🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Oct28.165132.8105@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> huntley@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Haydn Huntley) writes:
>Question 1:  It seems to me that Apple risked their entire company
>during the years from 1980-1984 to develop the Mac OS.  Back then I
>remember how everyone made fun of the Mac, with its mouse and windows.
>Apple spent way over 50 million dollars to develop that software, and
>they didn't just steal it from Xerox PARC (they *licensed* it from
>Xerox).  This is my question:  Doesn't it seem reasonable for Apple to
>be able to own what they created?  And if it isn't reasonable for them
>to own the particular way that their user interface looks (which has
>become the trademark of their systems), then how are they supposed to
>recover the investment they made in developing it?
I think rms has a very nice understanding of this one.  The
patent and copyright system was invented to give incentives to
companies to invest in research.  Back in the good days before
lawyers saw the computer industry as a place to get rich, ideas
flowed freely; IBM invented virtual memory but didn't stop anyone
else from using it.  In the context of this industry, we don't
need a patent-copyright mechanism because it actually hinders
innovation instead of fostering it.

>Question 2:  It is more evil for a company to copyright their UI than
>for other companies to patent algorithms (some of which they didn't
>even invent!)?  I think that patenting algorithms is *worse* than
>copyrighting a UI, because it is easy to tell when you are making a UI
>which is just like someone else's, and it it not nearly so easy to
>know if you are unknowingly infringing on someone's algorithm patent.
>Because of this, why doesn't the FSF/LPF boycott all of the companies
>which are patenting algorithms?
I think you are right; that a company which send a notice to
another saying "I own bubblesort; pay up or get sued" is truly scum.  
(Note there are companies which own patents but are not doing the
above).  I think it's hard attacking a broad spectrum of
companies on their competitive practices.  The Apple boycott is
identifiable, visible and hopefully has an impact.  It certainly
serves to reduce the support of the hacker community for Apple.
Hopefully in the future, we will be able to do better.

>Question 3: If Microsoft Windows presents such a nice UI, and it's so
>easy to write software for it, why not just target the FSF to make a
>lookalike OS which runs on GNU's forthcoming Unix compatible OS?
>Windows is a nice OS, right?  The only problem with this logic, is
>that Microsoft has probably also copyrighted their UI, and the day
>that someone shows a Windows lookalike, Microsoft will bring out their
>legal coercion teams!
I have scanty respect for the ethics governing decision-making at
Microsoft.  We would have seen them behave quite differently if
they had not been victims of lawsuits themselves.  I frankly
think any software controlled by Microsoft is a danger to the
Universe: look at how their control of MS-DOS has crippled
millions of computer-users for a decade.  If MS-DOS had been
open, we'd have been able to move a lot faster towards doing a
better job of it (this idea stolen from Scott McNealy).

It's dangerous trying to become compatible with a standard owned
by someone like Microsoft (hasn't stopped IBM from trying :-)).
In the class of {Motif, Windows, MacLook&Feel, NeWS-OpenLook},
I think the most open GUI option around today is NeWS/OpenLook.

>I'm not 100% for Apple, but I've done enough work for IBM and
>Microsoft that I've decided that no company is perfectly wonderful,
>and I do like many things about the Mac OS.  My present opinion of the
>FSF/LPF boycott is that it is a little bit arbitrary, and therefore it
>doesn't make all that much sense.  I'd just rather that we tried to
>write good alternative software, rather than worrying about how we
>might be at legal crosspurposes several years from now, when we
>actually have a GNU OS!
I think it's not going to be several years from now; it's going
to be a lot sooner than that!
Yes, the boycott is ``a little arbitrary''.  But we can't be
perfect, and we can't be completely callous, and we can't each of
us go off into different directions.  So I think we are doing
quite well right now.

-- 
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Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu
                             The more things change, the more they stay insane.
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