Silencing the iHumans "your copying apple" critics

Windows 7 is looking amazing, but, their departure from the traditional start menu / taskbar to the new more functional version have had some people calling "copy" of the OSx Dock

Not withstanding that my Linux machine has both a taskbar and a dock and no one cares... 

Hmmm - icons on the bar at the bottom - similar - Win 7 has the "peak" feature but some could argue this is just a different way of implementing OSx's "expose" feature...

but hang on... did Mac have a icon doc from the start?

Above is Windows 2.0 notice a rather obvious (if basic) "dock" 

The fact is Windows had a dock style icon tray originally and Mac had a similar icon ribbon. The two OS's have copied each other for so long now they can't remember who copied who... and linux shamelessly rips off both while also offering versions that are unlike anything else... and as macs not run on PC and PC's run on Macs... well its not going to be long before there is little difference. Remember MS has a large share in Apple ...