ESR On Steve Jobs’s passing

ESR: I dont think Steve Jobs has ever claimed he/Apple “invented” the PC, Smartphone, AppStore, iTunes, iPad , etc. Steve Jobs was not an inventor. He “popularized” the technology to the masses — and thats what causes the technology to make an impact. If Xerox invented the GUI, but they sold a couple of computers using it, which flopped, and also had on some terminals for controlling their printers, thats it. The technology was going in waste. Steve recognized the technology had potential to be used for personal computers for everybody, developed the technology a lot, and marketed a computer that a lot of people bought or atleast was noticed enough for the mass-marketer Windows to copy it and spread it further. I think Steve played a very very key role here in popularizing the GUI and developing the GUI. The PC’s that were sold were better because of it. Similar in the iPhone — I have never used the Dagger or whatever it was — but most people I know havent heard of it, or used it. It would have remained a model, which a few people used — what impact would have. It is the typically fallacy of scientists that they recognize “invention” as being the most valuable activity — but they forget that unless the invention is used by the masses, it could be limited to none or very little impact on the world. I dont know how the UI of the hiptop was — but the iPhone was the first smartphone to be really easy-to-use and powerful in surfing the internet, and brought in popular use of multi-touch touchscreens (they were not invented in the iPhone, but were hardly in use before it). It also brought a popular App Store to the market. Thats where in lies the contribution of the iPhone. Thats why all the smartphones borrowed a lot of ideas from the iphone over the next years — including your favorite android — (please dont deny, ask Andy Rubin) — and all the smartphones that are available in the market are better off because of it. Also it popularized smartphone and made it accessible to the masses — earlier smartphones were so clumsy to use, they were used only by a few. Today they are popular with everybody, and have apps that can do powerful stuff — which wouldnt have been there without the iphone. Taking a single minded view that just because Apple controls the app store (but keeps safari uncontrolled), it is bad is almost childish in my opinion. Most people who use the phone dont want the fear of downloading apps from an app store like the Android market where nobody has checked the app out before you, and has routinely malicious software. Claiming that Steve Jobs made locked-in products, so he did more harm than good — is craziness. I have lost all faith in your judgement reading this article. He did not hypnotize anybody. He marketed the products. If people who bought it first wouldnt have liked it, it would have never become popular. But the fact is, they liked it. Millions of people liked the iphone. And thats why Android is also as good as it is today…. iPhone made the average smartphone available in the market “Smart”, and hundreds of millions of smartphone users today are better off because of it.

My comment on another forum where ESR's post was discussed (complete with inadvertent but funny typo), which explains why I think ESR (and RMS) just don't get it:

James Gosling has an interesting take on Jobs being a "control freak":

    He was famously difficult to work for and
    unrelentingly demanding of perfection. I
    interviewed for jobs with him 3 times: once before
    he was fired, once at NeXT and once after he
    returned. Each was a long lunch at The Good Earth.
    Each was a wonderful, intriguing conversation, but
    I left each thinking, ‘No, I can’t work for
    this man: he’s mad!’ That visionary madness
    drove him and his company with a tremendous force.
    He was personally not an engineer or a designer,
    but he had a tremendous sense for excellence. Many
    companies use ‘focus groups’ to help them
    refine products, but not Apple: they just had
    Steve. He was often criticized for being a
    ‘control freak,’ but that was all in pursuit
    of excellence: anything out of his control was out
    of his ability to improve.  He didn’t just have
    a sense for Apple’s products, he had a sense for
    Apple’s customers and what would delight them.
    As much as he was devoted to Apple, he was more
    devoted to Apple’s customers. One of the biggest
    drivers of Apple’s success in recent years is
    the delight their customers feel in every part of
    the process, even something as simple as opening a
    box is thought through carefully. Every detail
    matters.

The thing that really stood out in the giant collection of comments that have been published about Jobs over the last 3 days by almost everyone of any importance in the tech world is how many of these people were positively influenced by him.

This includes some of Jobs and Apple's strongest competitors--for instance when Larry Page took over as Google CEO in April, he says that Jobs reached out to give him advice and knowledge to be CEO even though Jobs was very sick by then. Note that this is well after Apple and Google had become fierce rivals in mobile.

That's how things work in Silicon Valley. Companies can be bitter rivals, but the people that run them can be friends and help each other. Business and people are separate.

What I find sad about the comments of RMS and ESR is that they are so one dimensional. They view people like they are in comic books--they must either be heroes who are good all the time, or villains who constantly plot evil from their secret volcano lair while stoking a cat. Real life humans aren't like that.

What would be the more effective way to get people to give two shits about needing a special tool to open the computer case sold by vendor A?

Choice #1: strike a PR blow against vendor A by railing against them at every opportunity.

Choice #2: labor to improve the user experience available from the freetard universe, thereby neutralizing vendor A's relative advantage so that not having to go buy a Torx T15 driver becomes an important differentiator.

(posted from my beloved linux machine)