🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1709@ssc-vax.UUCP> benoni@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) writes:
>It should be noted that this is all contrary to Mr Jean Louis-Gassee naive 
>sense of economics (Mr. Gassee is a proponent of retaining - not licensing - 
>technology ...).  
>Apple has turned to Unix - an OS which they do NOT own and are now able to 
>take advantage of windowing systems (NeWS/X) which they do NOT own, networking 
>systems (NFS/yellowpages) they do NOT own...Ethernet a technology they do NOT 
>own.  Gassee has gone out of his way lately to pronounce [to] the gullible
>that licensing technology is bad and proprietary technology is good.  However,
>one need only look at what Apple *does* to understand the limitations of his
>views.

I'm glad someone brought this up.  Mr. Gassee is a very convincing speaker,
and when he says that the only way we can stay ahead of Japan, Inc. is to
use proprietary technology and create our own standards, it sounds right.
But licensing technology isn't always bad (the example of RCA licensing
television technology and then losing to the Japanese).  Look at VCRs.  JVC
is happy to let any American firm use their technology and we're still getting
blown out.  Sony is too (since their proprietary Beta technology just
officially flopped).  And at some point standards are necessary.  Apple has
a superior user-interface; but the graphics engine behind it (QuickDraw) isn't
worth extending too much longer.  PostScript is better (even Apple had to
admit it when they put in the original LaserWriters), and it's where the
world is headed.  By licensing much of their technology, Sun has single-
handedly changed the direction of Unix (from System V back to Berkeley/SunOS).
If Apple really wants to change the future of computing, they'd better do the
same.

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