Thursday, March 31, 2011

Standing on the shoulders of giants

In building our homegrown basic, we borrowed bits and pieces of our design from previous versions, a long-standing software tradition. Languages evolve; ideas blend together; in computer technology, we all stand on others’ shoulders.


Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder, in Microsoft's Odd Couple, 2011

Paul Allen is also the owner of Interval Licensing, LLC, a company that is currently accusing AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo!, and YouTube (but not Microsoft) for violation of four almost ridiculous patents.

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