Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Wed 11th Jun 2003 21:39 UTC
Apple Computer is being sued by The Open Group, the San Francisco company that claims ownership of the Unix trademark, for using the term Unix in conjunction with its Mac OS X operating system without a license. Apple has countersued, asking a judge to declare that the trademark is invalid, because the term Unix has become generic. This legal battle, though separate from SCO's recent claim that Linux uses copyrighted Unix source code, adds further fire to the debate over the custody of Unix--the 30 plus-year old OS originally developed by AT&T.
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There are quite a few examples of things like that. Stuff we take for granted because everything has always used them. The basic windowing model hasn't changed for decades due to inertia, the "document <-> application" split has suffered some more attacks, notably from OpenDoc and OLE, but they both failed (ole through general suckyness, OpenDoc through piss poor marketing and general Apple internal politics).
Technological innovation is the easy part. Imagination and alot of money. It's cultural innovation that is pretty fucking hard. Heck, the majority of computer users still use Windows 98. Like it or not, evolution is pretty much the only option, with the occasional small revolution. Windows 3.11 => Windows 95, Macos9 => OSX...