Saleh's Blog

All what is written here represent my own ideas on how credit should be given and what is the relationship between credit and software development effort. Credit is telling the truth and thanking and acknowledging the work done by someone. Talking specifically about software effort, developers want to get credit for the work they do. That’s why software licenses like BSD appeared to save the effort put on a particular component.

Ideas get introduced by ‘Ideas introducers’ and get implemented by ‘Ideas implementers’

I’m here dividing the work done on an idea into two groups. Ideas introducers introduce the idea in a conference to the public or for friends in private. Ideas implementers are usually companies who implement these ideas from which they create products. Ideas introducers owns the idea, implementers don’t. Introducers take the most credit because they’re the original thinkers who visualized the idea in heads. Implementers take partial credit for the effort they did. Company X cannot sue company Y because both of them are implementers. The ownership should be given to the introducer. So, giving Apple the credit as if it were the point-and-click windowed system idea introducer is wrong! because Xerox PARC are the introducers and Apple are implementers. So do Microsoft.

Ideas that get popular become ‘standard’

Let’s talk about cars a little. Can BMW sue Mercedes if BMW created car before Mercedes did ? definitely no. It’s not a ‘who runs faster’ game here. The car was once before an idea that was introduced by somebody and both BMW and Mercedes are implementers to the idea. So, neither BMW nor Mercedes can sue the other because none of them own the idea.

Ideas that get popular become a standard or a ‘common thing’. A car is a standard and when you say car to any person in the world he’ll know it.

A tablet PC is now a standard because it became popular and when you say tablet PC to anyone he’ll know it. So, giving Apple the credit as if it were the original idea introducer of a tablet PC is wrong because Xerox PARC introduced the tablet PC idea back in 1968 and Apple is an implementer to it.

Portable media players, smartphones and search engines are all standards right now. They’re very popular and anyone on Earth knows them. So, Google can’t sue Microsoft because they made their search engine before Bing. Search engine was an idea anyways and most of the credit should go to the original thinker of it while partial credit go to both Google and Microsoft.

When can we say that company X stole an idea?

Simply, when that company claim the ownership of idea Y while they don’t. They’re implementers and not introducers to the idea. Thus, they’re throwing the credit (and not acknowledging) the work done on idea Y by the original introducer.

Example: Apple stole the idea of point-and-click windowed system computing from Xerox PARC because Xerox PARC are the original owners/introducers of the idea, yet Apple sued Microsoft of stealing this idea claiming the idea is theirs. Hence, Apple threw the credit and the work done by Xerox PARC and not acknowledging them.

“No, Steve, I think its more like we both have a rich neighbor named Xerox, and you broke in to steal the TV set, and you found out I’d been there first, and you said. “Hey that’s no fair! I wanted to steal the TV set!” — Bill Gates

Here is a famous Steve Jobs video admiring “Good artist copy; great artist steal” of Pablo Picasso