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From: doner@henri.ucsb.edu (John Doner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system,comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Apple Computer wins ruling against 'Windows'
Message-ID: <9964@hub.ucsb.edu>
Date: 15 Mar 91 18:12:14 GMT
References: <46873@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <1991Mar15.101202.1@csc.anu.edu.au> <27E02D24.699@orion.oac.uci.edu>
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Reply-To: doner@henri.UUCP (John Doner)
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In article <27E02D24.699@orion.oac.uci.edu> eaeu137@orion.oac.uci.edu (Andrew Theodore Laurence) writes:
>a previous posting...
>     [lots of ranting and raving about how everyone with a GUI is stealing the 
>      Apple interface]
>
>Oh, please.  Surely you realize that Apple lifted the interface from Xerox??

Yes, Apple owes a debt to the Xerox work, but "lifted" is hardly the
right word.  Remember, software is developed by PEOPLE, not
corporations.  Work on GUIs went on at Xerox PARC for years.  But
Xerox management did not understand it, did not know what to do with
it, and basically ignored it.  Finally, the researchers quit in
exasperation (if not disgust), some of them, e.g. Larry Tesler, ending
up at Apple.  What's more, there's a difference between a laboratory
curiousity and a finished product.  Apple and its engineers invested
great effort, time, money, and creativity in putting together a few
ideas that were current in the field with many of their own and making
a real product.

As for Windows, the original version, the one current when the Apple
lawsuit was filed, was no more than a slavish copy.  It contained no
clue that the designers understood GUIs, or any of the trade-offs that
go into producing a coherent user-friendly interface.  All they wanted
to do was produce something that *looked* like a Mac.  So salesmen
could tell naive customers asking about the merits of buying a Mac
with its GUI, "Sure, the Mac interface is good, but you can get the
same thing cheaper with this PC clone; see, it looks just the same."

Since then, the Windows designers have improved, and put in some
creativity of their own.  But I have a hard time forgiving them for
the original rip-off.  Apple borrowed from the Xerox work, but they
put lots of themselves into it.  Microsoft just copied.

John E. Doner	doner@henri.ucsb.edu	(805)893-3941
Dept. Mathematics, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA 93106