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From: zhahai@gaia.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple Payoff Blacklist Requested/Look and Feel of the 8010
Message-ID: <279@gaia.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Feb-87 17:45:06 EST
Article-I.D.: gaia.279
Posted: Wed Feb  4 17:45:06 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Feb-87 12:22:06 EST
References: <673@imsvax.UUCP> <1600@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <404@vaxine.UUCP> <481@cod.UUCP>
Reply-To: zhahai@gaia.UUCP (Zhahai Stewart)
Organization: Gaia Corp., Boulder, CO
Lines: 51
Xref: watmath comp.sys.ibm.pc:1424 comp.sys.mac:1170

In article <481@cod.UUCP> rupp@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (William L. Rupp) writes:
>There are various ways to look at the Apple/Gem affair.  Yes, Xerox
>did originate (I guess) the windowing user interface.  Yes, Apple then
>took the idea and did something with it.  And yes, Apple did threaten 
>the creators of GEM (my mind blanks at the moment, can't remember
>the name, SRI maybe?).  I do not like the idea of copyrighting the 'look
>and feel' of something, but this whole area of what can and cannot be
>copyrighted in software is a new and tricky  branch of law.

Actually, Xerox was a major but not the only innovator in the area of bit
mapped, windowing user interfaces.  Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was
another, perhaps even earlier.  Seems to me I recall that some of the
lisp folks were doing impressive things with that paradigm too, before
Apple came out with the Lisa.  (I was working on such a product too,
pre-Lisa but post Alto.  Never really came out in quantity :-).  GEM was
a post Mac product by Digital Research Inc (DRI) of CP/M fame.

There are many ways of setting up a windowing interface; Xerox alone had
several.  Apple came up with one scheme for the Lisa and then Mac.  It
was conceptually a derivative of the earlier work (particularly Xerox),
but it was their own formulation and set of tradeoffs.  Not a bad one,
though the "best" paradigm is a matter of religion.  They deserve credit
for their exact formulation (and blame).  The general ideas were not theirs
first, however.  Apple also deserves credit for cheapening the entry price,
especially with the Mac, which was by far the cheapest system with that
style of interface.


>It might be well to remember that although Xerox had it first, Apple
>was the company that made the windowing user interface an important
>part of microcomputing.  That is a not-inconsiderable contribution.   No
>company, or person, for that matter, is perfect.  Apple Computer has it
>faults, but also its positive accomplishments.  Let's try to keep some
>perspective.

The major way they deserve reward for this is through people buying their
product because it is inherently decent (in the purchasers mind), or because
of the lead in software designed for it.  To the degree that they need to
lock out competitors with better or cheaper products, they probably hurt us
all; this may be justified for their innovations, but is damaging to the
degree that they attempt to appropriate concepts they did not create, or
which are natural or obvious.  I am not sure yet just how broad their claim
really is; probably as broad as their legal budget allows, which may be
braoder than their actual creativity warrants.

Look and feel copyrights are going to mess up the industry a good deal,
I suspect.  Sad.  We shall see.              ~z~

-- 
Zhahai Stewart
{hao | nbires}!gaia!zhahai