Apple Gets Testy About GUI
Posted by
Hemos
on Thu Jan 13, 2000 07:09 AM
from the look-and-feel-all-over-again dept.
from the look-and-feel-all-over-again dept.
ShogZilla writes "Apple threatened Skinz.org (a windows "skins" site) & Stardock (makers of the win32 app "windowblinds") with legal action if a certain skin
The problem? The skin (winaqua) alters WinOS window frames to mimic the Mac OS Aqua appearance - kinda. It's very altered, the graphics are custom, & the layout is different - but that doesn't appear to matter.
After the threat, both sites initially complied, but have reconsidered & have reposted the skin; it does not use any graphics from aqua, it does not contain any mac logos etc; it's an original work - just inspired by the aqua GUI.
" I'm still waiting for an Aqua theme for E - Aqua just looks so darn /purty/.
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Apple Gets Testy About GUI
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Strange (Score:5)
Aqua theme for Sawmill (Score:3)
go to : http://sawmill.themes.org/ themes.phtml?themeid=947266463 [themes.org] .. ... to make thing really pretty use :
I'm using it quite for a while
And
http://gtk.themes.org/themes.p html?themeid=947543904 [themes.org] the matching GTK theme ! YEAH !
It's really a shame (Score:4)
Luckily for Apple, Aqua is a lot more then just a theme. It adds transparency to the entire interface and other refinements that a theme simply cannot duplicate. No one can claim that adding a Window's theme to a Mac or Mac theme to a Windows machine, in anyway duplicates the GUI of the other platform. The GUI is a lot more than a simple theme.
A Brief History Of Time (Score:3)
Look and feel (Score:4)
We should protect *some* artistic creations. (Score:5)
Gross.
Re:It's really a shame (Score:4)
The GUI is just an incremental upgrade over what went before, and Apple is borrowing many features from GUIs that other people and companies have made.
Copyrights already cover the blatant form of this, where a competitor tried to pass the OS/GUI off as MacOS X by preventing anyone from copying the look exactly. And trademark law further prevents this, and any other use of the apple symbol.
As to the features of the GUI, I don't see why they deserve protection. It's like saying someone should get patent rights on ideas, not just methods. This assumes that the majority of those ideas were actually even originally thought of at Apple, which I doubt. The world is large, and many companies, universities, and private projects have experimented with making GUIs more powerful and easy to use. If Apple gets protection for their GUI, they'd immediately lose it to the various sources they drew upon for ideas.
And this all assumes that people would be served by allowing companies IP protection for ideas. The whole purpose of IP laws is to help the public by giving companies a reason to release their works instead of hiding them. But if the public isn't helped by this, why should we consider strengthening these laws when it would only help the corporation with the most lawyers?
I say that Apple will get all the protection they need from copyrights, and that anyone intrigued by the look or functionality of the Aqua clones will probably try the Mac, where before they wouldn't have. Apples ideas will function as advertising, and status points, their reward for contributing to the gift culture we live in, and the gift culture that gave them the ideas they used to build upon.
Careful (Score:4)
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:3)
The taskbar?
DirectX?
Um, Office?
Much as I hate Microsoft as much as the next corporation, some of the features in Office (particularly Excell) are gobsmacking. (Win32, on the other hand, is bollocks, but credit is due for Office). This is why they have a monopoly.
Microsoft have even been spotted posting RFC's and drafts for open standards recently. They've finally started behaving themselves (thank God).
Apple have no right to tell us what we can and cannot put on our desktop. If they can't sell products on merit of being better products then they clearly can't keep up with technology. Why doesn't MacOS have themes yet?
I actually see Apple being a great deal more of a threat to open-standards than M$ (remember the Indeo codec?).
Re:It's really a shame, nah (Score:5)
Does Apple have the right to protect a 'theme'?
No, it does not. There are countless references to this, unless the copycat _duplicates_ an art _exactly_, this is when copyrights kick in, "design" an sich, is not protected.
Relevant court material can probably be found in the Apple vs Microsoft "look and feel" case.
Is it funny that Apple can protect their hardware looks, but not their software looks?
Not really, just on the surface perhaps, but the fact is, Hardware lookalikes will directly impact Apple sales, this can be prooven.
Software lookalikes will have NO IMPACT whatsoever on Apple sales, UNLESS the COMPLETE OS will be copied. I cannot imagine an Apple Artist buying a windowz workstation, JUST because theres an aqua theme. Its therefore utterly stupid to fight themes.
It also contradicts the recent Apple "willingness and flirtations" with Open Source. It therefore is not even from a marketing viewpoint sensible. What? Open Sourcing the (parts of) OS but sueing on a theme?? Get a grip.
(This should get through the ThickBoned Head of Marketing guru Jobs.)
Greetz SlashDread
Re:Careful (Score:4)
If we are informed that a skin is an unathorized port (not the case w/ winaqua, it isn't a port; inspired by, yes; byte-for-byte copy, no) or a rip (staking a claim on someone else's work) we delete the offending skin posthaste.
So it isn't an admission of guilt; it's compliance with policy.
Of course, IANAL, so we may be doing this bass-ackwords.
