Thanks for giving us the insider's view from the Apple camp. Now if we only had someone to relay from the opposite camp, we may be enabled to judge credibility for ourselves. No offence intended to you, Godfrey, but given your background it's likely you're not completely objective in this case. Jostein
Den 18. august 2016 00.21.15 CEST, skrev Godfrey DiGiorgi <godfreydigio...@me.com>: > >> On Aug 17, 2016, at 11:16 AM, Bob W-PDML <p...@web-options.com> >wrote: >> >> On 17 Aug 2016, at 19:13, John <sesso...@earthlink.net> wrote: >>> >>>> On 8/17/2016 1:34 PM, Bruce Walker wrote: >>>> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 12:06 PM, P.J. Alling >>>> <webstertwenty...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Pisses me off that Microsoft is trying to make the whole OS more >Mac like, >>>>> in some ways, mostly that aren't helpful. >>>> >>>> Mickeysoft has been trying to make their OSes more Mac-like since >>>> Windows 1.0. And they miss the mark every single time. >>> >>> That is a base canard! >>> >>> Micro$haft stole the Windoze look 'n feel from Xerox PARK fair & >square. >>> And, unlike Steve Jobs & his NexT computer, they even PAID Xerox to >let >>> 'em in there so they could steal a more accurate copy. >>> >> >> >http://mspoweruser.com/bill-gates-response-to-steve-jobs-on-windows-rip-off-claim/ > >I thought I might inject some information into this >rapidly-becoming-insipid thread of BS. From the mouths of the players >involved: > >"It took a while for Steve Jobs to become interested in Jeff Raskin's >enthusiasm for the work going on at Xerox PARC. Jeff had been trying to >get him interested for some time but Steve considered Jeff too much of >a geek to be worth listening to. Eventually, however, Jeff learned the >right way to approach Steve and Steve went to a presentation at PARC >where the Xerox teams working on graphical systems, object oriented >programming, pointing devices, etc, showed off some of their latest >ideas and technology. > >Steve was immediately bowled over by what he saw and asked Adele >Goldberg (then manager of the group) for authority to bring his >engineering staff in for a closer look. Adele flatly refused to grant >access. She sent a memo up the Xerox management chain to New York >stating that she had no authority to grant access to Xerox IP to an >outside company, and beyond that felt it a very dangerous thing to do >from the point of view of patents and IP. She recommended that the >request be formally denied from the top. > >It was a peculiar situation. Xerox management back East really didn't >know what they had been investing in with PARC, few if any successful >products had come out of PARC to date, and they didn't seem to quite >understand the intensity of Adele's response to Steve's request. So >when Steve called the CEO and Chairman of the Xerox board of directors, >they invited him to visit for a meeting in New York. > >At the meeting, Steve pointed out that Xerox was a majority stockholder >in the fledgling Apple Computer company at the time. Xerox had been >investing a huge amount of money in Xerox PARC for a decade with little >to show other than a wonderful range of ideas and concepts that hadn't >made it into any products yet. Meanwhile, Apple Computer, then barely >three years old, had been delivering products (and profits in the form >of dividends) on a consistent and increasing basis since they held the >stock. Steve wasn't asking for any code or tangible IP, he was asking >for access to people, ideas and concepts that hadn't made Xerox any >money yet on the promise that their holdings in Apple would increase in >value and return them dividends on their investment. > >The end result was that the Xerox board of directors agreed to give >Steve and his engineers access and an in-depth tour with PARC's >engineering staff, over Adele's wishes and recommendations. It was >apparent during the meetings at PARC that followed that many of the >people who'd been working on the technology for years were disenchanted >with Xerox because they wanted their ideas to make it into products >that people would use, not just sit on the shelves as research papers. >So a good number of them quit PARC over the next year and three, moving >to Apple to re-invent some of their ideas in a form that Apple could >use, and patent, for future products. The first systems that >incorporated some of their ideas were the Apple Lisa and then the >original Macintosh. > >This is why, when years later Xerox management (not the same folks >Steve talked to in 1979… of course) tried to suit Apple for >infringement, the courts threw the case out. > >This all happened half a decade before NeXT existed, btw. The time >period is 1979 to 1980; NeXT didn't come into being until 1985. > >Microsoft engineering, under the direction of Steve Balmer and Bill >Gates, ripped off many of their ideas for Windows directly from the >Xerox folks, at first, and then from Apple, and actually ballyhooed >their skill in doing so without being able to be caught. They got away >with it with some settlement money and other things at a time when >Apple was very weak financially and politically. They never had the >relationship with Xerox that Steve leveraged to obtain access, and the >work they ripped off was more specifically the >re-invention/re-imagining of mouse, user interactions, etc, that were >all new work patented by Apple." > >(Of course, Balmer and Gates had ripped off someone else's OS source >code in the first place (can't remember who's specifically at the >moment) to revise into a version for a 16-bit processor (Intel 8080) >that was then licensed to IBM (at the time, another big company that >knew nothing about what was happening on the West Coast with respect to >microcomputers) with a ridiculously poor (from IBM's perspective) >licensing agreement that left Microsoft with the ability to sell the OS >to anyone they wanted without permission from IBM. Those Gates and >Balmer have a very long history as ripoff artists of the highest grade, >which Bill Gates has only partially eroded by his recent philanthropy >efforts.) > >This story was told to me in parts by Alan Kay, Larry Tesler, Adele >Goldberg, Jeff Raskin, Steve Wozniak, and even a little bit by SJ >himself, as well as a couple of the smaller players in the drama at >different times and in different contexts, over a period from about >1986 to 1999. All the pieces told the same story and fit together >nicely, which is why I find it credible. > >enjoy >G -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
