OFFTOPIC: Liam wants to argue (Was RE: A task-centric desktop...)

[Liam Proven]

On 21 November 2011 16:07, W. Scott Lockwood III <vladinator at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ubuntu-users-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
> [mailto:ubuntu-users-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Liam Proven
> Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 9:07 AM
> To: Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions
> Subject: Re: A task-centric desktop...
>
>> Yes, I've been tracking it since it first appeared, too. Mind you, my
> money was on BeOS for a while,
>> and OS/2 before that. Shows how wrong you can be!
>
> I miss OS/2. We agree on that much. BeOS was interesting.
>
>> I daresay that with some time and effort I could come up with a list of
> 235 direct infringements, yes.
>> If you can come up with someone prepared to pay me to do so, I will be
> happy to.
>
> So, you get to make claims, but then have to be paid to back them up? The
> fail is strong in this one.

Nope. It's my living, among other things. I've given you a link to a
published article in which I explained my views at length, some 4y
ago.

>> I am not calling any particular individual names.
>
> That's a pretty weak defense. I found your comments insulting. Tell me, do
> you also refer to a large group of ethnically similar people by pejorative
> names, and then claim it's not racism because you didn't call any one of
> them that name? Seems to be the same logic. Anyone who doesn't agree with
> you is shouting and whining, but it's ok, because you didn't call any one of
> us a shouting whining specifically?

Calling someone a "stick-in-the-mud" is insulting now, is it?
Seriously? I am incredulous. Perhaps this is one of those
British-versus-American things again.

> How about we just avoid using pejorative terms at all?

They are not insults and not pejorative. I am not saying people are
too stupid or something. Words such as "inflexible" are honest
representations of my impressions of people who cannot adapt to
something as trivial as a slightly-rearranged desktop. I stand by my
comments, or I wouldn't have made them.

> And yes, I did mean there was a small (but important) number of examples of
> prior art.

Let's hear them, then. Believe me, I have gone looking, hard, in
depth. Every other taskbar-and-start-menu interface  - QNX Neutrino,
OS/2 Warp 4 Launch bar, BeOS Tracker, etc. - *postdates* Win95.

Xerox contributed less than you'd think to modern GUIs. Apple invented
a very large amount of new features, some large, some small. The whole
idea of an icon-based file manager, for instance, was a Macintosh
innovation - the Lisa didn't have one.

The Windows 95 Explorer interface was the result of years of R&D
effort into designing a friendly interface to a multitasking OS
/without/ infringing Apple patents and IP. Ironically, this massive
effort into finding new and original ways to do things like:

* start apps easily (when binaries have cryptic names & are buried
deep in the filesystem where users shouldn't go)
* switch between windows (not programs) using a graphical interface
* manage desktop contents without putting drives on the desktop (an
Apple legally-protected feature)

... was then widely copied. And MS let everyone do it, partly because
the little companies doing so were no threat, and partly because it
realised that later, the existence of all these copies would be a
powerful legal weapon.

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
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