Joel Watson (metal@enterThought.com) wrote:
> Why hasn't someone done this yet? Is Apple unwilling to sell the rights?
Apple never intended to sell the rights. They would have _licensed_ the
rights at most, only they were asking for too much -- maybe because they
didn't really wanted to license the technology, but believed it to be bad
PR to openly say so (keep in mind than virtually everything Apple said
regarding the death of the Newton was just intended to make it look good,
even if that meant being somewhat economic with the truth).
Also, as has been pointed out before, there's not much Apple could sell,
even if they wanted to. Without all the brilliant people who created
Newton technology, all they've got is a pile of backup tapes -- not worth
buying, if you ask me. The technologies that made the Newton such a
unique product are nothing secret; things like soups, the view system,
system-wide services such as search and assist etc. could easily be
recreated without resorting to the original source code.
Finally, the Newton OS incorporates stuff like QuickDraw that Apple can't
sell (it's part of Mac OS, including Mac OS X, and QuickTime), and the
Rosetta recognizer that, some rumours claim, is going to be incorporated
into Mac OS, which is why it's not for sale. And then there's the cursive
recognizer that Apple can't sell either, because they don't own it.
Michael J. Hussmann
Redaktion macmagazin
Leverkusenstrasse 54 VII
D-22761 Hamburg
Germany
E-mail: michael@macmagazin.de
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