PixieDustTimeMachine™

For reference, Linux Victim

But it’s ridiculously common.

The one thing that Loons cannot bring themselves to accuse Microsoft of doing is to “steal” from Multics (a common ancestor of NT and *nix) because, well, Microsoft just did a far better job of building off Multics. It’s embarrassing to admit that sort of thing.

But obviously a 90,000 person company has to steal from somebody, right? So here we go:

TCP/IP stack? Stolen from somewhere, probably Apple. GUI? Likewise. Powershell? A needlessly cluttered version of bash.

But they get really, really hot under the collar when their latest pet abject failure bombs like a turkey chucked out of the space shuttle on re-entry; and this is where PixieDustTimeMachine™ comes in.

The sequence is as follows:

(1) Microsoft does something. Say, the Ribbon. Say, mouse gestures. Say, da spinnin Aero Cubez! It doesn’t matter. It could be a Lolcatz fart when your computer boots up.
(2) Ubuntu desperately tries to clone it.
(3) Without having seen more than a mock-up of a screen-shot (in this one case, Loons are allowed to use Photoshop. The GiMP is just too feeble), this cloned feature is The Saviour on the Desktop!
(4) A few commentators overcome the immense SNR barrier and point out that Microsoft did it first, and better.
(5) Conclusion: Microsoft went back in time and stole it!

Gentlemen and Ladies, I present the PixieDustTimeMachine™.

It’s not limited to Microsoft, by the way. It’s a very convenient flavour of MagicPixieDust™. You can apply it to the Mac, you can apply it to Commodore Pets, you can apply it to just about anything you like.

Hell,, if you’re a Gnome developer, you can apply it to KDE developers! And vice-versa!