[Macaholic]

http://www.aqua-soft.org/

Windows users... wanting their PeeCee to look like those pretty coloured bits of plastic running "an OS for newbies"... yet remain denied of the true underlying power of Mac OS X.

How sad

 

[da_jonesy]

You may scoff... but the fact is... that is really cool. I just tried it on my work PC... I love it.

My work (financial software applications) does not allow me the luxury being able to a mac as my main machine.

Things like the dock and expose just show how good apple is at human interface design. Given the fact that Apple essentially ripped off Xerox with the the whole WIMP (Windows, Icon, Mouse, Pointer) interface... don't scoff at those who will rip off Apple's interface design.

Me personally, I love the dock... same with expose. That will be next. Whoever is the first our of the blocks with a shareware version of expose for the pc will make a mint.

 

[Macaholic]

I scoff at the irony of many PC bigots dissing the platform, yet others moving heaven and earth to make their Windows XPerience just like the Mac's.

As for Apple stealing ideas from Xerox, that's as big an erroneous wives-tale on the internet as Al Gore saying that he invented the internet. According to this report and many others on the web (including the ever honest engineering genius and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak), Xerox had been an investor in Apple, and had themselves invited Apple to Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center to check out the Alto computer. Xerox even sent some of their people over to Apple to help out in their implementation of a GUI OS. These visits had been very influential on the development of the Macintosh GUI, and Xerox was in deep with Apple at that time.

It wasn't until 1988; FOUR YEARS after the public release of the Macintosh (and a few more going back to the Apple Lisa -- the first commercially available GUI-based computer) that Xerox, while Apple was fighting the lawsuit against MS, filed a lawsuit against Apple! Why more than seven years after they initially teamed up with Apple does this occur? It couldn't be because Apple had made billions of dollars on a technology Xerox essentially gave away and only THEN did Xerox realize how stupid they were, could it?

Xerox could have had it all. More than Apple losing the desktop war to Microsoft, Xerox could have won the battle before it even began if they only thought differently enough in the late 1970s.

 

[da_jonesy]

If you read that article... It claims that the Xerox v Apple case was dismissed on a technicality (so essentially Apple was guilty but got off on a technicaility). Actually even more interesting was what Douglas Englbart was working on while he was at XeroxPARC long before Apple came along.

Funny how Xerox looses the battle to perserve it's intelectual property from being stolen, yet there is all this nonsensical arguements about IP piracy (and no I don't mean to resurect that arguement... once again).

But even long before that Vanevar Bush... had l aid out everything one need to know about working with machines for organizing information in his paper "As We May Think". But I digress.

The point is... Don't go off defending Apple as the morally superior platform... they too have "ripped" off others in the past (they will do so again in the future. The objectdoc software for PC... is excellent (actually in some ways even better than Apple's doc). Apple could learn a few things from these guys.

I LOVE INNOVATION... take a great idea and make it better. That is why I love Apple... they innovate (just look at the OS and hardware and the way they work together)... BUT remember someone can always innovate on an already great idea to make something better still.

 

[PosterBoy]

Macaholic, while I understand where you are coming from I would be careful talking about "PC bigots", as in my personal experience Mac users are as much or more bigoted towards Windows users than Windows users are towards Mac users.

--PB

 

[Macaholic]

I never said that Apple never cops things from others. All I said, guys, is that there are many PC users out there who indeed trash the Mac platform mercilessly and irrationally. And, yet, there are the ones at the ssite i referenced who actually want to use a Mac, donlt want to or cannot afford to or are too scared to... or, who need the unique advatages of a PC to... switch. and then, there will be moderate bi-platform users who hang out at forums such as this one.

Apple "stole" fast user switching. Apple "stole" Disk First Aid starting automatically after a system crash. Apple "stole" Alt-Tab. The Dock, in its basic concept, is not original. There are certainly more if I thought about it longer. And, Apple getting off on a technicality does not logically lead one to assume they were guilty. Not with the fact that Xerox and Apple were in cahoots together.

Guys, all I thought was that it was funny that some PC users wanted to make their PC look NOT like Luna, and that some of them think that the skin deep cosmetics of OS X are the only difference -- especially after taking part in an extremetech forum thread where somee guy showed me that URL and left it at that, after me telling him how great Expose was.

And COME ON; you know that there are hoardes of PC users, from the hardcore right down to the dumb-ass end user who knows NOTHING about computers that think Apple is going out of business/no software/not expandible/slow/only for newbies/only for professional video yada yada yada and ONLY CUTE BITS OF PLASTIC not worthy of serious attention. From the many people I have "met" online, right down to my brother in-law who doesn't even know what a PCI slot is, I have seen them and they exist in large number.

If you want to go on about how nasty a guy I am for this thread, knock yourself out... but, you'll be OT!

 

[MannyP Design]

PosterBoy:
But isn't the majority of Mac users made up of former Win users? Wouldn't that be akin to a Newfoundlander calling his neighbor a Newfie?

