[geeks] And The Linux Weenies Wonder Why They Aren't Mainstream...`

[velociraptor]

On 3/2/06, Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm at mendelson.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 02, 2006 at 02:13:41PM -0500, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> > Excel was basically a clone of Lotus 123 when first introduced.
>
> No it was not. It was a spreadsheet with a GUI, one of the first
> programs for the Macintosh, Lotus was a direct ripoff of Visicalc by
> their marketing rep.

Actually, it's likely that Mitch Kapor, who worked on VisiCalc and
then founded Lotus was the one who did that--and he's not really
what you'd call a marketing guy

The real tragedy of the story is the "look and feel" lawsuits that
Lotus filed against Paperback Software and Mosaic software.  One
might say that Kapor's co-founding of EFF is his attempt at penance
over his involvement in that.

I find it kind of sad and ironic that the Wikipedia article on Kapor
makes zero reference to his involvement in the initiation of the
whole cascade of software lawsuits that has brought us to the
patenting of "one click" and other ridiculous notions.

=Nadine=