Xerox Parc

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Wed Nov 6 02:04:00 2002

> Something that I have always wondered about is why Xerox never sued
> Jobs ass off for the Mac GUI and also MSWindows which was derrived from
> Xerox's 'Small-Talk".

Jobs cut a deal with them where they were allowed to invest some money
in Apple in exchange for showing Apple what they were doing and allowing
Apple to use some of the concepts. Also, Apple was a Smalltalk licensee.
AFAICT, Xerox didn't have any grounds to "sue Jobs ass off". Though
many years later, they tried to do it, and the Judge threw the case out.

In terms of copyright law, the Macintosh and MS Windows were *not*
"derived from" Smalltalk. Inspired by, yes. But copyright doesn't
prevent using an existing work as a source of inspiration. It just
protects the specific expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves.
If you copyright a science fiction novel in which telekinetic aliens
take over the earth, that doesn't prevent me from writing a science
fiction novel in which telekinetic aliens take over the earth, provided
I don't use any of your text verbatim.

On the other hand, if Xerox had patented windows...

> From all evidence I've seen Xerox invented the GUI.

Surely the GUI was invented by Ivan Sutherland, when he developed
Sketchpad in 1963?
Received on Wed Nov 06 2002 - 02:04:00 GMT