then again lphoto is only 131k and lSong is only 109k..WOW)
To install the two (pyxine,pyi3dlib) I just unpacked them with file-roller launched from Mozilla- opened up a gnome-terminal, went into the directories and typed “python install.py”…This whole process-dowloading the Linspire apps and the two micro-dependencies- all the way to having installed everything, FROM SOURCE, took almost 10 minutes. Both apps are written python qt-and you need to start artsd prior to running lsongs(I needed almost 2 minutes to figure that one out)…And this stuff is alpha software-so it will only get easier to install as it matures…
The apps start up pretty damned quick-particularly lphoto ~2 seconds on my machine. LSongs had some difficutlies importing my directory of 300 mp3’s- probably due to incompatible meta-data tags hard-coded in my files…when I say difficulties I mean that it actually took quite a while to import my songs-several minutes-but then again this is alpha software. I let it churn for a while and when it was dfone it played my songs just fine.
I have used Linux for 8 years now. I have scanned in a number of pictures before and I have never been able to eliminate redeye under Linux. Of course you can do it with gimp-if you want to get a master’s degree in graphic arts. Wow. One click and lphoto does it. Do I *NEED* this kind of app ? Know- but something so brain-dead simple and easy to use is wonderful for super simple taks and for people who have little to know prior experience with computers.
I applaud the Linspire folks for having taking a concept-which has been tossed around under various names under windows and mac’s for years and implementing this incredibly fast, incredibly simple, incredibly light-weight way for Linux. LPhoto is simply an amazing little app. Is it it totally innovative- know… what is ? But the implementation-written with pyQT means it is lighting fast and super small. With the exception of the two micro python bindings I had to install -everything these programs need to run is already present on multimedia enabled Linux machine.
Comming from gentoo -everything you need is probably already present on your machine-as for the big DISTROS-redhat and suse- well that’s another story because those distros still haven’t found a way to deliver a version of Linux which can actually do anything regarding multimedia- out of the box(ie. redhat has no mp3 support- and suse has the most insanely crippled mplayer and xine libs one could possibly imagine-an insult to their respective developers).
Redhat and SuSe could just provide the sources to the things they don’t dare compile and and give users a one-click option to allow them to compile it themselves(assuming personal liability(*cough*))-without a download or any other difficulties… oh well that would require to much common sense.
Lsongs is not simply a media player. Although it is still alpha-you can see where it is going. It rips CD’s. it burns CD’s. It make mp3’s or oggs. It will make audio or mp3/ogg CD’s. It plays streaming media(quicktime,windows media, real player). And- yes it plays mp3’s. There is no existing app in Linux that does all of these things for you. This is an integrated, simple application that does what you need 3 or 4 different applications to do. Wow.
And the way it does this is simply brilliant- it uses python to bind everything it needs together-reusing existing libraries which are pretty much standard on most machines. Duh. Folks this is rapid application dvelopment at it’s finest. I bet less than 500 man hours have been invested in either app. They probably just fired up eric(the pyqt ide) and drafted a prototype UI-how long does this actually take? Using python they could bind most everything they need xine,i3dlib and make use of Qt’s excellent api (via python) for tying everything else into the system. Duh. How simple- why hasn’t anyone else been doing this?????????
They specifically did not re-invent the wheel- and what’s the result-something that works, is simple, looks good(if you like that look) and is amzingly intuitive-and they did this with minimal time and energy. Just like they are doing with Nvu. They hired the guy who was responsible for mozillas composer.
He simply reuses the existing mozilla code-stripping out all of the stuff you don’t need(70% of mozilla) and has a XUL RAD development-producing a application which for Linux which has hitherto not been present. Of course there is Quanta-amazingly powerful, actually, but with such a brain dead interface and with some of the stupidest UI issues I have ever seen.
Hats off to the folks at Linspire-I won’t ever use your Linux Distro-but thanks a lot for the great Free software….
