🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991May4.052108.695@visix.com>, Amanda Walker (aw) writes:

aw> After all, there are things besides software that don't fit too well, such
aw> as:

aw> - Musical recordings (especially on digital media)
aw> - Printed materials (thanks to photocopy technology)
aw> - Audiovisual works (movies, broadcasts, etc.)

I think there is a difference of levels here. Copyright on musical
recordings stops people from literally copying the recording. So
transfering that to software would mean stopping people literally
copying a program. 

Copyright on music does not stop one writing a similar piece of music
and recording and selling that. Similarly copyright on books does not
stop one writing a book with a similar plot. 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have no problem with copyright
which stops me sticking disks in a Mac and making copies of some
program and selling them to anyone daft enough to want them. I _do_
objewct to copyright which stops me writing a totally new and
independent program which happens to look like something on a Mac. 

aw> On the other hand, what's the use of going through the effort and
aw> expense of putting together a really good piece of software, if anyone
aw> else can come by and take your design, lock, stock, and barrel,
aw> without even giving you the time of day? 

If all that is unique about a product is the trivial bits of the user
interface covered by the phrase `look and feel' (what the buttons look
like, which function key gives help, whatever) then I find it hard to
weep for its developers if that trivia is copied.

The hard bits of the user interface, such as the way different user
actions interact and how the system copes with user errors and gives
help, are very difficult to reverse engineer without access to the
source. Anyone who manages to completely copy a good user interface
has put about as much effort into it as the original developer did. It
would almost always be better to come up with an improved UI based on
the existing one but correcting some of its misfeatures.

aw> It's like writing a novel
aw> and having anyone be able to publish it.  

No, its more like writing a spy thriller and finding out that anyone
else can also write a spy thriller.

aw> Why should Apple, which has
aw> invested millions of dollars and thousands of hours into user interface
aw> research, foot the design bill for the rest of the industry?

For the same reason that Apple was allowed to `steal' the results of
Xerox's UI research. BEcause looking at a product and producing
something which performs a similar job is not usually considered
theft. 

aw> Only if their goal is to produce the same thing as everyone else.
aw> If GNU is going to be just another UNIX, why bother?

It might work... well, ok, so that would be so novel it couldn't
possibly be seen as a copy of Unix.

--
rjc@cstr.ed.ac.uk			_O_
					 |<