[brudgers]

That this is a top rated comment is fucking pathetic.

His name is on the door. Unlike the late beloved Steve Jobs, he does not afford himself the opportunity to blame others for product problems. It's a higher standard - one without "Hold it another way" copouts and buy our products to show your good taste values. He built his startip into a company that makes amazing products that can be used to really change the world because they help solve really hard problems in ways that scale. He's putting knowledge into the world not peddling caveat emptor planned obsolescence and digital whoopie cushions.

Now he's taken his life's work and is shipping it on the Raspberry Pi instead of taken a 30% cut of the creative output of developer and musicians.

That's the difference between what is rightfully called "great" and what is called so only insanely.

[jakobe]

No need to shit on Steve Jobs in order to praise Steven Wolfram. Both are good businessmen that built great products and successful companies. And they had great respect for one another.

And it's not like Wolfram is giving stuff away for free. Have you seen how much a Mathematica license costs? I loved using Mathematica at my university, but now I just can't afford a license anymore.

[GregBuchholz]

>And it's not like Wolfram is giving stuff away for free.

I think he is...

http://www.wolfram.com/raspberry-pi/

[sourcex]

So Wolfram for raspberry Pi is available for free with NOOBS ? eye rolls and Wolfram is chargeable ?

[brudgers]

Steve Jobs built a business around charging students full retail and encouraging educational institutions to promote Apple computers to them. Freshman are encourage to take out loans to buy Apple products with a support life cycle that ends before they graduate. Any admiration for Mr. Jobs is based on something other than human community.

[staunch]

If you can't acknowledge Steve Jobs massive contributions to technological progress you're extremely confused about the history.

[lutusp]

Wait, what? Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people (and did that very well). Before you reply, consider that I was there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer) and I knew Jobs personally. I watched how he operated. He was very good at what he did, but he was a promoter, not a creator, of technology -- technology created by others.

[enraged_camel]

>>Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Selling technology is a great way to facilitate its progress. Or do you believe that technology just sells itself?

I know that this is a forum primarily for developers (err, sorry, where are my manners... I meant creators), but the fact is that most developers would not have jobs if salespeople did not sell the products they created. I know that's a difficult thing to grasp for some, but it's true.

[lutusp]

>> Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people

> I don't understand what you are trying to say.

Okay, let me spell it out for you -- here's the remark I was replying to:

>>> If you can't acknowledge Steve Jobs massive contributions to technological progress

Really, "massive"? Invention of the transistor massive? Design of the first computer massive? Design of basic computer algorithms and/or languages massive? Or, to be more specific, design anything massive? Well, in point of fact, no -- none of the above.

> ... but the fact is that most developers would not have jobs if salespeople did not sell the products they created.

Yes, and people who actually develop technology wouldn't be comfortable without people to sweep the floors and empty the wastebaskets. The question you need to ask yourself is which role is irreplaceable -- the creator of technology or the person who sells it?

[siglesias]

Creating a collaborative organization to design, engineer, and massively produce this stuff is absolutely nothing to scoff at. Process is essential to modern human enterprise--ask any of the hundreds of endlessly delayed Kickstarter projects that routinely fail to turn a prototype into something that can be shipped. If this were simple, there would be many Apples run by many "promoters." Instead there is only one.

[lutusp]

> Creating a collaborative organization to design, engineer, and massively produce this stuff is absolutely nothing to scoff at.

First, no one is scoffing. Second, which role is essential and which is replaceable? Steve Wozniak created computers and Steve Jobs sold them. There are ten salesmen for each person able to create something worth selling.

> If this were simple, there would be many Apples run by many "promoters." Instead there is only one.

Yes -- only one Apple, and only one Intel, and only one AMD, and only one Blackberry, and only one Tesla, and only one IBM, and only one Android. Shall I go on listing all the things there is only one of?

[astrodust]

By that definition nobody creates technology since all they're doing is iterating on work done by other people.

He may not have written code or laid out circuits, but the work he did is extremely important in the process of creating technology. He wasn't just a promoter, he was also a shaper, he would steer the engineering team towards the types of solutions he was looking for and push them to achieve beyond what they would ordinarily do.

Having a vision of some kind of technology and then driving a team towards that goal is, undeniably, "creating technology".

[lutusp]

> By that definition nobody creates technology since all they're doing is iterating on work done by other people.

So learn about science. Einstein wasn't "iterating" when he created the special and general theories of relativity -- these theories were very far afield from the physics of the day, and entirely original.

Charles Darwin wasn't "iterating" when be began to think about the fact that Galapagos finches from different islands had different beak sizes and shapes, and what that might mean.

Galileo wasn't "iterating" when he saw those four little stars that seemed to follow Jupiter around in the sky, and what they might teach us about Jupiter, and about earth.

Michelson and Morley tested the ether theory in their eponymous experiment, and their test failed. At the time, no one understood why. Decades later, Einstein explained why and replaced the prior theory without any help.

> Having a vision of some kind of technology and then driving a team towards that goal is, undeniably, "creating technology".

You just tried to equate a bus driver with a scientist.

Steve Wozniak created technology, Steve Jobs sold it to people. Please learn the difference between creators and promoters -- Wozniak didn't need Jobs to create a computer, but Jobs needed Wozniak (and many other similar people over the years, many of whom I knew personally) in order to have something to promote.

[coldtea]

>Wait, what? Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people

Technology has many levels. A cpu is a technology as is a touch sensitive panel -- but a specific arrangment of cpu and touch sensitive panel etc, is also technology. The one who makes decisions about how it should be made, also creates technology.

Apple also wrote their own software, and even designed their own chips and parts a lot of the time. And of course they also found lots of ingenious solutions to lots of engineering problems in creating smaller/more efficient/more battery power/etc devices.

So, what does "Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people" mean? Isn't iWork techology for example? Or you mean, he wasn't a coder or engineer, he was the head of the company making it? Well, that's true, but duh!

[lutusp]

> Technology has many levels. A cpu is a technology as is a touch sensitive panel -- but a specific arrangment of cpu and touch sensitive panel etc, is also technology.

We're not discussing the existence of technology, we're discussing the creation of technology. If this distinction were not important, anyone who acquired a computer could claim to be its creator. If this distinction were not important, someone who put a computer in a box would be equal to someone who invented binary arithmetic.

> So, what does "Jobs didn't create technology, he sold it to people" mean?

It means someone else had the education and creativity to invent something for Steve Jobs to sell, to call "fantastic" to crowds of eager consumers, to import into his reality distortion field. The same reality distortion field that makes you think selling equals creating.

> Or you mean, he wasn't a coder or engineer, he was the head of the company making it? Well, that's true, but duh!

So that's your argument? Now I understand why you have the views you do.

[siglesias]

Apple offers educational discounts.

[nswanberg]

Don't worry about it. Every thread needs a kids' table, and in some threads they're just more prominent.

[taliesinb]

Nicely put.