Path: utzoo!telly!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!husc6!bbn!gatech!utkcs2!cygnusx1!moore
From: moore@cygnusx1.cs.utk.edu (Keith Moore)
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Re: GNU's not GNU...
Message-ID: <819@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu>
Date: 5 Apr 89 23:39:51 GMT
References: <28354@apple.Apple.COM> <8904042254.AA00430@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu>
Sender: sysmgr@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu
Reply-To: moore@cygnusx1.cs.utk.edu (Keith Moore)
Distribution: gnu
Organization: CS Dept -- University of TN, Knoxville
Lines: 73

In article <8904042254.AA00430@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu> 
 rms@WHEATIES.AI.MIT.EDU (Richard Stallman) writes:
>...  Defeating "look and feel"
>is essential to keep free software legal.
>
>Does anyone have suggestions for new ways to carry on the fight?

Unfortunately, stopping Apple and/or Lotus won't stop the look-and-feel
battle.  Someone else, perhaps someone with more clout, will eventually
try to do the same thing again even should Apple fail.  (Though a court
ruling against Apple would make it more difficult for others to succeed,
I don't expect it to happen.  Neither party in the Apple look-and-feel
suit will want to have such a precedent on the books.  Either Apple will 
win or they will settle out-of-court.)

One way to "solve" the problem in the longer term:

Get Congress to enact legislation that legalizes a certain degree
of look-and-feel compatibility.  This would probably take the form of
some sort of compromise that lets you copy some features of a program
as long as you don't make a "clone".  There would also be a distinction
to be made between machine-interface compatibility and human-interface
compatibility, so you wouldn't have to worry about making a compatible 
C compiler, for instance, but you couldn't make an exact copy of the 
Macintosh desktop.

From an ideological standpoint, this would be unpalatable.  On the
other hand, I think this would let FSF and others carry on their work
without having to worry about interference.  And I'd much rather have
Congress decide what is a reasonable degree of look-and-feel than
to have the court system decide.

Other (less likely) types of compromises which could be made:
(a) Exclude free software from having to worry about look-and-feel suits.
(Presumably the author of the free software would have to be able to produce
his source code to demonstrate that he actually wrote the stuff instead of
just patching someone else's binary.)
(b) Allow look-and-feel copyrights, but only for a very short tenure.
This preserves some of the original idea of copyright law, but updates it 
to the present circumstances where software becomes obsolete long before
the copyright runs out.

The problem here is that Congress generally serves the interests of those
who are in business to make money, instead of those who are out to make
the world a better place.  Still, I would imagine that some sort of 
compromise is possible, hopefully one that would not interfere with FSF.

I would imagine that there are even now enough people who benefit from
free software or "shareware", who are capable of understanding the dangers
presented by the look-and-feel suit, and who would support legislation
by Congress that placed strict limits on what could be construed as 
look-and-feel ripoff.

Has any kind of legislation been proposed that might address this?
If not, could we somehow come up with some sort of "rough draft" for
such a bill?  (Keeping in mind that it has to allow for compromise
with the moneygrubbers.)

Perhaps the collective efforts of the net (with some legal assistance)
might be useful in getting some of the legislators interested in such
a bill.  Authors of free software could ask their "customers"
to let Congress know how valuable such contributions are, and to ask
that the right to make and distribute free software be preserved.
I think this technique would be especially effective among PC users.
("If you like this program, please press F10 to print a letter to your 
congressman asking him to enact legislation that allows free software
to continue to exist.")

--
Keith Moore
UT Computer Science Dept.	Internet/CSnet: moore@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu
107 Ayres Hall, UT Campus	BITNET: moore@utkvx
Knoxville Tennessee 37996-1301	Telephone: +1 615 974 0822