🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6271@bsu-cs.UUCP> mithomas@bsu-cs.UUCP (Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes:
[stuff deleted]
> 
>Judge William W Schwarzer's decision today did not determine the issue
>of copyright infringement, which will be resolved in a later phase of the
>litigation.  A status hearing has been scheduled for April 14, 1989 to
>determine the schedule for resolution of the remaining issues in the case.
>
>----------
>
>It will be interesting to see what comes out of the second phase of the
>hearings.  Is Microsoft Windows too close to the Macintosh user interface?
>Personally, I don't know myself.  I can just imagine a bunch of lawyers
>arguing about this (although it would probably be a more subjective argument
>than the common argument on this network).
>

There's an important element that I think you may be missing here. I'm no
lawyer, but I think that before the court can rule that MS infringed on Apple's
copyright, they have to rule whether or not Apple's copyright is valid in
the first place. As you probably know, Apple's interface is remarkably similar
to work done at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). If I'm not mistaken,
the concept of windows and icons was first developed at PARC. (I played with
a Xerox Alto in 1980 - mouse, windows, graphic wordprocessor, draw program,
ethernet connection to a *real* laser printer (Xerox 9700 -- 120 ppm!)) I
think that the mouse was first developed by Doug Englebart (sp?) at the
Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in the mid-late '60s.

So, perhaps question number 1 is: can these concepts be copyrighted?
If they can be copyrighted, question number 2 is: who owns the copyrights?

Now don't get me wrong. I love the Mac (I'm writing this on one). The interface
is great. IMHO, it's much better than MS Windows. I've done some programming
in MS Windows, just enough (200 pages of C code) to say no thank you if anyone
asks me to do anymore: IMHO the development tools suck.

Nevertheless, I think that Apple's suit is bad for the industry. If they win
it, I hope that Xerox has its lawyers warming up in the bullpen to sue
the pants off Apple.



-- 
Jared L. Nedzel
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e-mail: nedzel@cive.stanford.edu
Disclaimer: Don't believe anything I say -- I sure don't