In 1988, there was little standardization in graphical interfaces. Microsoft Windows 2.0 had come out less than six months earlier, and the Apple Macintosh had been out for only four years. In the UNIX world, technical workstations had featured window systems for several years, but each company had their own interface design. The X Window System project was emerging as the de facto display protocol for UNIX, but its designers had deliberately chosen not to specify any interface guidelines.

Concerns: standardization (currently a vacuum), should be lawsuit proof.

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