

Credit Where Due: Why the Mac design team got credit for their work (1983) - danso
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Credit_Where_Due.txt&sortOrder=Sort+by+Date

======
panic
_In fact, Steve eventually decided that giving recognition to the designers
was a bad idea. Nowadays, Apple has abolished programmer names in the "About
Box", and closely guards the names of their designers, allowing only a select
few employees to interact with the press at all._

I wonder why he decided giving recognition in this way was a bad idea. It's a
shame the thousands of people coming up with ideas, building hardware and
implementing software at Apple aren't credited anywhere.

~~~
cma
Well he went to lengths to establish anti-competitive no-hiring agreements
between the major tech firms. Crediting employees just might mean someone
would find it that much easier to hire them away and pay them a competitive
wage.

~~~
meric
Also there will be always be mistakes in apportioning credit - someone will
always feel bad.

~~~
gohrt
The model Apple used was that Jobs and Ive got all the credit for the whole
company -- that was a much worse apportionment.

------
Animats
Here's the original "About" box from MacPaint.[1]

There was a concept back then that programmers were authors, and should be
credited as such.

Apple later issued guidelines to _third-party developers_ suggesting that
programs should not have developer names associated with them, because
programming was a group effort.

[1]
[http://www.geekculture.com/images/MacPaint.gif](http://www.geekculture.com/images/MacPaint.gif)

