Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!spdcc!esegue!johnl
From: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: NEW FOUNDATION ESTABLISHED TO ENCOURAGE COMPUTER-BASED COMMUNICATIONS POLICIES
Message-ID: <1990Jul15.140533.17544@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Date: 15 Jul 90 14:05:33 GMT
References: <5122@fernwood.mpk.ca.us> <1421@pta.oz.au> <1968@runxtsa.runx.oz.au> <64160@sgi.sgi.com>
Reply-To: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA
Lines: 40

In article <64160@sgi.sgi.com> karsh@trifolium.sgi.com (Bruce Karsh) writes:
>...  The Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet is old stuff and it's time to do new
>things.  
>
>Is cap-P really the best way to print a spreadsheet?  Is the argument that
>they copied just cap-P, or is it that they copied practically the entire
>user interface? ...


The real issue is that 1-2-3 is not just a spreadsheet, it is also a
programming language.  Spreadsheets can and invariably do include macros
that work by stuffing keystrokes, and a large fraction of those stuffed
keystrokes select things from menus.  If you change the menu picks or the
order of the menus, nobody's macros will work.

As far as I can tell, the VP-Planner judge didn't appreciate the dual nature
of software, as artwork and as machine.  It's true, the original choice of
the macro keywords in 1-2-3 was entirely arbitrary, but the existence of
millions of saved spreadsheets now makes those keywords the spec for a
machine that runs those spreadsheets.  It is well-settled in the law that
reverse-engineering machinery is entirely legal, and the appropriate
protection for the workings of a machine is a patent.

The visual appearance of the menus Borland's Quattro (I haven't looked at
VP-Planner) is quite different from 1-2-3 menus.  Only the letters that you
need to make macros work are the same.  Compare that to Borland's Paradox,
which has a menu with completely different picks from 1-2-3 but which looks
on the screen just like 1-2-3's.  The ads for Paradox even claimed that
Paradox was easy for 1-2-3 users to learn because the menus looked the same.
It seems to me that if Lotus is really interested in protecting their menus'
look and feel as opposed to their function, they would challenge Paradox.

By the way, I don't begrudge Lotus' attempt to protect their rights any way
they want to, but I am dismayed that the courts seem so sympathetic to their
claims.

-- 
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus|spdcc}!esegue!johnl
Marlon Brando and Doris Day were born on the same day.