Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wasatch!helios.ee.lbl.gov!lbl-csam.arpa!antony From: antony@lbl-csam.arpa (Antony A. Courtney) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Atari GEM and GEM/3... Message-ID: <3584@helios.ee.lbl.gov> Date: 14 Aug 89 03:19:22 GMT References: <8907030235.AA29001@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Sender: usenet@helios.ee.lbl.gov Reply-To: antony@lbl-csam.arpa (Antony A. Courtney) Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley Lines: 30 In article <8907030235.AA29001@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> chuck@UMBC1.UMBC.EDU ("Chuck Rickard; ", PC) writes: > From what I remember, >Xerox was sued by Apple (during the sueing days...) for infringing on the >"look and feel" of the Macintosh Desktop. Was this drastic change to GEM a >part of that legal action, or was it voluntary? (The former seems more likely >than the latter...) If the suit did make them change, why didn't Atari have >to change their GEM, considering it was identical to the original IBM GEM? >Allan, would like to explain this one for me? :-) > Well, insofar as I know GEM was(is?) a product of Digital Research Corporation. And yes, I believe Apple did sue them, and they(DR) backed down. I don't know exactly why Atari's GEM didn't change, suffice it to say that Atari has never been one for avoiding lawsuits. :) I find your article rather ironic in that Xerox are the folks who really developed the mouse and windows interface with their Tajo and STAR products. In my opinion Apple really doesn't have any right to be suing ANYONE, given that they really copied the idea from Xerox. And most people agree that Apple is really just whining and trying to make life difficult for other companies. Fortunately Sun has Xerox on their side with their OpenLook product, so Apple won't dare try and sue them. And an extremely high percentage of companies have pledged support for AT&T's System V release 4 of UNIX, which will incorporate the OpenLook Graphical User Interface. ******************************************************************************* Antony A. Courtney antony@lbl.gov Advanced Development Group ucbvax!lbl-csam.arpa!antony Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory AACourtney@lbl.gov