🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <0105011F.aak32s@dragon.enigami.mv.com> cory@enigami.mv.com writes:
>
>>Look-n-feel is crap
>
>This is an open question to all of the people who agree with the above
>statement:  How many of you have ever tried to design a new user interface
>or a new user interface element?
>
>I do a lot of work designing user interfaces.  There is a fairly long
>period of time involved, where I make models (usually in something
>like supercard, but other things also).  I then test these models
>against people.  Then I try and fix them.  This is after applying
>everything that I already know about user interface design.  
>
>In Tog's book, he describes the processes that he went through just
>to define a new interface element (a one or more type of radio button).
>He describes his failures in that process.
>
>In both cases, an engineer is spending TIME (months in my case, weeks
>in Tog's) designing (and testing, and failing, and redesinging, and
>repeat) the user interface.

I have no doubt that this is true.  Nonetheless, it is totally inappropriate
to grant copyrights for user interfaces.

Patents, on the other hand, may or may not be appropriate.  There was an
interesting article on this in an old issue of CACM.  (I don't have the
reference offhand, but if people ask, I will get it.)

There is a big difference between patents and copyrights, however, in that
copyright protections last *much* longer and in that copyrighted materials
are protected from deriative works, while patented works are not.


>To do this costs money.  Once the product is released, you can shave
>months from the development time of a competing product by starting 
>with the interface that was released.  The clone maker doesn't need
>to hire someone like me to design an interface for them -- they can
>just copy an existing one, right?
>
>The user interface design process involves creativity and engineering.
>As can be seen by many products that are available for the Mac market
>(verticle's & DOS ports come to mind, but there are others), a good
>user interface doesn't just happen.  
>
>But hey, it is not skin off of my nose.  If people don't want to pay
>for new / good user interfaces, if I can't find a job as a user interface 
>designer, I can still find work as a software engineer.  I can use a cryptic 
>command line interface... can your mother?  

But this *hasn't* happened, even in the absence of both patents and copyrights
for user interfaces (which is a very new, and according to my crystal-ball,
probably short-lived idea).

And let's remember that the *entire* purpose for the copyright and patent
laws are to encourage creation/invention.  For some materials, this is
achieved by providing very stringent protections (i.e., copyrights).  For
others, competition is encouraged using fewer protections (i.e., patents).

Can you imagine if the radio button were copyrighted?  Then the individual you
mentioned probably could not develop his multiple-selection radio button,
since it would be a derivative work, for which he would need to get a license
under the copyright.

Even better yet, imagine windows, icons, and menus being copyrighted--and for
the next 75 years only *one* company can use any of them.  That doesn't
exactly sound like good food for competition and continued development of
better interfaces...

I won't go on since the CACM article describes all this much better than I
can.



-- 
J. S. Greenfield                                         greeny@top.cis.syr.edu
(I like to put 'greeny' here, 
but my d*mn system wants a 
*real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange?"