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ckchengtoday at 5:57 PM2 repliesview on HN

What’s more funny to me is the set up to that quote:

> Bill Gates had somehow manifested, alone, surrounded by ten Apple employees. … Steve started yelling at Bill, asking him why he violated their agreement.

And what’s more interesting is the conclusion:

> Apple filed a monumental copyright lawsuit against Microsoft in 1988, but they eventually lost on a technicality (the judge ruled that Apple inadvertently gave Microsoft a perpetual license to the Mac user interface in November 1985).

Microsoft didn’t steal Apple’s GUI … Apple gave it to them.


Replies

alexgoodharttoday at 7:23 PM

That isn’t fully true is it?

Microsoft claimed that its software’s use of various visualizations related to window state was covered by the 1985 agreement, and Apple claimed that this was not true; those window states were produced by Macintosh while Microsoft’s software was being rendered in the Mac environment.

> In his March 20, 1989 Order, Judge Schwarzer declined to consider whether the visual displays in issue were generated by the Microsoft application programs or by the Macintosh system software. The point arose in connection with Microsoft's argument that the 1985 Agreement licensed to Microsoft all visual displays that could possibly be called up by running the five Microsoft application programs on the Macintosh system software then or in the future. 709 F. Supp. at 929. Judge Schwarzer concluded that Microsoft's contention would "defy common sense." Id.

themafiatoday at 7:33 PM

Two spoiled rich kids arguing over who's morality is the least worst.

That this moment is held up as some great exchange in business is annoying. That our regulatory agencies are perennially sleep at the switch and allow this nonsense to keep happening is extremely frustrating.

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