 

[Chealion]

Macholic - Apple didn't steal anything. They incorporated, or adopted. Just like every other company that adds a new feature that is seen in a competitor's product and listen to the consumer's demands for such a feature.

mannyp - I know I didn't come from Windows, and you get people coming from all different backgrounds. PosterBoy is right, that there are more Mac bigots then Windows bigots. My guess is that owning a Mac is like being part of a religion and some people just want to spread the "joy". (Though sometimes in utterly the wrong fashion.)

 

[da_jonesy]

Actually Chealion... If you know the history of Xerox and Apple... you that Apple really did steal some very real Intellectual Property from Xerox. If they hadn't Xerox would not have sued them.

The only reason Apple "got off" on that one is because of a legal technicality. A technicality doesn't mean you are innocent... it only means that you cannot be found guilty in a court of law.

 

[MannyP Design]

For the love of god... Apple did not steal from Xerox. Nor did they rip them off or get off on a technicality. Apple paid large sums of money (via stocks) to Xerox to allow Apple's people to come in a see what Xerox had done to get ideas and inspiration in the whole GUI concept. Where did you get your info? Get the facts:

http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_history.html

Apple did not "rip-off" the Macs UI from Xerox. Apple had hired some people from Xerox (like Jef Raskin, Bruce Horn) who believed in concepts of a Graphical User Interface. These concepts are pretty broad -- like making a computer easier to use by using graphics (icons), using menus, windows and making a consistent interface to do things. The work on these concepts predates Xerox PARC -- in fact it was many of these peoples individual work on those concepts that got them hired at PARC. So Xerox (PARC) brought them together to refine them.

Apple's work on GUI's predates Steve Jobs visit to Palo Alto Research Center. Apple had already had the same broad goals of offering an easier to use computer, and possibly using some of the same concept (like menus, icons, and graphics).

Jef Raskin had worked at Xerox, and he was tooting the "easier to use" trumpet, with his vision of what that meant. He brought some of those ideas from Xerox, but he had brought some of those ideas TO Xerox as well. Later, he convinced Jobs to visit Xerox PARC, and Jobs became an immediate convert (for ease of use).

What Jobs saw at Xerox was a prototype Smalltalk development system. He did not see either a working ALTO or Star (which was developed much later).

...

Jobs was so hot on the concepts of UI, and the living Demos he say, that he, later, negotiated a deal with Xerox. He gave Xerox a large sum of stock in Apple (worth Millions) if he could come back, and bring some programmers -- to inspire them more on the concepts of GUI. This was like a one-day tour. This was agreed to by Xerox, and so by no stretch of the imagination could this be called "ripping-off"

 

[da_jonesy]

Wrong! Thank you, come again.

Dude... so what did you exactly think Xerox was doing suing them in the first place? Don't you get it? clearly you do not. Apple infringed on their IP... plain and simple... it does not get anymore simple than that. A stock option exchange for a visit to the campus dose not make a perpetual license for someone else's IP. What Apple did was underhanded... and they got away with it.

Now I'm not defending Xerox... the place was a bunch of copier heads... who wouldn't know what software was if it bit them on the A** so to speak. But the fact was... Xerox laid the groundwork for the WIMP interface long before Apple set foot in their.

You ever hear of Douglas Engelbart? clearly you have not. You ever hear of Vannevar Bush? nope guess not.

Engelbart, inspired by an article written by Bush in around 1945 called "As We May Think", essentially gave it all to us... everything... mouse, pointer, hypertext... you name it. Without him and what they were doing. Xerox, Apple... nobody would have got it as soon as they did. We'd still be working on command line interfaces (say hello to the teletypes from the movie Brazil).

Why is it that everyone on this board thinks that Apple is so squeaky clean? What is it? Have the Chiat\Day ad campaigns brainwashed you so much that you now resemble the ibm-borg drones from the original 1984 commercial... sheesh, you guys are Apple automatons… don’t say anything bad about Apple or the Apple Nazi supporters will brown-shirt you back to the stone age. (That last comment was in very bad taste, even for me, but seriously…)

Wake UP! Smell the real world! Apple is a corporation like any other (they just happen to have REALLY good industrial designers and software engineers). They will lie, cheat, steal cajole, mystify, bully, etc... whatever it takes for you to buy their product. That is what corporations do.

I happen to like their product. And I don't really care that they ripped of Xerox and got away with it. I'm informed, I know... I still enjoy their products. There is a lot care, craftsmanship and innovation that go into their products... that counts for a lot with me.

 

[da_jonesy]

Postscript... That article you referred to... well let me say this, and I'm being polite. The author is clearly biased and on top of that his arguement is totally flawed.

I won't go on at length about what a poor article this is... suffice to say that the Title and the first paragraph do not even remotely relate to each other.

"Microsoft, Apple and Xerox
The History of the Graphical User Interface"

There is no history in this article... if there was... why doesn't it mention any of the real historical players that I have already told you about? This should have been called...

"Microsoft, Apple and Xerox
Why Apple's Lawsuit against Microsoft is Just and Xerox's Isn't"

If you take this article seriously, enjoy watching MSNBC...
That's because this article is about as "fair and balanced" as their reporting of the Iraq conflict.

