Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mailrus!cwjcc!hal!nic.MR.NET!srcsip!io!colburn From: colburn@io.SRC.Honeywell.COM (Mark H. Colburn) Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Re: look and feel Message-ID: <18939@srcsip.UUCP> Date: 17 Mar 89 20:38:10 GMT References: <37205@bbn.COM> Sender: news@src.honeywell.COM Reply-To: colburn@io.UUCP (Mark H. Colburn) Organization: Honeywell Systems & Research Center, Camden, MN Lines: 51 In article dsill@RELAY.NSWC.NAVY.MIL ("David E. Sill") writes: >I don't think it's really that important which way the courts end up >deciding the L&F issue; I think the end result either way is that there will >be enough people upset with the outcome to mandate overhauling the software >copyright laws. If Judge Daly's ruling holds, development will be stifled >by the requirement that each new product line have its own unique interface. >This is obviously contrary to the user's need for fewer and simpler >interfaces, not to mention an extra burden on the developer who has to go >out of his way to avoid making his product too much like his competitors. I, personally, am not particularly excited about this ruling. It would be kind of like Ford suing Chrysler becase they have cars which kind of look the same: the both have four wheels, steering wheels on the left side, two seats up front, doors, etc. That would be look and feel kind of things. >On the other hand, though, if developers are allowed to produce "clones" of >software products without regard to the effort the original developer put >into designing the interface, then there will be little incentive for the >development of new interfaces. Imagine a company like Xerox spending >millions of dollars on research to come up with the Window/Icon/Mouse >interface only to have its competitors incorporate Xerox's innovations into >their product lines. Competition like Apple, Apollo, Sun, HP, ... Imagine what would happen if all of those companies started using variations of Xerox's Window/Mouse/Icon interface... You'd wind up with things like Macintosh, Xwindows, Sunview, ... That would be pretty bad I suppose, so we should make sure that Xerox doesn't spend that money :-) Sombody should call up Xerox and tell them not to develop an interface, quick. A little late I think. Sorry for the sarcasm, but most of the windowing interface innovation which has come about in the last few years has been a result of the work done at Xerox PARC. Most of the work centered around Smalltalk. A lot of the non-bit-mapped interfaces also came from there as well, such as scroll bars, pull-down and pop-up menus, etc. >What we need is some way to delineate between clones and compatibles. >At what point does the spreadsheet become other than a clone of Lotus >1-2-3, whether by additional functionality, different behavior or >appearance, etc.? For the most part, the clone and compatible are used interchangably in the computer industry. And even then you have the problem of defining just how compatible. Computer hardware and software vendors use the term compatible because it has a better connotation that a "clone." Mark H. Colburn MN65-2300 colburn@SRC.Honeywell.COM Systems Administration and Support Honeywell Systems & Research Center