None of these defenses work for me. I 100% see Microsoft chasing the puck of the good, engaged, active user communities- the ones from other platforms. That Linux has been doing it for a long time & Microsoft is only just catching up doesnt change the reality, just shows how bad MS is at adapting to & trying to do more. There's little enough demand to push further, get better there!

I cant find any evidence of a predecessor to Synergy on Mac. Synergy was launched in May 2001, initially for for X11.

Good ideas always happen elsewhere. GUIs getting ripped off of of Xerox is no surprise. Overall there is, I'd claim, extremely little genuine innovation in UIs. GNOME seems to be one of the few out there willing to keep re-beginning, doing radical refreshes, but it's still not like boldly vastly different than other things. But Linux users, with their libre attitudes, are out there exploring & finding what is possible & what makes sense, across dozens of window mamagers & thousands of add-on components & endless exploring/reconfiguring... not just consuming. Of course MS is watching & borrowing the emerging stuff.