Go and do your homework. The Lisa was an implementation of the ideas which apple took from XEROX PARC. Nothing wrong with this-XEROX didn’t patent this stuff and PARC was the ultimate playground for exploring high tech innovative solutions at the time. Apple didn’t visit PARC after having started working on Lisa- it’s the other way around. Lisa actually came into being because Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak talked some of the guys form PARC into comming to work for them in creating that which later would become the Lisa.
Although english is my native tongue-I don’t speak it much anymore and german, french and latin and ancient greek have destroyed my ability to spell english. In my longer posting “know” = “no”…gosh how embarrasing….
“I applaud the Linspire folks for having taking a concept-which has been tossed around under various names under windows and mac’s for years and implementing this incredibly fast, incredibly simple, incredibly light-weight way for Linux.”
Dude, everything you are gushing about is iPhoto. This Lphoto ripoff feels good because it is an exact clone of the iPhoto interface and functionality. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you have no knowledge or experience with iPhoto or iTunes.
This is not a new implementation of old concepts “tossed around”. It’s a button for button copy of the iphoto interface. If you like this app, you should have a go at the real deal and try iPhoto on a Mac. I bet you’ll be impressed by the rest of iLife as well. The fact that someone like yourself would give credit to Linspire for any part of this application’s appeal makes me sick. Some very talented designers inside Apple are being plagerized and not given one ounce of credit.
Anyone that has ever done anything creative should be in revolt over these apps. Since the Open Source community has very strong ideology, I can’t respect any tolerance of this kind of developement.
no offense, karl.
Yes but you need a overpriced, underpowered mac just to access your digital photos and mp3’s… sounds like a lot of sense to me.
What about the rest of the world, especailly the third world, where people cant afford macs? should they be left out in the cold? We have digital cameras and mp3 players as well, y’know.
The very talented designers at apple should be ashamed of themselves for not releasing their tools open source in the first place – instead of holding people hostage to their lousy hardware…
but we understand…
You’re just feeling real smart right about now since you bought a 1.3ghz mac and are probably kicking yourself since linux is free and you could have built a rocking P4 3ghz system for under $1k
Looks like iPhoto? Yeah, roughly! Boxy and course, if you ask me. Not elegant, not even nice to look at. Similar to iPhoto in format and function, but that is about it.
As for Lsongs – clugy and ugly about sums it up. What Linspire needs are some good graphics designers.
Hmmm… macs are very competitively priced and the laptops and G5 towers are anything but underpowered. Dell workstations are $1500+ more than comparable G5’s and slower in most CPU intensive apps. The laptops are cheaper, lighter, fast or faster than Pentium M systems and better constructed. I’d take my Dual 2ghz G5 to an Opteron or Xeon system any day of the week. I’d certain take my powerbook over those 10 pound P4 cheapo laptops and centrino systems are no faster and more expensive. But regardless.
I have no problem with Linux. I applaud open source in general. But you can’t possibly tell me that these BS copy-cat apps are anything but unethical. Don’t try to change the subject away from the lack of innovation in UIs by mac-bashing.
“what about the rest of the world?”
Since when is it a natural born right to get someone else’s hard work for free? Are you trying to tell me that Apple has created the perfect photo and music interface and it’s immoral to withhold it from the world? You are really going to tell us all that there is no other way to approach photo and music software design? Apple has no reason to be ashamed for running a successful business. Their software differentiates their hardware. It’s a complete product, not some hodge-podge non-sense.
I’d really LOVE to see this third world country that’s littered with digital cameras and mp3 players. Do you realize how insane that sounds?
These apps have copied every single button placement. Sure, the graphics of the interface a disgusting kludge, but Linux doesn’t have aqua, so what can you do? I can’t believe that most linux users aren’t outraged by these kinds of things. Thousands of programmers around the world and this is the best we’ve got in UI advancement?
Don’t stand up for this pathetic get-rich-quick company, their poor open source support and their rip-off based business plan. Apple isn’t the problem here.
