🚀 go-pugleaf

burley@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Craig Burley) writes:
>In article <1991Oct29.122921.24775@donau.et.tudelft.nl> thomas@duteca4.et.tudelft.nl (Thomas Okken) writes:
>   Why weren't the LPF urging a boycott of AT&T when they suddenly decided they
>   owned some vital patent, and started demanding license payments for X?
>   Whenever the Apple boycott is defended, people point out that it's visible
>   and all that, and when the LPF's decision not to sanction AT&T is defended,
>   we hear the good ol' argument that "you can't get them all anyway".

>Your post strongly suggests you are aware only of attacks on Apple and
>completely unaware of attacks on other companies.  I have seen a lot of
>both in these forums, but then that's probably because I take none of those
>attacks personally.

The complaint is that the attacks on Apple have had a completely
different character than those on the other offenders. AT&T, MIT, IBM,
MIPS, HP, Microsoft, etc. are "bad" because they claim user interface
copyrights and/or software patents that would result in massive harms
to software development if upheld, while Apple is "evil",
"terroristic", and sometimes, I think, probably the Anti-Christ,
because they claim user interface copyright and have sued two companies
to protect what they feel is theirs (while willingly failing to sue
anyone else under the same grounds, which is a defense to
copyright-infringement cases).

We're told that porting things to Apple hardware will result in the
death of free GUI's and the destruction of free software. Some even
argue that we shouldn't associate with Apple employees because our
associating with them makes Apple a tolerable place to work. At the
same time, the FSF accepts hardware support from HP and (I believe) IBM
and MIPS and actively supports, either through their own labor or
through the inclusion of ports done by their employees, GNU software on
their machines, and accepts space and resources from MIT, despite the
fact that each of these entities either holds and threatens to enforce
software patents, user interface copyrights, or both. What is it about
Apple's actions that make it complete anathema while others in similar
positions are not only merely "bad" but also receive active support in
spite of their badness? It's certainly not that Apple has filed suit,
while the others have merely threatened enforcement: general threats of
enforcement against all comers have much more of a chilling effect on
development than one focussed lawsuit against specific targets and
inaction against the rest (when such inaction is grounds for dismissal
of later challenges).

Personally, I think the real threat to free software comes from things
like MIT's patent on RSA, IBM's numerous patents on RISC, DBMS
techniques, compiler optimizations, compression techniques, and
numerous other things, MIPS' patents on compiler optimizations, AT&T's
windowing patents, the many patents DEC, Xerox, and others hold, and so
forth, not from whether Microsoft or HP get to use a few elements of
the MacOS. I therefore find it incomprehensible (on the grounds stated
by those who support the boycott) that Apple be boycotted while all the
others are actively supported.

--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.