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From: jim@baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman)
Newsgroups: trial.misc.legal.software
Subject: Re: Capitalist Software Tools
Message-ID: <JIM.90Aug15114841@baroque.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 15 Aug 90 18:48:41 GMT
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In-reply-to: brad@looking.on.ca's message of 15 Aug 90 07:19:11 GMT

brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:

   Stopping the cloning of that menu tree harms nobody, except those who
   refuse to think of something on their own.

This is another case where the benefits of UI copyrights to the
originator of a design must be balanced against the harm they cause to
users and competitors.

Is it fair to Lotus that some little upstart could come along and
knock-off a copy of Lotus and sell it for less?  Probably not.  But in
practice, it takes more than a cheaper knock-off to compete against a
established product with a good reputation.  A competing package would
have to offer some significant benefit over Lotus before people would
switch, even to a look-alike product.  But if the competing product is
incompatible, people will be very reluctant to switch, even if it is
significantly better.  If look-alike products are prohibited, Lotus
has less incentive to stay ahead of the pack in innovation.

   The only reason to duplicate that tree is to take advantage of the
   immense effort Lotus has put into gaining and training customers who
   use that system.  Not to innovate.
		
Actually, customers have invested much more time and effort in
learning an interface than the vendor has in training them.  This is
my biggest problem with UI copyrights.  I HATE LEARNING NEW
INTERFACES.  Or more precisely, I hate switching interfaces.  For a
while, I was going between SunView and X10/uwm on Suns, NeWS on SGIs,
old DECWindows on VMS Vaxen.  After getting quick and mouse-agile on
one, I'd go to another and make lots of mistakes.  I felt like a rat
in an experiment in which the experimenter kept switching the food
reward and the shock punishment.  After enough of this dissonance, I
slowed down a lot and became averse to mice until I got X/twm running
on everything.

None of these systems offered any huge UI advantage over another; they
were just different.  I don't think UI difference for its own sake
should be encouranged.  It promotes stress and causes user errors.
For example, according to one report, one of last years tanker
accidents happened because the operator was accustomed to a control
that worked the opposite as the one on the ship.

Jim Helman
Department of Applied Physics			Durand 012
Stanford University				FAX: (415) 725-3377
(jim@KAOS.stanford.edu) 			Voice: (415) 723-9127