I will try to make this a brief response. Although we obviously view things differently-I must state at the outset-I do not care if it *looks* like iPhoto/ITunes. To be really blunt- how it looks does not actually interest me. What does interest me is really very simple. Firstly the functionality that these apps provide to Linux. Secondly how these programs were made-ie. the hard-core pragmatism of code reuse and the mind-numbingly simply use of python QT bindings to create a such apps.
To date the distributors of Linux have not ever released much in the way of desktop applications. Sure they have contributed the overwhelming majority of graphical configuration tools that exist-but they have never produced desktop applications-you know those things people actually use. Not only has Linspire given something Free to the world-ie. I am a gentoo user, you couldn’t pay me to use Linspire on my machine, but they did it, from a coding perspective, in an absolutely ingenious way.
I am not a usability expert, nor a UI designer. I honestly have no respect for IP as regards usability and aesthetics. Honestly. If those apple programmers who invested their time and engery comming up with that which became the basis for LPhoto and LSongs feel that they got ripped off or taken advantage of, uh oh well. They can cry all the way to the bank. Such improvements in usability and asethetics are and exist solely for the benefit of the users-in the last instance. Whatever marketing value Apple acrews(sp?) for itself via their UI is of no interest to me-although it is obviously of interest to their investors.
If any company anywhere in the world makes an advancement in designing a simple, intuite, easy to use, yet highly functional application I honestly hope that it *is* copied, copied successfully and improved upon. I as a user and those like myself profit from this. I do not wish to see a whole scale copying of entire platforms-ie. Linux should not be a mere clone of apple or windows. But that has never been thecase and probably never will. GNOME applciations have certainly taken a step in the direction of a more apple-like aesthetic and UI, but no one could honestly ever confuse the two.
Personally I think LPhoto and LSongs looks profoundly cheesey. I also, generally speaking, dislike the appearances of all QT-based apps I have ever seen(including, by extension, all of KDE). But I tend to be, often, quite pragmatic. I would have been far happier if these apps had been done using PyGTk+ as opposed to PyQT-but I really don’t care as much about the *look* when it comes to applications filling niches which hither either have not been filled or only inadequately filled.
If there are a plethora of applications which perform a given task well, then the *look* becomes far more important. But as I pointed out- what LSongs will do is something which does not currently exist in the Linux world.Period. This may change in the near future- and I would certainly prefer to use a GTK+-based app which had the same functionality but I am still inspired by the simple fact that these applciations now *exist* for Linux.
Hell I could not retouch a friggin photo to remove redeye for the past x years due to the mind-boggling complexity of the ultra-powerful Gimp. Under Windows my scanner driver offered this option-the driver-not the application I used. Is this the biggest be-all in the world-of course not-but I remeber showing my dad how to do exactly this on his new laptop under XP a few months ago-but I could not have shown him how to exactly this same thing under Linux.
On the whole Linux lacks integrated applications. This is partly due to the design philosophy behind UNIX applications-ie. small tools for a specific purpose. Beyond this issue many of the most powerful applications in the Linux world have interfaces which are an affront to thinking,feeling, breathing beings.
But what really impressed me about LSongs is *not* that it is just another media player-I have many installed on my machine- and *not* the intuitiveness of it’s UI(most somewhat contemporary media player under Linux have at least bareable UI’s-where one can press a play button and play a song)-but the fact that it integrates a whole bunch of things which one commonly wishes to have integrated-local and streaming media playback/ripping and burning CD’s/handling mp3’s/Ogg’s and CD audio.
The fact that these things are also coupled together with a easy to use interface is really just icing on the cake,IMHO. And even this-which did really impress me- pales to the fact that I only had to download ~250K to get all this functionaly-becuase of really good code-reuse and coding techniques-using the appropriate tool for the job-python is not great for everything-but PyQT is for this kind of application simply wonderful.
So what did the Linspire succeed in doing here- they wrote a multi-function app which is well integrated using an absolute minimum in terms of code and shared libraries-the managed to give something the Linux world which at once is in very short supply(well integrated multi-function apps) but in a way which embraces the best coding practices of the Linux community-it is small, has very few-very standard dependencies and it is Free…
So I guess I am just not so worried about these apps being “clones” of some supposedly superior “originals”. Every single line of code in these apps is original in the only real sense of the word. And the ways which the lines are connected to each other and invoked *is* innovative.
