Re: Pirates of Silicon Valley

[gfk@world.std.com (guy f klose)]

I think it was the last time that MacWorld was held in
Boston, Guy Kawasaki was in town (of course) and was
doing a PR tour on local radio stations, presumably to
market one of his many books.

I heard a few minutes of one such radio show (a
rather intelligent show -- The Connection with Chris
Lydon -- which is syndicated on many NPR stations).

Lydon asked Guy Kawasaki about the nature of Apple's
lawsuit against Microsoft. After all, he basically
asked, didn't they both steal it from Xerox PARC?

Granted, radio is only good for 30-second or so 
soundbites, and the issue probably was much too
complicated for Guy to discuss at the time, but
he did say they were certain elements of the MacOS
that were fundamental improvements on the Xerox
GUI. He gave the example of attaching an icon to
a trashcan and then having the system delete files
when they are placed in the trashcan and the trashcan
is emptied. Guy said that such improvements added
by Apple were part of their intellectual property
and they were suing to protect that property.
In essence, they weren't suing because Windows
was a GUI, rather it was a GUI that had many
elements that Apple had invented above and
beyond what Apple had licensed from Xerox PARC.

I would presume that their lawsuit listed those
items which they considered their intellectual
property.

I have no idea what that original GUI looked like
from Xerox PARC, but maybe Guy is telling the truth.
Maybe Apple invented a certain look-and-feel above 
and beyond what Xerox had licensed to them. If so,
wouldn't it be reasonable that Apple sue to protect
that intellectual property?

Let's say that one of us had written, from scratch,
a brand new spreadsheet program that was called
something like Excellent and had a basic look-and-feel
of another well-marketed spreadsheet program. Don't
you think we'd be getting a cease and desist letter
from an attorney, and if we didn't heed it, we'd
end up in court?

Well, hell, your honor. I didn't borrow it from them,
I borrowed it from A-B-C, that other well-known
spreadsheet!

:-)

-- 
Guy Klose
gfk@world.std.com