🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <40g80c$l0f@itsmail1.hamilton.edu>,
Joseph T. Malloy <jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu> wrote:
>If the average user couldn't care less whether Microsoft "sees" what
>they're running, who are you to decide they're wrong?  Just because *you*
>have an irrational fear of a pretty well accepted industry practice
>doesn't mean it's a bad thing to be given the *choice* to register
>electronically.  Come back and complain when you don't have any choice in
>the matter. 

I do not think there has been any actual polling to find out how the
average user feels about Microsoft scanning their system and uploading
the results.  In any case, the point being made was that the end-user
will not be the one answering the authorization question on the average
preloaded system.  I fail to see how you can refer to such an upload as
"a pretty well accepted industry practice" since this is the first operating
system to do so.  Given Microsoft's obvious lack of respect for the
intellectual property of others (Stac, Apple, etc.), fearing it is not
irrational.  The reason the confirmation is there is because Microsoft
had little choice once the uploading process became known.  You have a
choice because someone complained during the beta versions.

Max
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In article <DD9srw.H3K@ipswichcity.qld.gov.au>,
dconnors@gil.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au (David Connors) wrote:

> Something could be said of Commodores lack of respect to Apple for
> taking the GUI idea, and in turn, Apple's lack of respect to Xerox's
> PARC project.

No, nothing could be said of a lack of respect for Xerox PARC on Apple's
part.  Apple paid Xerox (with stock, I believe) for a tour of PARC and the
ideas therein.  Xerox thought they were getting a deal because they didn't
think GUIs would be all that important.  Steve Jobs knew better the
instant he laid eyes on it.  Not to mention the fact that what Xerox had
was quite crude but S Jobs had the vision to see what it could become.

--
Hotel California
hotelca@cris.com

In article <40ha7s$fk5@thetics.europa.com>,
   mbell@atheria.europa.com (Max Bell) wrote:

>I do not think there has been any actual polling to find out how the
>average user feels about Microsoft scanning their system and uploading
>the results.  In any case, the point being made was that the end-user
>will not be the one answering the authorization question on the average
>preloaded system.  I fail to see how you can refer to such an upload as
>"a pretty well accepted industry practice" since this is the first operating
>system to do so.  Given Microsoft's obvious lack of respect for the
>intellectual property of others (Stac, Apple, etc.), fearing it is not
>irrational.  

Something could be said of Commodores lack of respect to Apple for
taking the GUI idea, and in turn, Apple's lack of respect to Xerox's
PARC project.



 Dave Connors                           (dconnors@gil.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au)

Hotel California (hotelca@cris.com) wrote:
: In article <DD9srw.H3K@ipswichcity.qld.gov.au>,
: dconnors@gil.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au (David Connors) wrote:

: > Something could be said of Commodores lack of respect to Apple for
: > taking the GUI idea, and in turn, Apple's lack of respect to Xerox's
: > PARC project.

: No, nothing could be said of a lack of respect for Xerox PARC on Apple's
: part.  Apple paid Xerox (with stock, I believe) for a tour of PARC and the
: ideas therein.  Xerox thought they were getting a deal because they didn't
: think GUIs would be all that important.  Steve Jobs knew better the
: instant he laid eyes on it.  Not to mention the fact that what Xerox had
: was quite crude but S Jobs had the vision to see what it could become.



Actually, according to Jef Raskin, Jobs was resisting the Macintosh 
project with all his might and Raskin convinced Jobs to visit PARC in 
order to see what bitmapped graphics, WYSIWYG printing and human-centered 
computing looked like in a working system.


While Raskin says that those portions of the Mac GUI that were taken from 
PARC were licensed, I'm not sure of all the details. The stock thing may 
have been part of it. ANother part, I believe, was a direct 
implementation of the SmallTalk-80 system on the first Macs, to be done 
by Apple. Anyone who thinks that the Mac interface is identical to PARC's 
has never played with the original SmallTalk-80 clone that was available 
for the Mac for many years.

Anyone who thinks that the Mac's underlying GUI architecture had *anything* 
to do with SMallTalk-80's has never watched what happens to the original 
SmallTalk-80 port when the B&W Mac's graphics hardware is changed (which 
we did when we were working on the ProBoard -a Mac Plus accelerator with 
a video port to a larger B&W screen). As I recall, not even the cursor 
drawing was done using the Mac's built-in routines...

We didn't check the disk I/O, so I can't comment on that aspect.






--
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Lawson English                            __  __     ____  ___       ___ ____
english@primenet.com                     /__)/__) / / / / /_  /\  / /_    /
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David Connors (dconnors@gil.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au) wrote:
[snipt]
: Something could be said of Commodores lack of respect to Apple for
: taking the GUI idea, and in turn, Apple's lack of respect to Xerox's
: PARC project.


According to Jef Raskin, in a Letter to the Editor of ACM SIGCHI, those 
portions of the Mac's GUI that were taken from XEROX were licensed from 
XEROX.


According to Raskin, in an article in ACM Interactions, the Mac project 
had been proposed in early 1979, even before the Lisa project, and was 
approved in September of 1979, several months before Jobs went to XEROX PARC.
The Mac project was started to fulfill Raskin's late 1960's vision of a more
human-centered computer and the initial 1979 design had bitmapped 
graphics, a pointing device, and WYSIWYG-esque printing.

According to Raskin, in personal e-mail, Jobs was fighting the Mac 
project tooth-and-nail, calling it the stupidest thing that he'd ever 
heard of, and Raskin directed him to PARC so that he could see what a 
working system based on the principles found in the Mac project, could be 
like.

Jobs visited PARC in December of 1979, after Raskin had given him and 
Atkinson extensive briefing on what they would probably see (Raskin had 
visited PARC 6-7 years earlier, just after it opened), and what to look 
for while they were there.

The PARC folks were all impressed with these wonder kids who could walk 
into a building and comprehend the design-issues and implications of 
human-centered computing "at first glance" far better than anyone that 
they'd ever met before. Because of the obvious genius of Steve Jobs, 
many PARC workers eventually went to work for him at Apple.


--
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Lawson English                            __  __     ____  ___       ___ ____
english@primenet.com                     /__)/__) / / / / /_  /\  / /_    /
                                        /   / \  / / / / /__ /  \/ /___  /
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In article <DD9srw.H3K@ipswichcity.qld.gov.au>,
dconnors@gil.ipswichcity.qld.gov.au (David Connors) wrote:

> In article <40ha7s$fk5@thetics.europa.com>,
>    mbell@atheria.europa.com (Max Bell) wrote:
> 
> >I do not think there has been any actual polling to find out how the
> >average user feels about Microsoft scanning their system and uploading
> >the results.  In any case, the point being made was that the end-user
> >will not be the one answering the authorization question on the average
> >preloaded system.  I fail to see how you can refer to such an upload as
> >"a pretty well accepted industry practice" since this is the first operating
> >system to do so.  Given Microsoft's obvious lack of respect for the
> >intellectual property of others (Stac, Apple, etc.), fearing it is not
> >irrational.  
> 
> Something could be said of Commodores lack of respect to Apple for
> taking the GUI idea, and in turn, Apple's lack of respect to Xerox's
> PARC project.

   The difference is that Apple **licenced** parts of the GUI concept and
design from Xerox/PARC.    I'd say that licencing fees are at least some
form of respect.

   - Patrick McKinnion

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