Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Rik Myslewski takes a look back at Apple's experience with cloning in the mid-1990s. It's an important lesson as some are once again calling for the company to license OS X for non-Apple hardware. Either these people weren't around in the mid-1990s or they've suffered some severe head trauma or they really just want Apple to do something monstrously stupid.

[ripragged]

Funny. Rik certainly won't forget history. He's written most of the history of the Mac. And of course, His Steveness knows better than to ever license the OS until all the other alternatives have been utterly destroyed.

[aa4lr]

Let's be clear -- it's not the lack of licensing that caused Apple to diminish in the 1990s. It was the act of licensing. In 1985, Apple licensed their UI elements to Microsoft in exchange for licenses for AppleSoft BASIC. It was this licensing agreement that allowed Microsoft to so blatantly copy the Macintosh.

The conventional wisdom has always been that Apple waited too long to license their OS to all comers. The reality is the opposite.

Apple should only license their OS elements when it makes good business sense to do so. So far, it hasn't. And this goes for the iPod and iPhone technology as well.