Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!iuvax!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Xerox sues Apple!!!
Message-ID: <64044@looking.on.ca>
Date: 19 Dec 89 20:12:25 GMT
References: <4540@ur-cc.UUCP> <111700188@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 23
Class: discussion

People have railed against Apple for two reasons.  Some don't believe
in the concept of ownership of interface design, and as such they should
be almost as angry at Xerox as at Apple.

Others have been particularly bothered by the fact that Apple has been
doing these lawsuits when everybody has known for a long time that they
got most of their ideas from the Xero Alto & Star.

So if you are an FSF type, you should be bothered by this suit, not pleased.
If you just want to see the good guys win, this suit should please you.

Xerox has, for a long time, poured tons of copier profits into pure
research at Parc, and it isn't fair that other companies should take all
the good ideas and make all the money from them.  True, Xerox should have
been doing something with those ideas, too.  But to have Apple make a
variety of effectively minor improvements and run around suing people
for stealing "their" ideas has bothered a lot of people.


Like it says in the FASS theatre programs, "You can't tape record this
performance, because it is copyrighted by the people we stole it from."
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473