🚀 go-pugleaf

thomas@duteca.et.tudelft.nl (Thomas Okken) writes:
> share to guarantee its continuity. It is using legal means to protect its sha
> of the market it created - namely, low-end PCs with a GUI. What they are
> fighting in the courts are unfair tactics by competitors: stealing code and
> making too-similar copies of the Mac UI.
> If any of this has affected alternative, *original* GUIs like Motif and
> other X-based GUIs, I have not heard about it. The *need* to stop Apple is
> still not obvious to me.

Since X with Motif is practically identical in appearance to Windows 3,
I would be interested to hear your reasons why the latter is a "too-similar
copy" of the Mac's UI whilst the former is not.

> An unsubstantiated speculation, indeed. Just like the speculation that if
> Apple wins the Microsoft/HP suit, it will proceed to sue everybody else into
> the ground.

Well, the trend so far is that they attacked DR, succeeded, and went on
to attack Microsoft.  They may indeed stop after succeeding against Microsoft,
but I don't see any reason why they shouldn't carry on going after fresh prey,
since that's what they've done in the past.

> The way I see it, they only want everyone else who designs a GUI to go to
> just as much trouble as they did,

What, you mean steal most of the ideas from someone else?

> and if others use their code (which is
> one of the things they accuse Microsoft of)

Eh?  I wasn't aware that Apple was accusing Microsoft of stealing *code*.
Since the Mac OS and Windows run on completely different architectures it
seems most unlikely.  From a programmer's point of view they're very different
beasts.

> of their design, they fight that. I agree with you that that's a shame,
> because the user's community would surely benefit if Apple gave away, or~ at
> least licensed, their code and design. However, Apple is here to make a profi
> for its shareholders, and giving away or selling their competitive edge
> does not fit in with that.

It's not a question of giving away or selling the Mac's competitive edge.
It's a question of letting people develop their own competitive edge, by
their own efforts.  Besides, the Mac has a lot more going for it than just
the UI.

> You also reiterate the unsubstantiated claim that Apple is out to kill all
> competing GUIs. But still I see Amigas, Ataris, PC running MS Windows, not
> to mention all those Unix boxes with GUIs. Apple *has* sent its lawyers at
> Commodore and Atari, because their GUIs were obvious copies of the Mac, and
> after the designs were modified, it has left them alone.

For "modified" read "crippled". Just about everyone with an Atari ST 
runs a replacement version of the desktop program because the damaged GEM
one is awful. Many people run special resident programs to fix the 
crippled bits of GEM, like the way the menu bars work. The most recent
PC release of GEM Desktop was even more badly crippled, to the point 
of unusability. If that's what you have to do to your software to get 
Apple to leave you alone, it's not acceptable.


mathew

-- 
Another would-be Mac owner put off by Apple's monopolistic practices.

"We don't care what other people think" -- response from a member of the
Apple Developer Council