I do not wish to make it seem as if I have zero respect for good UI work- but even though good UI work is hard, time consuming, tedious and whatnot- it is nothing in terms of actual work in contrast to the man-hours invested in writing all of the parts which makes something like LSongs possible.
LSongs is possible because thousands of developers around the world working mostly independently of each other with different goals, different values and different ideals managed to work in such a way, totally inadvertantly, as to render such combinations possible. Like I said I imagine that less that 500 man-hours went into the current alpha LSongs or LPhote-perhaps a bit more, but probably not-but creating such so quickly is only possible because millions of man-hours were already invested in python, Qt, pyqt, xine, ffmeg, mp3, ogg, i3d etc.
Lastly the app is so small that I myself can look at the code, grok what’s going on and perhaps even port it to GTK someday in the distant future….
It must have taken a huge effort to make these apps work well. By comparison, I would think it would take very little additional effort to make them look a bit more unique. Disappointing.
As usual on a linux forum there are a lot of people pro or against something.
Personally I find the existence of the 2 applications positive (especially due to GPL license), and if Lphoto can really do what the presentation says, than I’ll start using it as soon as I can compile it on my SuSE 9.0 box. If lphoto start as soon as I plug in my camera on my computer, trasnfer the photos, allows me to process them (red eye, resize, rotate, crop, etc), print them, send them by mail, etc. without having to start N additional applications I will not care if it is a ripoff of iPhoto (which I use on my iMac) or something else. Somebody wrote here about gphoto, F-spot, digikam and others, but none of them have all the features that lphoto pretends to have, and mostly have stability problems when you have 2000 photos there. And if apple will sue linspire for this, they will have to sue also kodak for “copying” the design of iphoto in their kodak-easy-share utility.
It is an insult to suggest that the coding of this app is more work than the design of the interface and functionality. I’m not a programmer, I’m a commercial director and editor. I had two years of computer science in college, but that hardly helps and I have no knowledge of Linux programming APIs.
What I do know is that the work Linspire did on these two apps is precisely the kind of programming that is being imported from india and china. They contributed NOTHING to the interface and functionality. They designed NOTHING. From what you are saying, they took overwelmingly from existing code and APIs for the guts of the app. It’s monkey work. Apple’s people did the hard part, designing an app.
The fact that you and so many others feel that UI design is so much easier than coding is the primary reason that Linux is a UI nightmare unfit the masses. Again, I pray that Novell and Sun bring some innovation to this space.
Now, I can understand being excited about these apps and not caring that they are ripoffs if you are a Linux user and have no desire to buy a mac. I was a Windows user once and would have felt the same way then. Apple makes the best consumer software and it does suck that they don’t release to all platforms…except for the fact that OSX is an awesome platform so there’s little reason to complain about running it.
As a matter of philosophy an ethics, I’ve stated my case. This kind of copying is not good for the industry and hurts the people that did the real work. If linux is to break into the desktop, it will need to stand on its own two feet and innovate in design and UI. If all it can do is duplicate other people’s work verbatim, linux will become an inhibitor of innovation, not an inspiration.
I want linux to inspire innovation. This kind of behavior will only do the opposite.
karl wrote :
So I guess I am just not so worried about these apps being “clones” of some supposedly superior “originals”. Every single line of code in these apps is original in the only real sense of the word. And the ways which the lines are connected to each other and invoked *is* innovative.
I do not wish to make it seem as if I have zero respect for good UI work- but even though good UI work is hard, time consuming, tedious and whatnot- it is nothing in terms of actual work in contrast to the man-hours invested in writing all of the parts which makes something like LSongs possible.
and :
Like I said I imagine that less that 500 man-hours went into [it]
Clearly, you do not have any respect for the UI designers work.
