Very enjoyable. Every now and then you amaze and inspire me. Thanks for sharing.
Paul via phone > On Aug 17, 2016, at 6:21 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> On Aug 17, 2016, at 11:16 AM, Bob W-PDML <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On 17 Aug 2016, at 19:13, John <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> On 8/17/2016 1:34 PM, Bruce Walker wrote: >>>> On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 12:06 PM, P.J. Alling >>>> <[email protected]> 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 > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
