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From: landauer@morocco.Sun.COM (Doug Landauer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: A/UX window systems, Mac toolbox, etc
Message-ID: <43879@sun.uucp>
Date: 2 Mar 88 22:29:50 GMT
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Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: landauer@sun.UUCP (Doug Landauer)
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Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
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> How can you say that the look and feel are being bypassed when nearly every
> windowing system has either 'borrowed from'  or flat out copied the Mac user
> interface.

No, most modern window systems borrowed from work done at Xerox PARC,
just like Apple did for most of the features of the Mac's user
interface.

> > why else did Apple sue DRI for GEM.  
> Apple sued DRI for blatantly ripping off the Mac user interface

OK, folks, it's time once again to correct this misinformation.  Apple
never sued DRI.  Apple only threatened to sue, and DRI, which was
having financial trouble due to several years of marketing mistakes,
prudently chose to change GEM to alter the behavior of the features
that Apple's lawyers felt that Apple owned.

I believe that the primary Macintosh user-interface feature that Apple
felt the legal right to object to in GEM was the top-of-the-screen
pull-down menus, which are appropriate only to the tiny screen that the
original Mac was saddled with (and to the IBM-PC's CGA).  Xerox PARC
had used pop-up menus, which are much better suited to the larger
screen sizes now (finally!) becoming common.  This is one reason why
Sun never felt any similar heat from Apple.

Not coincidentally, that feature is one of the ones being bypassed by
window systems designed for larger screens.
-
	Doug Landauer				Sun Microsystems, Inc.
	ARPA Internet:	landauer@sun.com	Software Products Division
	UUCP:  ...!sun!landauer