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From: stevewa@upvax.UUCP (Steve Ward)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.windows.misc
Subject: Re: Apple Lawsuit (was BOYCOTT APPLE, etc.)
Message-ID: <396@upvax.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 88 08:04:20 GMT
References: <292@unicom.UUCP> <663@csm9a.UUCP> <4283@dandelion.CI.COM> <13520@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <453@xroads.UUCP> <394@upvax.UUCP> <10322@steinmetz.ge.com>
Reply-To: stevewa@upvax.UUCP (Steve Ward)
Organization: University of Portland, Portland, OR
Lines: 83
Keywords: Microsoft, HP New Wave, Xerox, Lawsuit

In article <394@upvax.UUCP> I wrote:
.>
.>1.  Usually it's good that individual companies come up with alternative
.>    solutions to a given "problem", but when you're trying to set up a
.>    STANDARD it's not such a good idea.  Remember what happened about 12
.>    years ago with VCRs?  Two different companies came up with two different
.>    solutions to the same problem, namely VHS and Betamax.  The result?

Then in article <10322@steinmetz.ge.com> desdemona!vita@steinmetz.UUCP (Mark F. Vita) replied:
>
>Yes, I agree that standards are a good thing.  However, a company
>which INVENTS a standard should have some control over its usage.
>They could choose to let others use it for free, or they could choose
>to charge some kind of licensing fee.  Using the VCR case, for
>example, I believe that companies manufacturing VHS machines *license*
>the technology from the inventor of the VHS standard (JVC?).
>
>[...] if companies want to use the Apple standard, then they should
>license it from Apple.  If not, they should develop their own
>standard.  However, they should not just copy Apple's standard.
>
You seem to forget what we've seen in a number of previous postings (I don't
have references offhand) that HP tried to liscense from Apple for New Wave,
which Apple REFUSED to do, so HP went ahead and finished their product anyway,
and Microsoft did have SOME SORT (details? I haven't seen any) of agreement
with Apple concerning the development of Windows.

What really bugs me about this suit is that (A) what it really looks like is
that Apple is afraid the "rest of us" are catching up to them (because they
really haven't been doing much in terms of improving their interface), so
they are using this suit as a stop-gap measure to buy time, or else they've
decided to go after the PC market (via Claris) and decided it would be easier
if there weren't any competing offerings... and (B) that the end result
of all of this is that end-users and smaller developers end up getting reamed.

>A lot of people seem to think that the Apple interface IS the PARC
>interface, or that it is the only possible derivation of the PARC
>concepts.  Not true.  Take a look at, say, SunView.  Here's a
>windowing system based on many of the same PARC principles as the Mac
>interface (i.e., bit-mapped display, windows, mouse), but whose
>interface is MUCH different from the Mac interface.  Note that Apple
>is NOT suing Sun over SunView.  Apple is not claiming a monopoly on
>PARC-style interfaces.

That may be true...I haven't seen SunView, but I have seen Smalltalk-80 and
while it and the Mac interface have many important (for legal types)
differences, I would say that the "look and feel" is similar...What does
look and feel mean, anyway?  I thought you weren't able to sue people over
things so general and vague as that...it seems usually there has to be some
concrete statement of the infringement(?)

(several points against my examples deleted...points well taken)

There's one place where Windows definately beats Mac...You can turn the 
interface OFF if you want to!  Let's face it, there are some times when
you just don't need a user friendly interface and can make good use of the
computing power that keeping a bitmapped display robs from you...the way the
Mac is set up, if you want to get that power back, you have to buy another
computer!

One of the reasons I decided to buy an AT instead of a Mac was that for a
similar power processor I got more power as a user from the AT than from the
Mac.  (another reason was cost...you just can't get as much bang for the
buck from Apple as you can from a well built IBM clone...maybe one day
Apple will figure out that one big reason PCs caught on so well was the
fact that a number of vendors were producing them, some better than the
original...maybe IBM will learn that too, and stop threatening to sue
companies wanting to make PS2 clones?)

>[...]  But Microsoft and HP should try to convince Apple to
>license their standard, rather than just ripping it off.

THEY (at least HP) TRIED.  What else can they do?

>----
>Mark Vita                              ARPA: vita@ge-crd.ARPA
>General Electric Company               UUCP: vita@desdemona.steinmetz.UUCP
>Corporate R & D                              vita@desdemona.steinmetz.ge.com
>Schenectady, NY                              desdemona!vita@steinmetz.UUCP

Steve Ward
stevewa@upvax.UUCP
!tektronix!upvax!stevewa