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The parent post very nicely explains things, and contributes to more sleepless nights for me. As described by the parent post, software patents are indeed a hopeless situation.

The parent notes that prior art may be irrelevant, but here are some possibilities anyway.
ARINC Specification 661-2 Cockpit Display System Interfaces to User Systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARINC_661
NeXT/Apple Web Objects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebObjects
http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.13/13. 05/WebObjectsOverview/index.html
http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-05-199 6/swol-05-cs.html
http://www.byte.com/art/9609/sec9/art1.htm
NexT/Apple Interface Builder

That was a big one for a while.

Seems now the rumors have flipped on that one.

Which is exactly what Sun already does with the Java Compatibility Kit. There are, in fact, a fair number of third-party Java implementations that are released on this basis. And one famous lawsuit was filed agains a certain company that released an incompatible version of Java.

However, there have always been issues with the JCK, with claims that it is too complicated and inconsistent. Also, once everybody has access to the Java Development Kit source, you can expect to see a lot of forks. Enforcing compatibility will be a lot harder than it is now, with only a few Sun licensees doing Java implementations. And it is not easy now!

Yes, we all know about how later versions of NEXTSTEP (then OpenStep) ran on SPARC, but how many people remember Apple's "Macintosh Application Environment"?

This was a complete Mac emulation environment that ran on Solaris/SPARC and HP-UX in the mid '90s. It only ever emulated a 68LC040, so by the time it was discontinued in 1998, nobody cared. It is an interesting nexus, though, between Apple and Sun (and HP, where Woz first met Jobs).

http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/1995-03/sunf lash.950314.13593.html
http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-12-199 6/swol-12-mae.html

-Isaac

err:
http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-02-199 8/images/guido_van_rossum.jpg

Here he is in revenge of the nerds:
http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-02-199

That reminds me of the rumors in 1996 that Sun should/would buy Apple. See Sunworld or oreilly links for example. We know that Sun is in trouble and that Apple is doing well today. If MS does not recast ifself in a game company, I would not be surprised that RedHat will fare as well as Apple did, and that MS will dwindle.

You say:
Gosh, thanks, I've been doing OO programming in four or five different languages for more than a decade; I don't know how I missed this subclassing thing until now.

But you don't mention replacing parts or entire classes wholesale - which is very important, especially WRT not shipping source. The biggest complaint for C++ libraries not having source is that if part of it doesn't work [the way you want], you need source to change it. In Obj-C that just isn't so.

You also say
Seriously, I agree that in some cases it was possible to eventually hack around some bugs or issues. But only some bugs are easily amenable to that, and even those are only overridable once you figure out exactly where the bug is. And that only applies to the parts where you're dealing with Objective C development; if it was an issue in their closed custom apps or their custom OS or, in the beginning, their custom hardware, you were yet more screwed. Which, on regular occasions, I was.

But also say
I agree that some the technology lives on, but what NeXT was, including a cross-processor OS and a cross-platform development environment with Windows and Unix support

So why not run it on Solaris or Windows? Maybe you did, and that certainly got you around NeXT's "closed OS problems". (hah)

It seems you weren't a NeXT developer or NeXT owner.

NeXT owner since about '90. NeXT employee since about '95. Apple employee from the merger until 2001?

After the merger between Apple and NeXT in early 1997, they promised a release of the new merged OS in early 1998. It was actually the end of Q1 2001 before they got it out the door. In the meantime, NeXT and users developers were pretty much screwed.

The article from uakom isn't very good. "Next"? "First, Next is a major supplier of object-oriented development tools for the Solaris environment"? Well, that had been the hope.

The info from wikipedia is much better: "Apple released Mac OS X Server 1.0, in January 1999."

I agree that some the technology lives on, but what NeXT was, including a cross-processor OS and a cross-platform development environment with Windows and Unix support, died with the Apple merger.

As for x-platform and x-processor support, the existing users and developers being screwwed - yup, they pretty much were. But I'm pretty sure the writing on the wall was "You're Screwed" one way or another. The Solaris deal was going going ... and nobody was buying for intel.

What emerged was the the standard Apple we'll-tell-you-what-you-like routine. That seems to work for some people and I'm glad they like it, but it's a small fraction of the potential that NeXT had.

Potential is a wonderful thing. End users and sales are wonderful, too. You have to balance the two of them. Apple has brought what I like to call "OpenStep 6.0" to more users than NeXT ever could.

As for the we'll-tell-you-what-you-like routine - I don't get it. Apple doesn't announce much of anything before it ships, and the flow of dollars seems to speak a lot louder than advertising (see also the /. article on 2000 superbowl commercials).

That's what subclassing is all about. And if you can't (for some reason) fix it with subclassing, you can replace methods wholesale at runtime. This is not C++, where the black box can't really be touched - it is objective-c, where you can replace methods or even classes at runtime.

Gosh, thanks, I've been doing OO programming in four or five different languages for more than a decade; I don't know how I missed this subclassing thing until now.

Seriously, I agree that in some cases it was possible to eventually hack around some bugs or issues. But only some bugs are easily amenable to that, and even those are only overridable once you figure out exactly where the bug is. And that only applies to the parts where you're dealing with Objective C development; if it was an issue in their closed custom apps or their custom OS or, in the beginning, their custom hardware, you were yet more screwed. Which, on regular occasions, I was.

My point is that with a more open attitude from NeXT, hopefully including source access and a willingness to occasionally listen to their customers, it would have been much easier to do development and systems administration with their gear.

I have to grin when read that statement. If you think NeXT is dead, you haven't looked at Apple recently.

It seems you weren't a NeXT developer or NeXT owner. After the merger between Apple and NeXT in early 1997, they promised a release of the new merged OS in early 1998. It was actually the end of Q1 2001 before they got it out the door. In the meantime, NeXT and users developers were pretty much screwed.

I agree that some the technology lives on, but what NeXT was, including a cross-processor OS and a cross-platform development environment with Windows and Unix support, died with the Apple merger. What emerged was the the standard Apple we'll-tell-you-what-you-like routine. That seems to work for some people and I'm glad they like it, but it's a small fraction of the potential that NeXT had.

PC Expo: Sun buys object developer
Lighthouse Design noted for its OpenStep tools
June 1996
http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-06-199 6/swol-06-lighthouse.html

Sun steps up acquisition efforts
April 24, 2001
Bungled deal
Jonathan Schwartz, who heads Sun's 63-person acquisitions team, says Sun bungled the purchase of his company, Lighthouse Design, in 1996.

"There was no integration," Schwartz said. "The only things that changed were the business cards and the T-shirts."
http://news.com.com/2009-1001-256399.html?legacy=c net

I always wondered how weird it was for Oracle to be involved in that at first.

Yes, they're Quadras running Apple's Macintosh Application Environment (MAE) on A/UX.

I looked on google for something to link here, i found a good write-up but it is 5 years old. it's all pretty much still relevant but it doesn't address the issue that almost all the code run on the small free unix servers has the source code available. i'm sure that effects the conclusions one should draw, but i'm not sure how much it should.

here is the paper

The QNX demo disk is a web-browser-onna-floppy. Although it's min 386+8MB, and I don't know about legality in this situation. Probably this is not what you want.
(OTOH, it could be a nice way of preventing kids from installing any software you don't want :-) )

I also recall from my DOS days a web-browser / newsreader integrated, that would run on a 286 / XT (although, from memory, not as nicely as it would on a 386).

Called Net-Tamer (aka Internet in a Thimble), it's on Simtel, or there is the home page.
(looks like they're still developing it too!)

--
Repton.