🚀 go-pugleaf

adam@soda.berkeley.edu (Adam J Richter) writes:
>>>> == John Coolidge
>>>>[...] it's clear that the pace of
>>>>innovation picked up massively around the time that user interface
>>>>copyrights were become more of a viable notion).

>>If you don't see this as obvious, we're watching two different
>>industries.

>	If it's so obvious to you, then you should have lots of
>examples in mind.  Please post them.

>	You may not use the Macintosh I, VisiCalc, Lotus, Tenex/TOPS-20,
>or VM/CMS, since all of those user interfaces were developed prior to 
>Jack Russo and Doug Derwin's creation of the "look and feel" doctrine,
>and certainly prior to Apple's lawsuit against Digital Research.

Certainly I can use the Macintosh I (and the Lisa), since both were
developed after 1981-2, when user interface copyrights (if not the "look
and feel" doctrine) had been legally recognized (somewhat). You're
right, though: VisiCalc, Tenex/TOPS-20, and VM/CMS can't be considered
(I'm not sure if Lotus is post- late 1981, although I seem to recall
that it is). In any case 1) I was mainly thinking of graphical user
interfaces and 2) I wouldn't argue that there's ANYTHING innovative in
Tenex/TOPS-20 or VM/CMS (expecially the second). They're ugly command-
line interfaces, period. VisiCalc is somewhat innovative -- but note
that I _didn't_ say that there wasn't innovation before user interface
copyright became more legally supported (nor do I believe such a thing;
it's clear that there was innovation without copyrights), merely that
the pace picked up quicked at or around the time that user interface
copyrights were picking up steam.

On the other hand, I would consider GEM (both the potentially infriging
version and the later version), the MacOS (all versions), raw X, MOTIF,
OPEN LOOK, NeXTStep, AmigaDOS, and many others as examples of user
interfaces developed post-1981. The pace has clearly (I think) picked up
from the previous decade, where Xerox's work with SmallTalk and the Star
are the main work in GUI's (and note that Xerox was very careful about
licensing and trade secret protection and clearly thought they could
protect their research) and command-line interfaces went basically
unchanged from their state in the 1960's (not that they've advanced much
in the 1980's, either -- there's only so much that can be down with
CLI's).

Note: once again, I stress that I'm emphatically _not_ claiming that
innovation picked up _because_ of user interface copyrights, but merely
that the two seem to be strongly correlated. That there has been much
more work in computer-human interaction post-1981/2 is, IMHO, very
hard to dispute. That the amount of money thrown at the problem has
risen since that point is obvious. Whether this is because people now
expect a return on their investment, or instead that people just got
interested in CHI problems, is arguable.

--John

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1991 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.
You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.