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To: highimpact; kevkrom
Very true. Most people don’t know, or choose to forget, that Jobs and Woz (the Apple founders) originally stole the GUI idea from Xerox Park.

Sigh. The reason most people don't know that is that it simply is not true!

Apple did NOT steal the STAR interface for the UI from Xerox. Apple paid XEROX 1,000,000 shares of pre IPO APPLE Common stock (then worth $7 per share) for a mere 16 hours of visits to PARC and the rights to use what they learned there (they took no code, only ideas). Secondly, Apple's and Xerox's implementations of the User interfaces were very dissimilar... and Apple invented quite a bit of it independently including such things as the drop down menus, movable windows, the trashcan metaphor, drag-and-drop, and sub menus. These things are documented.

XEROX's suit was initiated by a new XEROX CEO who was not familiar with the 1978 visit to PARC and the terms of the agreement. The suit was tossed out of Court when Apple produced the written agreements that revealed that Apple had indeed paid for the rights and had not "lifted" anything from Xerox's PARC and were entitled to what they used. Xerox had sold the stock it received for the visit for about $16,000,000 shortly after Apple went public in 1980. The made about $1 million an hour for a show and tell dog and pony show.

112 posted on 07/06/2010 10:20:43 PM PDT by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: Swordmaker

“Sigh. The reason most people don’t know that is that it simply is not true!”

Sigh. See post #107, Swordmaker. I admitted my poor choice of words before you went on your rant. Happy FReeping.


147 posted on 07/07/2010 8:15:11 PM PDT by highimpact (Abortion - [n]: human sacrifice at the altar of convenience.)
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