Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!agate!eris!mwm
From: mwm@eris (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: The Lawsuit, Standardization, and Whiny MAC Users...
Message-ID: <8911@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 19 Apr 88 03:05:53 GMT
References: <8685@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.UUCP (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 94

In article <8685@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU> tedi@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Edward M. Ives) writes:
<  The one thing I CAN'T stand is people saying that Standardization will be
<hindered if Apple wins, and therefore THAT is why Apple should lose.

Well, just notice that they're wrong (I don't think we know enough
about window interfaces to standardize - do you?), and ignore them.

<  Taking the view that, "Well it's better for corporations that are
<hot to start buying PS/2's if Apple loses, therefore Apple should lose" would be
<eqvivalent to saying that the government (or society) can engage in an
<unauthorized taking without just compensation (if Apple's technology is indeed
<their "property").

Welcome to the United Socialist state of America. In case you haven't
noticed, the government has been doing that for about seventy years.
Why should software be exempt from this behavior?

<This is kind of against the tenets of the Constitution

When was the last time the constitutionality of an action stopped the
government from taking any action it pleased?

<if Apple DOES have a valid claim, this would be akin to saying, "Well, if
<everyone in the world had a PC they'd be better off, so the government should
< force Apple to give Macintoshes away for free :-)

If someone decides that "owning a PC" qualifies as a right like
"having a home" and "being fed" and "having a job," then it could well
happen.  Except that it's more likely that they'll just raise the tax
rate somewhere so it isn't as obvious as making companies give away
pcs.

<  Mac users took a lot of heat from the corporate IBM PC user types when the Mac
<first came out, but now that it has become successful, the PC types are
<basically whining "hey, that's a pretty good idea, can we play too?".

Note that a lot of the people upset about the lawsuit are people who
wouldn't touch an IBM PC for love or money. Some have even been
(falsly) accused of being anti-8086 bigots in public.

Of course, I've been playing that game for two years, and don't have
(and wouldn't have taken then) a Mac. And from what I hear I've been
playing it with something that looks more like the Mac than Windows
does. Of course, CBM isn't competition, so Apple doesn't need to sue
them to hold up the product release.

<  But IF the courts decide  it is indeed Apple's ball and Apple doesn't want to
< let you play, you can't just beat it up and take the ball away - this
< is America...

This isn't the America I live in. The one I live in threatens to beat
up people and take away their property all the time. With no recourse
through the court system, at that.

<P.S. Ever notice any similarities? :
<
<Apple II - 8-bit machine, open architecture, slots, keyboard, video, drive, 1979
<IBM PC   - 8-bit machine, open architecture, slots, keyboard, video, drive, 1982
<Macintosh - 32-bit, Mouse, Graphical User Interface, 3 1/2 inch disks,circa 1984
<IBM PS/2's
<with OS/2 - 32-bit, Mouse, Graphical User Interface, 3 1/2 inch disks,circa 1988
<
<Does it seem entirely fair that each time Apple pioneers new ground, it has to
<go through hell marketing the stuff, and then IBM just waltzes in and reaps
<the profits?................

Apple pioneers new ground? Apple didn't start selling the first open
system on eight-bit machines. Or the first complete system. Or the
first system with a graphical user interface, etc. Just the first ones
to do really well with them.

But you have described IBM behavior. They do that with nearly
everything - Unix and RDBMs and RISC boxes being the things that come
first to mind. It is pretty scummy behavior. And very strange when you
consider that some of those ideas came out of research that IBM paid
for - if not from the IBM TJ Watson Research Center itself.

On the other hand, they've never been so crass as to sue somebody for
doing the work to create a compatable product. They rely on their
technical ability to make sure that the rest of the market has to do
work to keep up with them. For examle, the PS/2. Yeah, it's a crock.
But it's totally incompatable with the old stuff, so the clone makers
have to go through another round of catchup. This is old hat to IBM -
they've been doing it in the mainframe market for decades.

The world would be a much better place if Apple behaved as well as
IBM. For once, I'm on the side of big blue.

	<mike
--
Can't buy happiness no matter what you do		Mike Meyer
Can't get to heaven on roller skates			mwm@berkeley.edu
Can't take a taxicab to Timbuktu			ucbvax!mwm
Life is hard.						mwm@ucbjade.BITNET