“By hitching their considerable resumes to the Linux
bandwagon, several members of the original Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)
Macintosh development team are hoping to storm the stage one more
time with a plan that calls for development of a user-friendly
interface for Linux, as well as online services to help Linux
users. With the plan in place and publicly announced, it’s
time to execute. But before Eazel could happen, they had to put the
band back together.”
“The first convert was cofounder Mike Boich, who says he was
talked into joining Eazel when he drew blanks in an ongoing
argument with Eazel cofounder and software wizard Andy Hertzfeld.
Mr. Hertzfeld, who earned legendary geek status for his work
writing big pieces of the original Macintosh code, was looking for
something new and fun to do and was concentrating on Linux.”
” ‘Andy and I had been having lunch once a month or so over the
years,’ says Mr. Boich, who was the founding member of Apple’s
groundbreaking ‘evangelist’ efforts for the Mac. Last year, Mr.
Boich says, Mr. Hertzfeld (who also cofounded General Magic back in
1990) had been on a tear about Linux.”
” ‘Andy was pretty excited about Linux, and that it was
seriously lacking a good interface, and that it was clear to him
that we could fix that problem,’ Mr. Boich recalls. ‘He kept
challenging me to tell him why Linux wouldn’t make it big. And I
ran out of reasons.’ “