🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991May6.223859.17925@visix.com> amanda@visix.com (Amanda Walker) writes:
>In article <gmwD25w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) writes:
>
>   What exactly do you mean by an "out-and-out copy"?
>
>The interface presented by GEM 1.0 was almost identical to the Macintosh
>interface--so much so that casual passersby, in my experience, often
>thought they were looking at a Macintosh.  This is, assumably, what
>Apple objected to...

Some time ago, before this whole thing broke, I was shown an execution of
Windows 3.0: I immediately started wondering why Apple had not brought a ``look
and feel'' suit against Microsoft: that interface was IDENTICAL to a MAC screen,
no ifs, ands or buts about it! I personally think the Apple lawsuit has merit,
not because of the trash cans, not because of the icons, but because of the
general "look and feel" issue: IT WAS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM A MAC! I think that
is what is called an "out-and-out copy". 

(Statements about Apple's good will deleted)

Here is an ``acid test'' question: suppose somebody were to hack up an inter-
face which showed (say) a rectangle for each file in a directory: clicking a
mouse on that rectangle would either produce execution, type-out or a push-down
menu for some other options (depending on the button pushed), these rectangles
could be dragged to other directories or to a ``deleted files'' icon (rectangle)
which could be clicked to produce a window similar to any other directory: this
interface would probably produce the functionality that most people want without
the ``look and feel'' of a Macintosh.  My ``acid test'' question: would Apple go
after the author? (BTW: I don't think I will see an answer to this question). 

(stuff about competition, pull-down menu bars and lawsuit threats deleted)
>   Right. Well let's be specific then. *I* want any windowing system I use to
>   have expanding boxes and drag-and-drop file deletion via a wastebasket icon.
>   Is there some reason why I should be forced to buy only Apple products as a
>   result of my design preferences?
>
>I want to drink my soda out of red cans with white and silver script on them,
>with nice curvy wavy shapes as accents.  Is there any reason I should be
>forced to buy Coca-Cola products as a result of my preferences?

GOTCHA! There are cans in the market which look very much like other
brands' cans: in particular, I've seen Coke copycats, Pepsi,, 7UP, etc:
some of these cans you have to really check the brand on to make sure...

>
>I want to read descriptions of algorithms written by Donald Knuth.  Is there
>some reason I should be forced to buy them from Addison Wesley?
>
A better paraphrase: I want to read descriptions of algorithms written
in Don Knuth's style: is there any reason I should be forced to buy them from
Addison Wesley?

>More to the point, I want my stereo to have no visible controls and be
>flat and sleek.  Why should I be forced to buy it from Bang & Olufsen?
>
Why, indeed?

I think more to the point is: why has AT&T not dragged to court all
those people who used the
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
* 0 #
telephone keyboard on the ``look and feel'' issue? (Note: it COULD be
statute of limitations, just as in Xerox's case, see below).

>The Mac is the result of design and implementation done at Apple.  If you
>want a Mac, they'll sell you one.  If you don't, then don't buy one.  No
>one's forcing you.  If you want to buy something just like a Mac from
>someone else, why should Apple be required to let you benefit from their
>investment of time and money?

I do not agree with this paragraph: according to other postings in these
threads, Apple stole those same ideas from Xerox-PARC:

In article 1156 of gnu.misc.discuss, adam@soda.berkeley.edu (Adam J. Richter)
writes about: "look and feel" monopoly incentives and MacOS and 1-2-3 origins
Date: Sat, 4 May 1991 23:50:33 GMT

		The designers of the Apple Lisa GUI admit that they
		went over to Xerox PARC, looked at the GUI's there,
		went back to Apple and redid their GUI to look more
		like Xerox.

In article 1176 of gnu.misc.discuss, jbuck@janus.Berkeley.EDU (Joe Buck)
Subject: Re: "look and feel" monopoly incentives and MacOS and 1-2-3 origins
Date: 6 May 91 19:36:51 GMT

In article <48451@ut-emx.uucp> timbur@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Tim Burnett) writes:
>+the right to overlapping windows, icons, trash cans, etc. However, I do believe
>+if you double-click a icon, get a window, and then can drag the icon to the
>+trash, that It is a mac-interface and Apple has the right to sue.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't both concepts (double-clicking
and the trashcan) exist in Xerox GUI's before the first Mac was ever
produced?  I know that the trashcan was; a Xerox employee demonstrated
it to me in 1982.

Double-clicking is what you do on a one-button mouse to simulate a two-
or three- button mouse.  It hardly should be a copyrightable or patentable
concept.

In the November 1983 Byte, two of the designers of the Apple Lisa admit
that they went over to Xerox PARC, looked at the GUIs there, went right
back to Apple and changed their GUI to match.  They freely admitted it
because the notion of "look and feel copyright" did not exist in 1983.

--
Joe Buck
jbuck@janus.berkeley.edu	 {uunet,ucbvax}!janus.berkeley.edu!jbuck	

(end of quoted stuff)
>
>Do you believe in such a thing as intellectual property?  If not, we might
>as well stop now, because I doubt you can convince me.  I am a firm believer
>in property rights, intellectual and otherwise.
>
I do, but so should Apple.

To summarize:
I am trying to be neutral in this thread: however, it seems like Apple is
not coming out too clean on this: notice the following facts:
a) XEROX developed the original desk-top interface
b) Apple lifted it and is trying to keep other people from doing the same
thing. Of course, the issue is: is Apple trying to protect the stuff they
developed themselves, or the stuff they lifted from Xerox??
c) The ``Look and Feel'' issue is, at best murky: unless it is interpreted
**VERY NARROWLY**, it runs the risk of completely paralyzing all R&D work
here in the U.S. Of course, the foreign competition has no such checks. ;-)
(I am mainly thinking about sales to third party countries).
d) Yes, there is a problem between Microsoft and Apple, but I don't know
how much of it is because of a misunderstanding between M and A: supposedly,
they had agreed that Microsoft could do a copy of the Apple interface...
(Quick, anybody has an asbestos suit handy?)
DISCLAIMER: I am no attorney: I am only a lurker regurgitating some of
the statements I have seen in this thread which correspond to my personal
experience and opinions.
-- 
Michael Rothstein (Kent State U)|	If cars want to kill themselves,
(rothstei@cs.kent.edu)		|	that's their problem: what I can't
			 	|	understand is why they keep doing it
(std. disclaimer)		|	with people inside. (Mafalda (Quino))