 

[MannyP Design]

Please feel free to forward any links to more "free-thinking" publications or authors. Otherwise, you can leave the elitist holier-than-thou crap at the door.

I'm open to debate as long as the heresy is kept to a minimum.

The fact is, Apple "got away" with it because Xerox was researching the GUI... it wasn't a product. Apple paid Xerox to allow them to see what they were doing.

As far as the author is concerned -- David K. Avery is actually a well known Mac advocate, yes, however has connections in this particular industry is one that offers a unique insight to the articles he writes about.

EDIT: Of course, who am I to disagree with the Woz man himself:

Q From e-mail: I saw the movie last evening on tape, and to tell the truth I was quite disappointed. I thought that Bill Gates was portrayed as "kinder" than he really is, and I thought that they should have given you more credit and perhaps shed more light on your contributions. I also have one question; did Apple "steal" the GUI from Xerox (at PARC), or did they develop it themselves? And a personal question; how do you think the MacOS is better than Windows? What about MacOS X (any future?)? Sorry to be intrusive, but I am naturally inquisitive, and I figure if anyone would know the answers to these questions, it would be you. Thanks for your time. John

WOZ: Apple worked with Xerox openly to bring their developments to a mass audience. That's what Steve portrayed Apple as being good at. Xerox got a lot of Apple stock for it too, it was an agreement.

Microsoft just took it from Xerox or Apple or whomever. It took them a long time to get it halfway right.

MacOS has been more constant since it's beginning 15 years ago. Look how many times DOS and Windows have changed. That doesn't lead to stardards that feel good. MacOS always feels better to those of us who use both. It's been built in from the ground up, from the atoms of the OS up. It's also part of our culture to put a high priority on how easy it is to use.

 

[da_jonesy]

< arrogance_on >

I'll consider that one a win then

< / arrogance_off >


(PS... for all you XML folks... I know that is not a proper instance... I only use it for effect).

 

[MannyP Design]

Ask Woz: http://www.woz.org

 

[da_jonesy]

Dude... Woz isn't an IP lawyer... I'm not an IP Lawyer... But it's this simple... A visit to the campus in exchange for some stock does not make a perpetual license. Woz isn't impartial either BTW.


Look, if this was the case... then why did Xerox sue Apple?


It took them 7 years to realize that they had been had. That makes Xerox pretty stupid... but it doesn't make Apple right for doing it in the first place.

 

[MannyP Design]

It's not a question of right or wrong. Biased or not, he would know better than you and I.

Apple made an agreement with Xerox. Obviously the two parties had different understandings of said agreement -- however, a misunderstanding doesn't make Apple a thief especially considering the GUI Apple produced was in reality a different modus operandi than Xerox's at the time of the PARC visit.

The fact is, Xerox and Apple worked together. Apple had former Xerox employees who had been researching the GUI interface long before they worked at Xerox.

Xerox took Apple (and Microsoft) to task over it. Obviously, if Apple "got away" with it, then there must have been more than enough evidence to allow Apple to continue without reprecussions. Unless, of course, you believe the judicial system was biased toward Apple.

 

[da_jonesy]

I'm off to bed...

Too tired, but I will pick this up in the morning... But here are my parting comments...

Apple got off on a technicality... that does not make them innocent.

Xerox was foolish for letting Apples infringment on their IP go on for as long as it did. Xerox was foolish for not slapping its employees with the most nasty do not compete clause in their contracts.

Apple was crafty... nimble... underhanded... and they got away with it.

Tell you what... you are a graphic designer. You have samples of your work on your website. (by placing that stuff in a publicly accessible medium you are allowing me to see them... in this case for free) Say I went and took those samples... made some small changes and started selling them myself as my IP. What would you do? Would you be right in doing so? What would that make me?

Now... take that example... replace you with Xerox... me with Apple... and your works samples with a GUI... what do you think?

Good night... we can pick this up in the morning.

 

[MannyP Design]

Macholic

 

[da_jonesy]

You put an interesting spin on it Manny, I'll give you that.
But you still are still missing the simple fact that Xerox eventually did take Apple to court. There was "something" there. Something not covered in whatever agreements Xerox and Apple came up with in the first place.

In this case Apple was blessed with some REALLy good attorneys who spotted a technicality and got them off... that does not make apple innocent of infrindging on someone else IP (I see myself starting to sound like a broken record... but you still haven't convinced me I am wrong).

Patent's are not just for things but the way in which things are created... the processes that are used to create them. If Xerox had a patent on the GUI (And they very likely may have... they have patents on everything) and invite some dudes over for a chat doesn't mean they can infringe on that patent unless they specifically license it. You are not convincing me that Apple was not in the wrong on this.

Understand I love Apple products, even if they ripped off Xerox... they were able to innovate on an already good idea and make it great. The result for me is great product that I use daily.

Macaholic... If you get the chance, read "As We May Think" it was originally published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1945. Very cool that this guy was think of working with information in that way decades before devices capable of doing so were available.

[ November 12, 2003, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: da_jonesy ]