Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!olivea!mintaka!geech.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Mac and Amiga (Games--Macintosh vs A500) Message-ID: <1991Mar15.012234.1827@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 15 Mar 91 01:22:34 GMT References: <7906@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1991Mar14.233243.29563@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <7920@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius) Organization: The Internet Lines: 69 In article <7920@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> blissmer@expert.cc.purdue.edu (Corey) writes: |[stuff deleted] | Color is extra for the Classic. Performance is slow. No animation or sprites. |HD is extra. | |HD is _less_ extra than for the 500. SCSI is there. A 40 meg is $199 total for the mac. They must be some REAL slow HD's. 40mb Quantum's or Fujitsu's which are between 11ms and 19ms cost about $400 in bulk. |Apple is within their right (and duty) to protect the validity of their |copyright on look and feel. | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |Apple has no copyright on 'look and feel.' It's an impossible concept. |Like copyrighting the Look-And-Feel of Mac Donalds. Burger King, |Hardees, Roy Rogers(bought by Hardees), etc would be out of business. | |We'll see what the judge rules. Paperback already lost to Lotus on look and |feel. Apple is going to have to contend with the LPF and EFF. I hope AT&T applies their backing store patent to Apple. Patents override copyrights. Hehe :-) Yeah, and let's get Xerox in there and have them sue Apple. |Apple has the right to protect their OS code, that's it. | |Again, we'll see. Anyone can write code. It takes a little more to do it |with a good interface. NeXT has a great interface. They innovated, |Microsoft didn't. Interface's can be designed with a little thought and an interface builder. Designing good algorithms is the hardest part of coding. | |[stuff deleted] | Look. If you invented the automobile, it's perfectly ok for me |to make a machine that performs the same functions exactly, as long |as I don't steal your blue prints, disassemble your engine to find |out how it works. | |Cars aren't computers. Copyrights, Look-and-feel, and the laws of nature apply to everything. |Read that out loud a few times. Most of the work of computer programs is on |the interface. Ask a programmer. This is the work that should be protected. |Most of the work of a car is engineering. Ditto for the Mac. I am a programmer. I've been programming for 7 years. Try writing an OS, or designing a file system, or a compiler. The interface is the easy part of the programming. Coding the interface is straightforward. You can lay it out on paper, or use an interface builder. | |The only way I see Apple's claim as valid is if they: |1) Supplied source code to Microsoft on how to implement a GUI |2) Microsoft disassembled Apple roms, and copied the algorithms | |What is the weather like on your planet? As usual with Mac users. Your a complete computer neophyte. You seem to know nothing about programming or engineering. Most programmers don't want to have to live in fear of being sued for using an OBVIOUS idea that someone else patented or copyrighted. I don't speak for all programmers, but I know this is the general feeling of alot of them, including myself. Especially since my account resides onthe FSF machines. Home of GNU and the League of Programming Freedom. The laws need to be changed concerning electronic media.