I visited the mother nest of the modern computer back in the early
1970s. It was Xerox Parc and the man who ran the operation was Bill
English. Bill and his wife Roberta were friends of mine. This blog is
about a dinner we had about a decade ago.
At the time of the dinner there were the remnants of a 1988 lawsuit about computer desktop page design. The suit was
between Apple and Microsoft. The lawsuit was about 9 years old
at the time. Apple claimed that Microsoft had copied the ‘look and
feel’ of the home computer screen from Apple, which it had. The
important truth was that Apple had copied the ‘look and feel’ from what
the two Steve’s had seen at Xerox Park and Apple had somewhat of a
license from Xerox.
At the dinner with the Englishes, Bill said he had just agreed to go on the board of Sun. I knew most of the long history and I pointed out to him that he was the perfect person to bring an end to the law suit by getting Xerox to license the original material to Sun.
Bill was the person who actually ran the shop (Xerox Park) that created the ‘look and feel’ and everyone in Silicon Valley knew it. All Bill had to do, as a Sun Board of Directors member, was to say that he supported Sun getting rights to his work at Xerox Parc and that the lawsuit should be dropped. It was.
Did I do it?
At the time of the dinner there were the remnants of a 1988 lawsuit about computer desktop page design. The suit was
At the dinner with the Englishes, Bill said he had just agreed to go on the board of Sun. I knew most of the long history and I pointed out to him that he was the perfect person to bring an end to the law suit by getting Xerox to license the original material to Sun.
Bill was the person who actually ran the shop (Xerox Park) that created the ‘look and feel’ and everyone in Silicon Valley knew it. All Bill had to do, as a Sun Board of Directors member, was to say that he supported Sun getting rights to his work at Xerox Parc and that the lawsuit should be dropped. It was.
Did I do it?