Re: Computing Editorial (please read)

[Eric Smith <eric-no-spam-for-me@brouhaha.com>]

Exegete <millers@noneofyourbusiness.com> writes:
> Eric, I don't know the details, but the reason Apple lost it's suit
> against M$ for infringing on the Mac was that Apple licensed some of
> the technology to M$ so that Windows could be made to run at
> all. Sculley is the one who signed off on this, and my understanding
> is that it's open ended. If memory serves (and boy is that becoming
> less and less reliable) one source for this is the book "Apple" by Jim
> Carlton.

They definitely did license some stuff to MS, but it's not clear that
what was licensed would fit any reasonable definition of "technology".
Mostly they licensed part of the look & feel.  It wasn't stuff that would
have prevented Windows from running at all; MS just would have had to
make it look different.

Part of the problem with the suit was that Apple claimed that the
stuff was only licensed to MS for Windows 1.0, and MS claimed they
could use it in any later version.  The court sided with MS on that.
Apple's argument was quite disingenious.  It seemed similar to Intel's
claim that the license AMD had for the 386 microcode only allowed AMD
to use the microcode in-house but not to ship it as part of a product.