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