Apple versus Microsoft

"You can kick up as much dust as you want, it doesn't obscure the fact that Federal Procedure requires IP holders to defend themselves against infringement if they want to maintain their right of exclusivity."

That is true only in the case of trademark; it is not true for copyright.

@ 20. Liquidmark...

"Erica, Apple had permission from Xerox to use and further develop the GUI concept. I believe Apple gave Xerox a few million in shares as compensation."

I guess Steve Jobs also had permission to screw his buddy back in the Atari days too.

I am an independent software publisher (dating-sim games, see www.jlist.com if curious) and from time to time I need to send cease & desist letters to people pirating my games, or posting torrents. A torrent is an "external link" but I feel justified sending C&Ds in such a case because of the great damage piracy does to my tiny niche software genre. By the way, sending a C&D email is not "suing" or "going after" someone, it's just an official notification that group A considers an activity to be infringing, so quit it. It's not the same thing as actually incurring legal costs to the intended party, making them retain a lawyer and so on.

Just my two cents.

"Cease and desist" is not suing. It is a precursor to a suit, should the "offender" NOT cease nor desist. Does anyone know if Apple sent a similar letter to the site that was being linked to?

"Why does Apple keep getting away with being such a**holes to everyone in the whole world that dares to come remotely close to touching their IP? "

Because, if you don't protect your trademarks and other Intellectual properties, you loose use of them, That's why.

If Apple never protected Mac OS or the Macintosh Platform, they would've gone bankrupt back in the 80's.

"I'll have to take a swig if anyone responds to your Windows-ripped-off-Macintosh comment with a mention of Xerox Parc."

Erica, Apple had permission from Xerox to use and further develop the GUI concept. I believe Apple gave Xerox a few million in shares as compensation.

Microsoft, on the other hand, used legal footwork to keep the Windows interface.

Windows Vista is exactly like Mac... in the fact that it has a background, it does transparency, it has a widgets(gadgets), and it has a way to launch applications (a much better way, mind you).

Other than that I don't see any similarity. Apple wasn't the first to do transparency. But they control the hardware so they can put it in and expect people to not have a low end machine that can't run it. Widgets were not done by Mac first, they stole them from Konfabulator (Yahoo! Widget Engine now). And the Finder is a whole piece of junk in itself (they can't even display thumbnails of pictures in a folder). And we won't even go into their pretend network world. OSX Server is horrible and has more glitches than Microsoft Bob.

So yeah, Microsoft stole Apples interface. Just like Apple stole IBM's idea of a personal computer. Sure they used a different processor and OS, but it's still a "Personal Computer". It's all semantics.

I've ended up both the owner of a Dell Windows based laptop for my business and a MacPro tower for my audio production and music work.

I was SO excited to finally be getting my MacPro after years of being forced into using Windows daily at work.

Imagine my surprise, tho, after getting my Mac and all of the hoops I've had to jump through with requiring extra trips to the Apple Store to get upgrades that I thought were just standard, to replace bad hardware as well as try to get set up in some kind of support/care package the approached my Dell support package.

And even more to the point, the incredible snide behavior of Apple employees who are so wrapped up in their brand that they just assume the problem is you. The arrogance and lack of real customer service baffled me and led to great despair after chunking out $6000 to get set up in a mchine that has now repeatedly brought me grief

I've had a number of friends work at Apple over the years. Some of them love it, some of them hated it. What was universal was the notion that Steve Jobs can be an utter a*hole and that the company was way too stuck on itself.

And I see how that culture has affected my relationship with the company as a customer as well as an online reader having to trudge through endless fanboy Apple vs. Microsoft wars just to get to a meaningful answer as to why I might have had such a horrible experience with something I was so excited about it.

This all really did come as a shock to me. I was SO gung ho about getting back into the Mac game (I'd own Macs between 1988-1998). But despite it's own set of issues (and YES there are plenty), the one thing I've never (yet) had to deal with with Dell is customer service issues like I've experienced with Apple (-- tho yes I've heard some stories). They treat me like gold, replace stuff with no questions asked and completely at my convenience.

So I keep on encountering an incredible level of cognitive dissonance when it comes to making fair, critical assessments of Apple as a brand and as a company that significantly impacts the lives of it's customers.

And this dissonance just as other fanboy worship cultures (like Playstation aficionados and Windows loyalists) keeps feeding itself without actually generating anything productive.

For despite all the rhetoric about how fantastic or how horrible this or that device or company is, I'm still stuck with a computer I'd wanted but can't use because of ongoing issues with hardware that Apple won't help out with. And that just sucks because my friends Mac seems to work so well.

Bobby: According to the rules of the drinking game, I'll have to take a swig if anyone responds to your Windows-ripped-off-Macintosh comment with a mention of Xerox Parc. And it's way too early in the morning to start drinking.

"Between an Acer Ferrari and a cease-and-desist letter? I'd prefer the Acer, thank you very much."

Am I missing something?

Could it be that Apple is so paranoid because of the MASSIVE rip-off they experienced when M$ copied the MAC OS and called it "Windows"??? And it's not like you can say "oh yea, but that was like 30 years ago...", just look at Vista, a blatant copy ATTEMPT of OS X!
Let the screaming begin ; )