Part of the reason iTunes and iPhoto were innovative, simple, user-friendly prodcuts is the amount of time that was spent in the design phase making them so. It likely was not one individual who woke up with the perfect interace, but a team of expert designers and a group of testers providing feedback. Now that the design has been finalized and released for a few years, everyone suddenly decides that it’s obviously the best way to do it? NO.
If it were so obvious, and unworthy of respect then it would have always have been done that way. Apple added value to their digitial audio players (iTunes and iPod) by figuring out the easiest way for consumers to use the functionality. Lindows (linspire, linpoop, whatever…) has not created anything – they have cloned something. They sat down with iTunes (& iPhoto) and copied the interface. They got value (ease of use) for their applications by imitating someone else’s app. It is flattery (the sincerest form) but it is not homage since they do not acknowledge the original.
Also – some other poster claimed greater desktop numbers for Linux than Mac – if there are so many Linux desktops, why isnt there any Linux software for sale anywhere? There may have been more Linux installs in some recent quarters than new Mac sales, but those Linux installs do not equate to machines. A lot of Linux users are dual-booting with Windows for one thing, so cut the numbers in roughly one-half to get some estimate of active linux-only installs. Then, you need to account for upgrades from previous distributions, so cut that half again by quarters (to reduce the total number to about 1/8) and you probably have a more accurate metric of new linux-only desktops.
Now we have not even addressed the fact that sales share is not desktop share, since Macs sold the quarter before, the year, before and up to five and six years before can run the same applications… further separating the true numbers of Mac versus Linux users.
All that said – I LOVE open source software – it is a definite part of making the world a better place. But the OSS community is going to have to admit that Apple has found a great way to profit off of, and contribute back to OSS – including giving credit where it is due.
@ John,
Quote:
“Apple’s people did the hard part, designing an app.”
Apple did all of the hardwork for their applications- iPhoto, Itunes. They did not do that hardwork which is behind LSongs and LPhoto- neither did Linspire for that matter.
Quote:
“They contributed NOTHING to the interface and functionality. They designed NOTHING.”
No they contributed NOTHING to the interface and functionality of Apple’s application-and yes they did not design Apple’s application. But they did contribute-they contributred a non-existant app for Linux. And they did design an app for Linux.
Just keep it clear in your head: we are talking about 4 different applications running on two(one-way mutually exclusive) platforms. iPhoto and iTunes means nothing directrly to me because I can’t use them-I do not own a mac and never intend to give Apple money purchasing one-even though I appreciate the quality of their products.
@ Nunya,
It is not the case that I have no respect for good UI work.
I just have different priorities. *Once* basic funcitionality has been achieved a good UI becomes very, very important. But a good UI is meaningless in the context of non-existant functionality. Good multimedia functionality has been something the Macintosh series achieved over 15 years ago. Linux is still struggling to get this working really good.
If you feel *respect* is owed perhpas you should write a letter to the CEO of Linspire- asking him to modify the “About” text to state something like “inspired by the brilliant UI designers at Apple”. Perhaps even mentioning them by name.
Quote:Apple added value to their digitial audio players (iTunes and iPod) by figuring out the easiest way for consumers to use the functionality. Lindows (linspire, linpoop, whatever…) has not created anything – they have cloned something. They sat down with iTunes (& iPhoto) and copied the interface. They got value (ease of use) for their applications by imitating someone else’s app. It is flattery (the sincerest form) but it is not homage since they do not acknowledge the original. ”
Well yes and no. Linspire did add value to their Linspire distribution of Linux. That’s obivous. They did create something- non-existant applications for Linux. They probably did try very hard to clone the iTunes and IPhoto interface- after all it is good design-even though I disdain Apples *tastes*.
I’m not sure what you really expect Linspire to do-or their emplyoess for that matter. Would you feel better if a photo-op was made of the Linspire programmers and CEO were kneeling in front of Steve Jobs and the iPhoto/iTunes designers and kissing their feet-kind of like the Pope kissing the ground when he gets of of the airplane in a foreign country….
