🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <HAYDENS.91Nov4091153@natasha.juliet.ll.mit.edu>,
haydens@natasha.juliet.ll.mit.edu (Hayden Schultz x3685 g42) writes:
|> What I'd like an Apple supporter to explain to me is why is it ok for
|> Apple to borrow ideas developed by other companies in the creation of
|> the Mac, but then to restrict others from incorperating the ideas that
|> Apple created into new products? Is your answer that noone has the
|> right to borrow ideas from anyone else and that Apple simply got away
|> with taking some ideas from Xerox because Xerox didn't sue fast
|> enough? Or do you maintain that none of the ideas behind the Mac
|> interface came from anywhere but inside Apple (this would seem to
|> contradict statements made by Mac developers)? I think that to logically
|> maintain support for Apple's position you must answer "yes" to one of
|> these questions.
|> 
|> 	Hayden

How about none of the above?  Apple earned the right to use the results of
Xerox's work the old fashioned way, they bought it.  In return for a large chunk
of Apple stock and royalty payments for Macs shipped from 1984 to 1988, Apple
got the right to Xerox's Smalltalk language, its implementation, and all
graphical concepts the language contained.  That's why Apple was fairly active
in Smalltalk development and was part of the original consortium.  Incidentally,
Apple sold an as is version of Smalltalk for years and perhaps still does.  It
was never supported very much, though.  Apple also got Xerox to not sue them
over luring away some PARC staff.

Does anyone know anything about the Star?  I don't think Apple used any Xerox
stuff from the Star that wasn't in Smalltalk.  If there isn't anything, I have
no idea what Xerox claimed Apple improperly used in their recent lawsuit.  Xerox
also claimed that Apple claimed to have invented windows but that I doubt also. 
I have heard Apple claim to have refined GUI, to have proved it in the market
place by making the first sucessful GUI computer, and to claim that GUI's
popularity today was inspired by the Mac, but I have never heard them say that
they actually invented it from scratch.   

OK, I agree that Apple would be immoral if Apple stole from Xerox and then sued
people that stole from them but they didn't.  

Bruce Seiler      seiler@compass-da.com

These are my opinions and have nothing to do with Compass Design Automation