Re: [OS:N:] Developing for developers and users

[Bill Kendrick <nbs sonic net>]

On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 10:01:06AM -0400, Matt Frye wrote:
> Point is, somewhere along the line, someone had to look at MS Office
> and decided to build something that was, for all intents and purposes,
> like it (but not it by invention).  It's wonderful that OO (or it's
> predecessors) are feature rich and can export in all kinds of formats,
> but that doesn't make it fundamentally different from MS Office.

This thread is starting to imply that Microsoft actually invented the
interface for MS Office.  I don't know any precise history of MS Office,
but the way Microsoft works is to take other people's work (either by buyout,
or simply by cloning...  I mean, shit... anyone remember Macintosh?  ...
and yeah, even that was just a ripoff of the earlier PARC stuff)

In some sense, it's not /trivial/ to make a /better/ mousetrap.  That's why
so many mousetraps look the same.  Compare word processors from various
vendors and across various platforms for the past 20 years, and you can
easily argue they were all ripping each other's designs off, as well. :^)

-bill!
bill newbreedsoftware com          "Maybe it's just a parlor trick, like Fry"
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/             "Like Fry! Like Fry!"
New Breed Software