You kind of remind me of someone going into a disco and hearing some song to which all the kids are dancing-and saying- “hey you- stop dancing- that song was first released by the BeGees in 1974- how dare you dance to this mere copy of the original. ”
@ both of you,
I really wonder if the UI guys/gals behind the iPhoto and iTunes at Apple really got upset-presuming they have ever even heard of Linspire-LPhoto, LSongs- about seeing their UI “cloned”. I imagine if they actually even know of it’s existence that they probably think-“uugh what a cheap copy-hehe they can’t do it half as good as we did it”…or perhaps, chuckling to themselves, “gee our stuff mut be really good- other folks who don’t have a clue at least have the *taste* to attempt to copy it”……
I’m sorry if I am to abrasive for your supposedly *ethical* concerns. Those Apple folks are crying all the way to the bank. And I can just see Apple’s shareholder quivering in fear at the prospect of Linspire diplacing Apple….come on let’s get real….I guess I just don’t value IP like you guys do-and well that’s ok, at least for me-my conscience isn’t bothering me.
For all the complaining about the “ripoff” of Apple on these two apps, I just keep thinking about Safari and Konqueror…
Apple takes from the OSS community to make their top of the line browser, so they should have given back something substantial in the way of other apps. (and I don’t mean that halfarsed port of Darwin)
Well, since they wouldn’t, I have no problems with the Lindows people making these products. They provide funtionality for the Linux user, and in a small efficient package.
So they look alot like the second generation iApps? (ref to U-lead’s original iPhoto) Maybe Apple can sue them for a share of the profits on the free software? heh heh…
Kudos to Lindows for another contribution to the free world!
Apple has taken the KHTML engine and SIGNIFICANTLY improved it and continue to do so. They have also released all their engine improvements back to the community, so I don’t see how that is anything other than excellent Open Source community support. Apple’s browser work is making the engine better, faster and more compatible for all linux users.
Karl, you can rationalize stealing ideas all you want, but it doesn’t change what it is. The fact that the iApps aren’t available on linux doesn’t make these copies any less wrong.
Let’s look at this from another angle. Say I am a producer with an idea for a new hit show (which is true). Say I get that show made on the Trio network, which has a small audience. While the show is essentially the same formula (or functionality to put it in your terms) as everything else out there, what makes the show great is the music choices, the casting, the editing, etc. This is the fact of all creative work, it’s all in the execution, not the idea or “functionality”.
Let’s say that NBC decides to copy my show verbatim. They use my script, edit the show frame-for-frame shot-for-shot identically, the use the same music, and cast people that look just like my cast. The show is a smash hit and people that see it love it, many of whom have never seen my original. The NBC producers get the credit and go on to do more things.
Tell me how this is any different than what have just described. Given, Linspire is a twirp of a company compared to Apple, but besides that. It’s the execution of a function that makes all the difference. For you too say that functionality matters first means that should bow down before the command line and never touch a GUI at all, since you can do anything on there. The command line has all the “functionality”. For an interactive app, the interface IS the application. PERIOD.
You’re happy to have iphoto in linux and you don’t care if it was stolen to get it. That’s the point. It’s just like buying a TV you know was stolen for $50 when it should be $500. That is just as wrong as stealing it yourself. If you want to enjoy your stolen TV, don’t try to defend the theif.
Well sticking to your analogy,I would only have a problem if NBC either used your actors, editors, scriptors and muscicians. Particular ways of editing films and filming methods are techniques which are constantly copied-again if NBC used your film cutters and camera men-then yes this would be a problem. Those individual people are what make the show what it is-and people who look like them are no surrogate- even if they have similiar names.
Re-applying this analogy to the LPhoto and LSongs situation-I would say I only really have a problem if Linspire had actually used Apple’s code-which both you and I know didn’t happen. You may think I am trying to rationalize something(I have certainly done such before).
But in reality you and I are talking about two different things. You are talking about iPhoto and ITunes as a work of art, and artistic creation, created by Apple UI engineers, written exclusively for the Apple Platform. I am talking about applications being written for Linux that fill hitherto unmet needs-and complimenting those who have worked so hard to make such applications possible for the Linux platform, of which arguable the folks at Linspire have done the least-and of course these apps probably can be made for Apple-god forbid-because they are Free.
