Someone could write exactly the same article and claim Linux is ripping off Microsoft by using their past innovations. It would be equally one-sided and false. The reality is that there is probably truth on both sides of this dispute and that obscures the real issue.
The real issue is patents. We need to get away from this model of incentivizing innovation. Otherwise we will constantly have this conflict: someone will invent something (Microsoft), someone will want to clone it (Linux), and conflict will result.
Most Linux desktop distributions have plenty of elements that were popularised by Microsoft, like start buttons and task bars. As the parent says, we could go on endlessly debating who copied who, and if we cared to do our research we would have to conclude that most things were invented by previous guys anyways, people like Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson and Doug Engelbart.
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Not exactly the most "fair and balanced" article.
Someone could write exactly the same article and claim Linux is ripping off Microsoft by using their past innovations. It would be equally one-sided and false. The reality is that there is probably truth on both sides of this dispute and that obscures the real issue.
The real issue is patents. We need to get away from this model of incentivizing innovation. Otherwise we will constantly have this conflict: someone will invent something (Microsoft), someone will want to clone it (Linux), and conflict will result.
Not sure who invented or cloned what.
Are you saying that Microsoft invented POSIX?
Most Linux desktop distributions have plenty of elements that were popularised by Microsoft, like start buttons and task bars. As the parent says, we could go on endlessly debating who copied who, and if we cared to do our research we would have to conclude that most things were invented by previous guys anyways, people like Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson and Doug Engelbart.