Editing Xerox Star (section)

==Legacy==
Even though the Star product failed in the market, it raised expectations and laid important groundwork for later computers. Many of the innovations behind the Star, such as WYSIWYG editing, [[Ethernet]], and network services such as directory, print, file, and internetwork routing have become commonplace in computers.

Members of the [[Apple Lisa|Lisa]] engineering team saw Star at its introduction at the [[National Computer Conference]] (NCC '81) and returned to Cupertino where they converted their desktop manager to an icon-based interface modeled on the Star.<ref>{{cite web |title=An Interview with Wayne Rosing, Bruce Daniels, and Larry Tesler |publisher=Byte |url=http://www.guidebookgallery.org/articles/lisainterview|access-date=February 8, 2007}}</ref> Among the developers of Xerox's [[Gypsy (software)|Gypsy]] WYSIWYG editor, [[Larry Tesler]] left Xerox to join Apple in 1980 where he also developed the [[MacApp]] framework.

[[Charles Simonyi]] left Xerox to join [[Microsoft]] in 1981 where he developed first WYSIWYG version of [[Microsoft Word|Microsoft Word (3.0)]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wallace |first1=James |last2=Erickson |first2=Jim |title=Hard Drive |year=1992 |isbn=0-471-56886-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/harddrivebillgat00wall_0/page/219 219–220] |quote=I lost faith in Xerox's ability to do anything |publisher=Wiley |location=New York u.a. |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/harddrivebillgat00wall_0/page/219 }}</ref> In 1983, Simonyi recommended [[Scott A. McGregor]], who was recruited by Bill Gates to lead the development of [[Windows 1.0]], in part for McGregor's experience in windowing systems at PARC. Later that year, several others left PARC to join Microsoft.{{sfn|Wallace|Erickson|1992|pages=254-255}}

Star, Viewpoint, and [[GlobalView]] were the first commercial computing environments to offer support for most [[natural language]]s, including full-featured word processing, leading to their adoption by the [[Voice of America]], other United States foreign affairs agencies, and several multinational corporations.<ref>{{cite web |title=Weird Processing: The Collision of Computers and Cultures at the Voice of America 2007 |publisher=Chris Kern's Eponymous Web Site |url=http://www.chriskern.net/history/computersAndCulturesAtVoa.html |access-date=December 1, 2007}}</ref>

<!--The Alto and Star both influenced later developments. Alto's effects began earlier, in smaller numbers, with less evolved systems. Star's effects began later, in larger numbers, with more evolved systems.-->
The list of products that were inspired or influenced by the user interface of the Star, and to a lesser extent the Alto, include the [[Apple Lisa|Lisa]], [[Macintosh]], [[Graphics Environment Manager]] (GEM), [[Visi On]], [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[Atari ST]], [[BTRON]] from [[TRON Project]], [[Amiga]], Elixir Desktop, [[Metaphor Computer Systems]], [[Interleaf]], [[OS/2]], [[OPEN LOOK]] (co-developed by Xerox), [[SunView]], [[KDE]], [[Ventura Publisher]], and [[NEXTSTEP]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Xerox Star Research|publisher=John Redant|url=http://xeroxstar.tripod.com |access-date=February 8, 2007}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=December 2023}} [[Adobe Systems]] [[PostScript]] was based on [[Interpress]]. [[Ethernet]] was further refined by [[3Com]], and has become a ''[[de facto]]'' standard networking protocol.

Some people{{who|date=May 2021}} said that Apple, Microsoft, and others plagiarized the [[GUI]] and other innovations from the Xerox Star, and believe that Xerox didn't properly protect its intellectual property. Many patent disclosures were submitted for the innovations in the Star. However, at the time, the 1975 Xerox Consent Decree, a [[Federal Trade Commission]] (FTC) [[antitrust]] action, placed restrictions on what the firm was able to [[patent]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The 1975 Xerox Consent Decree: Ancient Artifacts and Current Tensions|publisher=Willard K. Tom|url=https://www.abanet.org/antitrust/at-journal/pdf/abstracts/v68-I3/v68-I3-abstract-06.pdf|access-date=December 16, 2008}}</ref> Also, when the Star disclosures were being prepared, the Xerox patent attorneys were busy with several other new technologies such as laser printing. Finally, patents on software, particularly those relating to user interfaces, were then an untested legal area.

Xerox went to trial to protect the Star user interface. In 1989, after ''[[Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.]]'' for copyright infringement of the Macintosh user interface in Windows, Xerox filed a similar lawsuit against Apple. However, this suit was dismissed on procedural grounds, not substantive, because a three-year [[statute of limitations]] had passed. In 1994, Apple lost its suit against Microsoft, not only the issues originally contested, but all claims to the user interface.<ref>{{cite news |title=Copyright: Apple vs. Microsoft |newspaper=New York Times |url=http://www.me.utexas.edu/~me179/topics/copyright/case2.html|access-date=February 8, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100621082341/http://www.me.utexas.edu/~me179/topics/copyright/case2.html |archive-date=June 21, 2010 |url-status=dead}} An index of NYT articles concerning both the Apple/Microsoft suit and the Xerox/Apple suit</ref>

On January 15, 2019, a work-in-progress Star emulator created by [[Living Computers: Museum + Labs|LCM+L]] known as Darkstar was released for Windows and Linux.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://engblg.livingcomputers.org/index.php/2019/01/19/introducing-darkstar-a-xerox-star-emulator/|title=Introducing Darkstar: A Xerox Star Emulator|last=Dersch|first=John|date=January 19, 2019|publisher=[[Living Computers: Museum + Labs]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190120000030/https://engblg.livingcomputers.org/index.php/2019/01/19/introducing-darkstar-a-xerox-star-emulator//|archive-date=January 20, 2019|url-status=live|access-date=March 20, 2019}}</ref>