The complaint goes on to mention a number of individuals who were involved with initial work on a design.īy April 2009, Arrington is publicly giving credit to the hardware design to Fusion Garage, though the complaint says that the "graciously attributed" credit wasn't really accurate, and maybe Fusion Garage didn't do that much, after all. Arrington claims that a prototype was ready by August 2008, though doesn't really say what the prototype really entailed. Sounds like officially giving away any IP. If everything works well, we'd then open source the design and software and let anyone build one that wants to. Anyone who contributes significantly to the project would get one of those first prototypes. Once we've completed the design we'll start to work with the supply chain company to get an idea on the cost of the machine (the goal is $200), and hopefully build a few prototypes. Then we'll spec out the hardware and get people to help write the customized Linux and Firefox code. First is the marketing document that just outlines what the machine will do â€" we have a first draft of that already and will post it soon. We'll organize a small team of people to spec this out. But, to be fair, that company's announcement of Chrome OS came in just over a year later than the TechCrunch call.) Here's part of what Arrington said at the time: (My, that almost sounds like what Google wants to do, except running Chrome on top of Linux. That leaves you wondering just how much he really understands about how the industry works.Ĭheck the court filings (provided by a service that Arrington uses, so I don't know if there are any other filings not included):įor example, the complaint mentions that TechCrunch called for a $200 machine that would run customized Linux and Firefox code. Apparently, over an extended period of time, he missed every red flag and failed to take the steps that any prudent and experienced high tech executive would have caught and undertaken. And the lawsuit that Michael Arrington, owner of TechCrunch and would-be seller of the CrunchPad, comes across as exactly that in his own court filings in his suit against Fusion Garage over alleged misappropriate of business ideas, fraud and deceit, and a few other things. But no matter what they call it, it's OK, except for one thing: an amateur. You get attacked hither, thither, and yon and everyone one of your mistakes will be paraded out for all to see. It's tough when you want to be the arbiter of technology.
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