iPad Enemies Speak Out Apple Event Protested By Free Software Activists, Startup Claims Apple Ripped Off His UI

We've known about the iPad for less than 24 hours, but that hasn't
stopped people from speaking out against it. I'm not talking about
people who want to know why it can't multitask or why it doesn't have
widescreen, or why people got so excited over a 10-inch iPod Touch
– some out there have much deeper reason to hate the new tablet
from Cupertino.

While most of the tech community was giddy with excitement yesterday
(including inside the TFTS war room where we covered), Ars Technica
covered that a small protest was going on outside the Yerba Buena Center
to protest Apple's closed software platform and favor of DRM. Protesters
handed out fliers that mimicked the Apple invitation for the event but
instead said Come see our latest restriction, while they held signs
that said Entering Apple Restriction Zone .
The protesters all were organized by the Free Software Foundation and
they had four talking points for why they didn't like the iPad –
#1 – no free software, #2 – No installing apps from the Web,
#3 – No sharing music or books, #4 -ย Apple can remotely disable
purchased content from the cloud.
John Sullivan, the FSF operations manager who was leading the protest,
said they wanted to petition Steve Jobs personally to ask him to remove
all DRM from the iPad. Of course, it's not Jobs who added DRM –
it's at the behest of the book and music publishers, and what good is a
music or bookstore with no publishers? At any rate, seven protesters
showed up to protest Apple's latest 'restriction and Sullivan thought
it had gone well.
Remember that great iBooks UI they showed off on the device? That's very
similar to a program sold on the Mac called Delicious Monster. Delicious
Monster was a program for cataloging your book collection and looked
very similar. According to co-founder Wil Shipley, Apple hired away most
of his team to work at Apple, and then the iPad blatantly rips off their
UI design for the stored books.
No word on if Shipley will press legal action (he probably won't). The
FSF told Ars Technica's reporters that they planned to protest Apple
Stores the day the iPad is released, so it doesn't end here.