"His statements can't be dismissed as "lies about Steve Jobs" just because you or John Gruber don't like them or think so."

Neither I, nor John Gruber have done so.

"What is reported in the biography come from multiple eye witness accounts of the people and events."

Really? Can you name any of these people who have witnessed none of the NeXT OS making it into OS X? Surely, there must be hundreds of Apple engineers who would have witnessed this. Surely there would be lots of corroboration. In fact, it should be obvious to any competent engineer who looks at the technical documentation about OS X or iOS.

The reality is, it is obvious to any engineer who looks at this technical documentation. The OS is completely NeXTSTEP, in fact, the classes still contain the prefix "NS" which is short for "NeXTSTEP". Its "NSScrollView" not "APScrollView" or "MCScrollView", etc.

If you review the technical literature, you'll find that OS X is more accurately described as NeXTSTEP with a Mac UI on top of it, than "Mac OS with a NeXT kernel" as Bill Gates describes it.

But maybe I'm completely delusional. I've only been working with this software for 20 years. Please, show us some of these eyewitnesses to the fact that the NeXT operating system wasn't used.

"What you are basically doing is libeling (since it is in written and not spoken word) Isaacson by accusing him without proof that he misreported events in his book."

Well, the truth is a positive defense in Libel, isn't it? The fact of the matter, as any competent engineer can confirm for you, is that OS X is essentially NeXTSTEP, evolved of course over the years, with a Mac Like UI on top. It got the menu at the top from the Mac, but it carried over the Dock from the NeXT days. The kernel, the Frameworks, the operating system, everything essential was NeXTSTEP. And most of the "Mac" things really were a new UI-- an evolution of the Mac UI called Aqua.

I don't know how many more examples to give you, but its clear that for you to believe that I'm "without proof that he misreported events in his book", you're going to have to give something more than assertion. I've cited many areas of the operating system that are direct descendants from NeXTSTEP and NOT from Mac OS. You've given none.

"Please keep in mind that Steve Jobs specifically sought out Walter Isaacson to do the biography because he believed that he would tell the story completely and honestly, which is what Steve wanted."

Yes, and I want you to please keep in mind that this was not the first time that a hack reporter that Steve trusted betrayed him because he wanted to sell more units of his writing. I don't know if Isaacson was the most honest biographer-- in some areas he was quite correct, accurate and fair, though this mostly seems to be because Andy Hertzfeld did the heavy lifting.

In Steve Jobs earlier years he was more immature, and more problematic and probably a lot less likeable. Notice also that you've not heard a peep from me (or Gruber) about an unfair portrayal in that time period.

The fact of the matter is that these kinds of lies-- like the claim that NeXTSTEP wasn't used, or that Apple stole from Xerox -- are repeated as articles of faith by people who wish to attack Apple. Yet they are very trivially refuted. And when refuted, the response is to pretend like the refuters are just unhappy that someone said something bad about Steve.

Well, lots of bad things were said about Steve that are true. We're not objecting to those. We're objecting to the lies.

Hell, if Steve engineered the purchase of NeXT by Apple even when NeXTSTEP wasn't useful at all, and thus had to be scrapped when building OSX (as Gates essentially alleges) that would be an example of Steve Jobs being one hell of a powerful salesman. I wouldn't even see that as something to be embarrassed about. Why would I object to that?

No, the objection is to the fact that its a lie fabricate from whole cloth, and trivially disproven. Which both I, and John Gruber have done.