🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9104292009.AA01975@mole.gnu.ai.mit.edu> rms@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU
(Richard Stallman) writes:

   That was the plan I started with.  **Apple is trying to make this
   illegal**.  The whole point of their lawsuit is to stop people from
   writing desktop systems.

I disagree with you there.  The point of their lawsuit is their claim that
Microsoft violated a contract.  The suit doesn't claim that no one else
can "write desktop systems," even Macintosh-like ones.

If the reasons you cite for the boycott were true, I'd expect to see a
bunch of other suits coming out of Apple, not just one accusing
Microsoft of copyright violation.  For example, I'd expect to see them sue:

 - Visix, for a product that "looks too much like the Finder,"
 - NeXT, for things that look like the Control Panel and the Color Picker,
 - The OSF, because MOTIF has pull-down menus and controls that are
   "functionally equivalent" to Macintosh controls,
 - and so on and so on.

Now, the fact is that Apple hasn't bothered (and in fact has encouraged)
people who build things that don't look like a Macintosh.  The suit,
which I agree is silly, cites the "look and feel" as evidence that
Microsoft violated a contract with Apple--it doesn't claim that Apple
has the sole right to build desktop windowing systems.  Now, Apple
has some severe attitude problems sometimes, I admit, but they are
quite simply not trying to do what you are ranting against them doing.

   If we want to be *allowed* to write software
   and let the market choose, we have to fight for our freedom to do so.

Better to boycott Microsoft for it's recent Windows / OS/2 fiasco, or
Sun and OSF for trying to assert UI standards prematurely, or Unisys for
the LZW patent, or any number of other companies...  I have found such
things far more restraining as a programmer than I have ever found
Apple, and I even work for a company who you'd *expect* to get
problems from Apple, if they were as antagonistic as you claim them to
be.  However, in reality, they seem to actually *like* what we're doing.

Your logic may be impeccable, but I don't accept your basic assumption.

--
Amanda Walker						      amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc.					...!uunet!visix!amanda
-- 
Speak softly and wear a loud shirt.