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Yes. Focus is about saying “no.” None of the Copland management or marketing people ever said “no”. So instead of just porting the Mac toolbox to C and a microk

Yes. Focus is about saying “no.” None of the Copland management or marketing people ever said “no”. So instead of just porting the Mac toolbox to C and a microkernel and shipping that as a first step, it had to have a new filesystem API (so abstract that it will support non-hierarchical filesystems!), and a new OO system for handling text strings, and a new UI toolkit, a new help system, oh, and an OpenDoc-based Finder… A lot of potentially good ideas, but you simply cannot do that all at once. It wasn’t actually a completely lost cause. They could have shipped it in six months if they’d just simplified the damn thing to a native UI toolbox on top of a microkernel, API additions cut to the bone. (One of the problems with that plan, though, is that product marketing wants all the features you can cram in, so you have to be willing to tell them “no” too.) Anyway, Gil Amelio and Ellen Hancock also didn’t know how to manage software projects, so instead of fixing what they had, they decided to buy outside tech. Which means we got the iPod, the iPhone, etc. But, in context, they were total dumbfucks; they could have gotten there with what they had.

ngcc_hk 2y ago
That is a bold claim. If they do not know … how can they do that. And a technical solution to exist need management know-how, financial viability or at least the market allow you to play out. That is why even if you were right, within Steve Jobs there would not Apple. World need to have a mix or proper mix of important things. The reason why communism fall always not because it’s ideal but because it is wrong in human level. You need a mix. A proper mix.
wpm 2y ago
Gil took over as CEO two years after the Copeland project began under Michael Spindler, and turned it around enough to ship Mac OS 8 a few weeks after he was ousted by the board (after Jobs broke a gentleman's agreement he had with Amelio and sold his 1.5M shares, tanking the share price). Gil Amelio was not a great CEO by any measure, but he deserves credit for helping save Apple. He uttered the first "no". "No", we are not going to ship this Copeland thing, it's hopeless, we either have to buy another OS and build from that, or sell the company because we're out of time.

ngcc_hk 2y ago

That is a bold claim. If they do not know … how can they do that. And a technical solution to exist need management know-how, financial viability or at least the market allow you to play out. That is why even if you were right, within Steve Jobs there would not Apple. World need to have a mix or proper mix of important things. The reason why communism fall always not because it’s ideal but because it is wrong in human level. You need a mix. A proper mix.

wpm 2y ago

Gil took over as CEO two years after the Copeland project began under Michael Spindler, and turned it around enough to ship Mac OS 8 a few weeks after he was ousted by the board (after Jobs broke a gentleman's agreement he had with Amelio and sold his 1.5M shares, tanking the share price). Gil Amelio was not a great CEO by any measure, but he deserves credit for helping save Apple. He uttered the first "no". "No", we are not going to ship this Copeland thing, it's hopeless, we either have to buy another OS and build from that, or sell the company because we're out of time.