Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!yale!cmcl2!esquire!sbb
From: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: ./etc/APPLE.  No Free Software for Mac users.
Message-ID: <664@esquire.UUCP>
Date: 29 Sep 88 16:00:58 GMT
References: <8809281340.AA16052@EDDIE.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten)
Organization: DP&W, New York, NY
Lines: 65

In article <8809281340.AA16052@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> jym@prep.ai.mit.edu writes:
>Suppose, intrigued by the Macintosh's "desktop" approach to an interface,
> I write one too.  I'd learn alot.  Perhaps I'd make a better implementa-
>  tion.  I'd share the program, and it would simultaneously teach things
>   to others and pick up enhancements.  Perhaps the learning and enhanc-
>    ing would provide the basis for a revolutionary *new* interface.
>
>Or perhaps Apple would slap a "look and feel" lawsuit on me and we'll
> stay stuck in 1985.

Look, the suit is to prevent companies from "developing" substantially
the same interface (i.e., windows with the same kind of title bar, close
box, scroll bars; drop-down menus, dialog boxs with exactly the same
kind of scrolling regions, buttons; similar icons; etc.) as the one
Apple spent time and money developing for the Macintosh.  Nothing more,
nothing less.

It's just the same as arguing with an author, complaining that his
novel shouldn't be copyrighted since you like the characters, plot,
and settings so much and you wanted to write one of your own, using
some of the dialog verbatim as well.  The expression of the ideas in
that novel is the author's intellectual property, and as such it is
copyrightable. 

Apple has no quarrel with people or companies that develop different
(and preferably better) interfaces.  SunView is fine.  From what I can
tell, OPEN LOOK is fine.  Much of what is being done now with Xlib is
also fine.  Microsoft Windows may not be.  It is a windowing system
that bears more than a slight resemblance to the Macintosh windowing
system; this is why Microsoft is being sued.

Whether or not the suit has merit (since Apple did in fact license the
use of part of their windowing system to Microsoft in 1985) must, like
all other legal issues in our society, be decided in the courts.  The
court may well hold that Apple does not have a case, and that Microsoft
has not infringed on the audio-visual copyrights Apple holds for the
Macintosh.  However, this can *only* be settled by bringing suit.

You can also compare all this to the suits that were brought by
Atari during the height of the video game craze against companies
that developed "new" games that looked suspiciously like Pac-Man.
The code in the Pac-Man ROMs is copyrighted, of course, but in some
precedent-setting decisions, it was decided that the audio-visual
display was copyrightable as well.

In fact, Apple's suit is probably the best thing they could do for the
industry, since it will keep people with little imagination from
constantly reinventing the user-interface wheel, and get them off their
asses and design better ones.  The reason the Macintosh was successful
was not that it closely mimiced the computing environment people were
already used to on other machines, but because it provided them with a
substantially better one.

Really, why would anyone *want* to copy the Macintosh interface?
It was a good idea 4 years ago, but it's beginning to show its age.
Why not work on better ones instead, and try to imagine what computing
could be like if windows, menus, icons, dialog boxes and mouse manipulation
were not as they are on the Macintosh?  Because in fact this is the only
way the state of the art will advance.

-- 
   Steve Baumgarten             | "New York... when civilization falls apart,
   Davis Polk & Wardwell        |  remember, we were way ahead of you."
   {uunet,cmcl2}!esquire!sbb    | 
   sbb%esquire@cmcl2.nyu.edu    |                           - David Letterman