I am not a fan of Linspire- I am a fan of smart programmers who reuse libraries of existing code in smart ways unforseen by their authors. I have seen and worked with a lot of applications on a lot of different platforms over many, many years(~28 years now). I am genunely impressed by the use of PyQT coupled with QT bindings of xine and i3dlib -and many other libraries to pull of such functionality.
The fact that these apps look like their Apple counterparts on a very, very superficial level really doesn’t bother me. The funtionality which impresses me is not the buttons, nor their placement, nor the colors, nor the widgets. Probably most of what you attribute to being a product of the UI genious at apple really doesnt interest me. The only thing really unique about these apps is that they are new to Linux in their particular combination of functionality. Nothing I saw in either of these apps is absolutely original, taken individually.
Each piece of the puzzle of functionality which these apps represent is already present ina myriad of apps for Linux, Windows, Apple, Beos, *BSD, and probably even skyos….Please pay attention to what I am actually praising. The brilliant thought behind using python and python bindings to create really, really tiny useable apps that do dead simple things, but things which hitherto have not been easily done on Linux is what I am talking about.
I have media players already which are far better than LSongs. I have streaming audio players better than that offered by LSongs. K3b absolutely rules as a burning/ripping application for KDE-it blows anything in the Windows/Apple world out of the water. The Gimp makes LPhoto look like what it is -a super stripped down graphic app written for absolute noobs who are utterly clueless.
I don’t need these Linspire apps. But many, many do. And I am thankful somebody went ahead and made them. I am a big fan of the Linux hacker culture-but hackers simply would not ever write stuff like this- Linux is now over 10 years old and such apps have simply not been made.
In fact if these apps were written with a charcoal gray color scheme, using type1 fonts, with no buttons, no tree view and only with very deep complex menus- I would still like the apps. Just to give you an idea of how little their Apple-likeness really means to me.
I understand that you find their use of existing linux code unique and innovative from a programming point of view. That’s fine. I can understand your appreciation of that programming work.
Your continued dismissal (it borders on approval) of their UI theft is appauling though. You do realize that you are just outright sh*ting on the most important element of computing, don’t you? You have NO respect for key reason for computing spreading throughout the world. The lack of good interfaces in Linux and computing in general highlights how difficult it is to make an interface that exposes a program’s functionality for most users.
Your “debunking” of my TV analogy is bizarre and wrong-headed. You are right that styles of editing and whatnot are copied. But I was refering to a frame-for-frame duplication. This is something that would not require any skill (just like Lphoto and Lsongs required ZERO skill to put together the UI). A high-school kid could reproduce a show, frame-for-frame, in editing just like anyone with basic Linux UI knowledge could build these apps.
“The fact that these apps look like their Apple counterparts on a very, very superficial level really doesn’t bother me. The funtionality which impresses me is not the buttons, nor their placement, nor the colors, nor the widgets”
Is this a joke? A “very, very superficial level”? Every single element of the interface is a direct copy. Even the icons are copies. This isn’t about graphics design. This is about functionality. This is the very difference that separates an application like After Effects from Combustion from Commotion from Shake. All of these apps can do the same thing. They composite and animate. In your world, the difference between these apps is meaningless. Well, the developers of this software would beg to differ. Its all about the interface. The interface is one of the main reasons you buy one over the other. I switched to Shake over After Effects for compositing because of interface. I could do everything in AE that I do in shake, but the interface saves me hours per day.
You don’t get it. My hope is that you don’t represent the majority of the open source community, but based on the UIs out there, that may be a hope in vain.
The UI is the product. This is not an opinion. It’s a fact.
Isn’t the point about UI theft rather moot unless Apple sues Linspire? I see nothing particularly innovative about the interface. I suppose that compiling LPhoto or LTunes to work in Apples X11 with the Quartz window manager they would look a whole lot more like their Macintosh counterparts (ECC 1:9).