[KoRn]

Microsoft will probably buy Firefox, and rename it. I believe that's how they got IE. MS has never been an innovator in anything with the exception of Word Processing software maybe.

I think Windows itself was ripped off from somewhere. Internet Explorer was purchased, and they renamed it. They also discourage growth in new innovations. When a company announces they are going to develop a type of software, Microsoft soon after, announces they are going to work on the same thing. Immediately the smaller company stops development because they can't compete with MS, then MS simply sits on the project.

[clyde asbury]

Microsoft will probably buy Firefox, and rename it.

MS-DOS was only renamed and tweaked from another company's DOS, too.

[Condor51]

I think Windows itself was ripped off from somewhere.

NO OFFENSE, but you must be young. YES Windows was ripped off, from Apple.

In short, when MS was a little bitty company, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs hired MS (Gates) to write an OS or some programs (IIRC). When Gates saw the Apple 'windows' look he basically said to his people 'steal it', make it ours. They did, and it was.

[TomGuy]

MS has never been an innovator in anything

I heard Gates at a computer conference in the early 90's say something to the effect that 'good ideas are meant to be borrowed; great ideas are meant to be stolen'.

Both MS-DOS and Windows are 'borrowed' from ideas/concepts developed by others early in the desktop computer history.

[Salo]

MS and Apple both snagged the gui idea from Xerox. Apple had the first gui to market (IIRC), and MS copied the "look and feel" of it. Btw, Xerox also invented ethernet.

I think Windows itself was ripped off from somewhere.

[thirst4truth]

I think Windows itself was ripped off from somewhere. Internet Explorer was purchased, and they renamed it. They also discourage growth in new innovations. When a company announces they are going to develop a type of software, Microsoft soon after, announces they are going to work on the same thing. Immediately the smaller company stops development because they can't compete with MS, then MS simply sits on the project.

Window was ripped off from Apple. Dos was ripped off from Seattle Computers in the 80's and Internet Explorer was ripped off from Netscape. Bill Gates said himself in the book he wrote, "The Road Ahead" the internet is insignificant. He is a farce, the only thing Bill Gates is good at is contracts in his favor and stealing software. We had a computer business in Seattle 1983-1994 and I know many programmers that threw in the towel on writing software. They figured what's the point, Bill Gates will just steal it.

[ohCompGk]

Microsoft will probably buy Firefox, and rename it.

MS can't buy it. It's open source. They can use it if they give proper attributes (kinda like the "Based on NCSA Mosaic" in the help box of IE).

The problem is that MS is already knee deep in Mosaic not to mention the fact that the whole reason for Firefox's existence is because of IE. MS tried to buy Netscape way back when Netscape was the only commercial browser. When they couldn't buy it they tried to destroy by giving away Mosiac (renamed IE and tweeked a little). Netscape's response was to release their source code to encourage competition. You'd be surprised at how many browsers have been created with mozilla source code.

I doubt MS will ever touch Mozilla if for no other reason than of pride.

[dljordan]

Didn't they buy Windows for like $80,000 from the developer?