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