Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!pdn!alan From: alan@pdn.UUCP (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Re:IBM did it first Message-ID: <3080@pdn.UUCP> Date: 7 May 88 15:50:54 GMT References:<5003@cup.portal.com> <23849@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: alan@pdn.UUCP (0000-Alan Lovejoy) Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo, Florida Lines: 38 >Suppose Apple does win the suit. Then no one, except Apple, can ever write >a windowing system. To do so would violate Apple's look and feel rights. >The result is to make innovation illegal. This is much worse than the >alternative. > >Jim Wilson "If it is only a game, then why keep score?" >wilson@ji.Berkeley.EDU Worf - Star Trek: The Next Generation >ucbvax!ucbji!wilson This is demonstrably vintage bullshit!!! 1. There are numerous windowing systems that are unmistakably unrelated to Apple's. These are and will continue to be completely safe from litigation by Apple. (e.g., Smalltalk-80, Xerox Star, SunView, OpenLook...) 2. Even now, innovation continues: "pie-chart" menus are just one example of a very productive new graphic interface technique. There are others being developed but not yet announced. 3. Apple's windowing system is by no means the ultimate example of beauty, correctness, ease-of-use, user-friendliness or parsimony of operating effort. Pop-up menus are superior to pull-down menus, and pie-chart menus may be superior to rectangular-list menus. Window-specific menus are better than screen-global menus. And three-button mice are superior to one-button mice. 4. If IBM could have successfully sued the clone-makers for violating their "look-and-feel" rights, then a lot of the industry's resources would not have been wasted on IBM-PC technology. The state of the art today would be far in advance of where it is now. Sigh. -- Alan Lovejoy; alan@pdn; 813-530-8241; Paradyne Corporation: Largo, Florida. Disclaimer: Do not confuse my views with the official views of Paradyne Corporation (regardless of how confusing those views may be). Motto: Never put off to run-time what you can do at compile-time!