[pushingbits]

>It is not legitimate for the mass of HN to be "in grief" because of Steve Jobs's death. You may be sad, but certainly no grieving period should be necessary for strangers.

When was this decided? And by who? Did I miss a memo?

I've never owned an Apple product in my life, but the computers I have used, the smartphone I own, the tablet I will eventually get, the world I will live in 20 years from now, probably would not exist if it wasn't for Steve Jobs.

The world has lost an exceptional human being, and along with him, we have lost a chunk of the future he would have created if he'd lived longer.

So who's deciding how we are to legitimately feel about that?

[forcefsck]

> but the computers I have used, the smartphone I own, the tablet I will eventually get, the world I will live in 20 years from now, probably would not exist if it wasn't for Steve Jobs.

This is such an overstatement. What makes you so sure that Jobs had a positive influence on the world? You can't tell if in his absence something better would evolve. Not all his ideas were originall nor all the inventions were his own. And more importantly, neither was a better world his goal.

I see him more as a vanity figure and his contribution way overestimated. Sorry, if you had an image o Jobs running in a green forest along side with unicorns and rainbows, my opinion differs.

[delinka]

I think it's pretty telling that tablet computers have existed for ... what, 15 years? And that tablet computing didn't take off with consumers until iPad. I think that's a fine example of how Steve influenced a change in the world.

The Average Person has no concept of How Things Could Be Better. They just take what's available, get the job done, take their paycheck and live their lives. iPad seems to be the first time that Average Jane is saying things like "it'd be really nice if more of what I need to do could happen on my iPad." Maybe it's not to the point of consumers actually driving demand -- such as demanding text books in digital form -- but it's a start (and a welcome change from people just accepting the status quo.)

The reasons from iPad's success and other tablets' failures are irrelevant to my point. Would the rest of the industry have eventually figured out how to make tablets marketable to all of humanity? Perhaps eventually, but the world we live in today, the one where tablets (specifically iPads) are in demand now is the one in which we live.

"...probably would not exist if it wasn't for Steve Jobs." Exactly. And also if not for Steve Wozniak. And if not for Bill Gates. And a handful of other people in the industry that worked with and competed against each other early on in their careers.

[anatoly]

>I think it's pretty telling that tablet computers have existed for ... what, 15 years? And that tablet computing didn't take off with consumers until iPad. I think that's a fine example of how Steve influenced a change in the world.

Consider that for most of these 15 years, the hardware wasn't good enough for mass appeal. The combination of a CPU powerful enough to render video and to support custom apps written in a high-level language, the RAM, the screen technology and the battery able to sustain all these for many hours didn't exist until probably 2006 or so.

[drieddust]

Could not agree more.

But this Jobs fanboying surely indicates that world is not yet educated enough.

Even hacker's new crowd belives in Jobs magic and reality distortion.

[delinka]

And why wasn't the hardware "good enough"? Could it have been too much apathy and lack of innovation on behalf of the I.T. industry? And who actually made one where the hardware was good enough to sell millions of devices? Why didn't someone with the expertise come along and beat Apple to the punch?

[forcefsck]

> I think it's pretty telling that tablet computers have existed for ... what, 15 years? And that tablet computing didn't take off with consumers until iPad.

What is pretty telling is that although the first versions of apple's products are inferior in comparison with contemporary alternatives, and more expensive, people still rush to buy them because Jobs' face is in their advertisement. That was his charisma.

It's no secret that Jobs was a terrible boss, treating inhumanly his employees. He did exploit his friendships (duh). He used patents extremely to not let any room for other innovators of his time to have a chance on creating something better or more competitive. And he certainly knew that his products were made from children working all day in Chinese factories, but of-course that didn't matter much to him.

Vanity was clearly his drive. His goal was not to change the world or provide a better user experience, whatever happened there was just a side effect from his desire to be the "I win everything suckerz" guy.

And despite all this, you start a rant because Stallman expressed his opinion for Jobs sincerely and not in a politically correct way. Whatever criticism you have for FSF, it is a truly positive force on this planet. For what was the true influence of Jobs, that is very debatable.

[pushingbits]

Oh, I am sure we would have gone similar places without him... eventually. A windowing graphical user interface is objectively easier to use for most people than alternatives at the time, for example. But he saw it at Xerox, recognized it for what it was, refined it until it was sharp and crisp, and made such an impression that everyone followed suit. How long would it have taken otherwise? How many failed attempts and how many iterations? How many more failed tablets and how many more incremental improvements on feature phones? It's not like it only happened once.

Anyway, you may very well disagree. I was just trying to explain why some people who think differently might be more than a little sad about it. And that just because he was a stranger doesn't limit the amount of sadness people may legitimately feel.

[asadotzler]

"I've never owned an Apple product in my life, but the computers I have used, the smartphone I own, the tablet I will eventually get, the world I will live in 20 years from now, probably would not exist if it wasn't for Steve Jobs."

Steve Jobs has said many times that if he and Apple had not done the things they did, some other person or company -- within a short time period, would have done them.*

If you respect what he's done, then presumably you would respect his beliefs about how important he or Apple actually were.

* http://www.npr.org/2011/10/06/141115121/steve-jobs-computer-...

[jonhendry]

"Steve Jobs has said many times that if he and Apple had not done the things they did, some other person or company -- within a short time period, would have done them."

Yes, someone probably would "do them". Probably not as well. Probably without the attention to detail. Had the Lisa and Macintosh come out, Microsoft or someone else probably would have still shipped a really crappy GUI. Maybe we'd still be using Windows 1.0.

[wnight]

> It is not legitimate for the mass of HN to be "in grief" because of Steve Jobs's death. You may be sad, but certainly no grieving period should be necessary for strangers. > When was this decided? And by who? Did I miss a memo?

You need a memo to tell you others don't have to feel the same way you do?

> So who's deciding how we are to legitimately feel about that?

You, but keep it to yourself or risk other people sharing their feelings with you.

I too see Jobs like Bill Gates. He went out of his way to sue competitors out of business and hated the idea of anyone's success he couldn't charge rent for. The world is a far poorer place because of would-be monopolists like him.

As for the future he'd have created, it's on schedule. He's a product manager, not a materials scientist, graphics artist, programmer, etc. The same quality of work is being done by the same workers today as is was last week.

As the leader of an consumer protection organization, seeing how Jobs sought to ultimately undermine personal control of a user's computer through DRM and lawsuits, Stallman's response seems quite reasonable.

[nknight]

> You need a memo to tell you others don't have to feel the same way you do?

Wow. What utter, irredeemable hypocrisy. "It's not legitimate for HN to grieve" is met by indignation at being told how we should feel, and then you have the unmitigated gall to declare in opposition that others don't have to feel the same way we do?! That was the point!

[wnight]

> It is not legitimate for the mass of HN to be "in grief" because of Steve Jobs's death. You may be sad, but certainly no grieving period should be necessary for strangers.

You seem to have missed a critical piece of the message.

[nknight]

So, what, you think "grief" is not a "feeling"? Being neither a psychologist nor your mother, I really have no idea how to begin to correct that problem, except to say that you are deeply mistaken.