>It's basically the same as the System 1 which was just a ripoff of the stuff at Xerox PARC.
People say things like this and because they haven't researched the matter more deeply they miss out on some great gems from that such as the way overlapping windows worked on Apple's Macintosh compared to how Xerox did things because the Apple engineers didn't know how Xerox did it, thought they were doing more than they did and in the course of trying to recreate it invented something better.
The bottom line is that even re-implementing something can lead to creativity and extend the original in exciting new ways as a result. To my mind that makes it much less a 'ripoff' since it's a new way of doing things.
I'm not sure what you are referencing from that. It reiterates what I stated, not what you are saying. "Great Artists Steal" etc. The developers sat down and had everything explained to them. I'm not sure what you mean by "engineers didn't know how Xerox did it."
People say things like this and because they haven't researched the matter more deeply they miss out on some great gems from that such as the way overlapping windows worked on Apple's Macintosh compared to how Xerox did things because the Apple engineers didn't know how Xerox did it, thought they were doing more than they did and in the course of trying to recreate it invented something better.
A reference to what I mean can be found here:
http://novel.tingroom.com/lizhi/1019/30667.html
The bottom line is that even re-implementing something can lead to creativity and extend the original in exciting new ways as a result. To my mind that makes it much less a 'ripoff' since it's a new way of doing things.