Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!elroy!cit-vax!oberon!pollux.usc.edu!papa
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: Re: Apple sues HP
Message-ID: <8349@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 12 Apr 88 18:31:27 GMT
References: <29300003@urbsdc| <6177@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov|
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 46

In article <6177@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov| david@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (David Robinson) writes:
|In article <29300003@urbsdc|, aglew@urbsdc.Urbana.Gould.COM writes:
|| 
|| ..| Apple vs. HP
|| 
|| I would like to start a suit against Apple for violating
|| the Xerox user interface. I would gladly contribute 50-100$
|| to it, and I bet there are many people out there who feel
|| similarly. Does anyone have any idea as to how to get this
|| rolling?
|
|Not that I agree with Apple's lawsuit on its legal or ethical
|grounds but there is a LARGE misconception that Apple
|"stole" the Xerox user interface.  This is not true!   Apple
|signed licensing agreements with Xerox and hired away a few
        ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^                             ^^^

The only thing that Apple licensed from XEROX was Smalltalk-80.  Lots of
other companies did this as well, including some of the ones involved in
the suit.  The use of the word "stole" referring to the user interface
is morally valid, in my opinion,  since they did indeed copy all of the
ideas that were in Smalltalk-80 and the XEROX Star.  Using the same tactic
that Apple uses I could create a SmallTalk-80 screen and a Mac screen that
would look abosultely identical, even more than the Mac versus NewWave.
Note that Steve Jobs himself acknowledged that they "borrowed" XEROX's
ideas AND visual interface when doing the Mac.

|of the Xerox people who worked on the user interfaces.

A few? They hired all the key people away from Xerox.  If Xerox was as
prone to litigation as Apple is (see Apple vs. Steve Jobs) they could have 
sued Apple and stopped them from using the mac user interface.  Note that
still today XEROX licenses Smalltalk-80 for peanuts.

I like the idea of a "user-initiated" suit against Apple.  It is simply
ludicrous to even think about what Apple is doing.  For myself, I'd
support a complete boycott of all Apple products.  Already if anybody
asks me about which computer he should buy, I tell them "anything besides
Apple, stay away from those jerks".  And I've not seen anywhere reported the
quote from Sculley own's book in which he says that "Apple would be crazy
to sue Microsoft". The last famous words.

-- Marco
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