A question about Microsoft

[MrBogosity]

Yeah, you young folks won't remember this, but there was a time (about 20 years ago or a little more) when we were all rooting for the vole to beat Apple in Apple's 'Look and Feel' lawsuit over Windows 95.  And they did, which cleared the way for things like the window managers in Linux that clone the look and behavior of Windows (making transitioning in a workplace a snap).

Which was ridiculous on the face of it, since Apple had pilfered the interface from Xerox to begin with.

[evensgrey]

Which was ridiculous on the face of it, since Apple had pilfered the interface from Xerox to begin with.

'Pilfered' is a misleadingly strong term.  Xerox had had graphical interfaces for several years at the time, and hadn't DONE anything commercial with it.  They knew exactly who Steve Jobs was and what kind of things he was looking for when they showed him all this cool stuff they had been working on that senior management just couldn't be bothered to bring to market.  (When Steve saw it was just about the earliest it could have been brought out at a sane price, since $40000 per unit was completely non-commercial in 1973.  Xerox management was willing to keep funding the research but just couldn't see how it fit into their 'Document Company' product model.)