They really didn't give it away. Xerox was permitted to buy 100,000 pre-IPO shares of Apple. In exchange for this, Apple got the right to examine and adapt the technology to their computer products. Less than a year latter that 1 million dollar investment was worth 17.6 million. That's not too bad for a technology that they didn't know what to do with.
Xerox sued Apple to insure that, in the event that Apple won their suit against Microsoft, Xerox would be the owners of the look and feel copyright. Their lawsuit was dismissed.
I didn't know that! Thanks for more details on this useless debate Who started it anyway?