Even though we haven't kept in touch of late, I still regard Keith as a good friend. Once upon a time Sun tried to promote a rivalry between Keith's Grasshopper Group in San Fran and PICA's development team in Sydney, each porting Sun's Network-extensible Window System to the Mac. Then I finally met Keith around the time I also met Michelle Arden and it quickly became obvious that we should be collaborating rather than competing, though unfortunately too late to have any impact on the industry politics that derailed NeWS. So if I had to judge Keith on "nett good" and even allowing "interfering with a religion" to count as a crime rather than as noble duty, I'd have to weigh his founding of the L5 Society and backing of NeWS and Xanadu developments above his enthusiasm for Alcor and recreational pyrotechnics. On an almost related note, and remembering this is Steve Jobs's thread anyway, I am somewhat amused that next Wednesday I am due to attend a presentation on the language I introduced to Australia, the prospect of which has had me pulling out my copies of Real World PostScript and The NeWS Book. |