Scary for people creating themes. (Score:3)
Those of you who are running themeable window managers such as enlightenment windowmaker etc. are probably aware of the existence of themes that mimic various OSes' appearance.
Please check out www.themes.org to get an idea of what I am talking about.
Do the theme authors risk a similar lawsuit threat? Is themes.org heading for trouble?
I hope some kind soul on slashdot can enlighten us about these questions.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:3)
Possibly some professor had done the same in a lab 5 years earlier, but that hardly counts, any more than saying the internal combustion engine is just a copy of the steam engine because they both use the compressed-gas-cylinder-camshaft technology.
Anywa, here are some more, these are all just IMHO, so please correct me if I'm wrong:
docking toolbars and menus
DHCP (and very good it is too)
realtime spell checking (wiggly red lines in word)
ODBC
A comprehensive approach to disabled users
Comprehensive (if occasionally random) support for non-roman charactersets and languages
And finally, MS get big bonus points for ditching ASCII and shifting to unicode everywhere WAY before anyone else.
Flames to me personally if you must, please...
Re:We should protect *some* artistic creations. (Score:3)
Should we pursue all the Andy Warhol knock-offs with four faces in coloured squares?
Should we sue Oasis because they sound so much like the Beatles?
Do you think they should have arrested Roy Lichenstein for infringment on DC comics' look and feel?
Sorry to all the artists but it's the world we live in. Unless you can patent your technique, it's pretty hard to stop people copying your work. Overall, I think that results in better work out there.
What's next? (Score:4)
I normally tend to support Apple, but this one is rediculous.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:3)
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Ownership of the 'look-and-feel'? (Score:5)
In my opinion, the real situation would be different if the themes in question were able to provide functionality that could emulate the MacOS, but they cannot. They neither acheive this nor reproduce copyrighted material of Apple.
What would follow next if Apple succeeded in their petty argument, would web designers be able to sue other sites for coding, from scratch, a site that has the same look and feel as their own?
Perhaps Apple should be quiet and accept the fact that if people are going to the trouble of creating look-alike themes from scratch, then they are both advertising Apple's original OS existance and advertising how cool it is (Aqua, cool
I neither use nor endorse Apple products, I find a bitter aftertaste from using previous products of theirs. But like many others, I find the existance of themes representing (read: merely looking-alike) the MacOS system making me more and more curious as to how 'cool' the original platform is.
Perhaps because of these theme's creations, I may even purchase a new Mac since I have almost tried before I've buyed...
Re:Careful (Score:3)
If we are informed that a skin is an unathorized port (not the case w/ winaqua, it isn't a port; inspired by, yes; byte-for-byte copy, no) or a rip (staking a claim on someone else's work) we delete the offending skin posthaste.
So it isn't an admission of guilt; it's compliance with policy.
Of course, IANAL, so we may be doing this bass-ackwords.
According to the lawyer I just spoke with as long as you say you took it down to review it, found it to be completely free of any infringement and so put it back, You're ok.
Kintanon
GUI (Score:3)
You're missing the point... (Score:3)
2. Being able to emulate MacOsX's precise look on Win32 and X machines will harm Apple's campaign to market Macs as a trendy alternative - which is why they spent so much time and money developing it. Of course, you are are perfectly entitled to develop a similar look using their ideas. You shouldn't be able to just copy it directly.
3. This isn't about the right to emulate. That was settled in Apple's case versus Microsoft. This is about the right to copy.
As an analogy, think of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Originally a masterpiece. However, any half-decent artist can paint a very good copy of it. The true artist, though, takes the eyes, the smile and the use of color and paints his own masterpiece.
'Just' Inspired !? (Score:3)
To say that the skin is an original work is like saying a forgery of the Mona Lisa is an original work. Looking at the skin indicates to everyone that the source of the images used for the buttons, window controls, etc is MacOS X. If a user interface can be considered a work of art then it deserves the same protection as any other art form.
I have often seen unauthorized copies of Enlightenment windows on the Skinz site. The least these guys could do is ask the original author for permission to 'port' these window designs and accept it when the author says 'NO'.
Copying with permission is fine, copying without is theft!
M.T.
New Apple Slogan.. (Score:5)
Where's Apple's official Response (Score:3)
When I finally found the official objection, it turned out to be a rant (more or less) against Apple. What I want to see is: The official letter from some official Apple representative stating the official objections Apple had. Until I see it, I reserve judgement.
Why? Here are some possibilities that "clear Apple's name":
Post the official objection. The wording will be more telling of Apple's position than the hearsay we've seen so far.
(OT) Irony (Score:5)
Nah, nah, nah, you've got it all wrong, mate.
That none of the allegedly ironic examples given in the song are actually ironic is deliberate. It's ironic that the song, called Ironic, is not ironic, thus making the song ironic. Thus the non-ironic song is thus very ironic, which is itself doubly ironic, or meta-ironic... er... or something.
Therefore Alanis is not a silly moo at all, but in fact very clever. Unless she really is dumb and is just being ironic about it all.
--
This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
Nah, just two. (Score:3)
As for "Bob", the less said the better
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:4)
And as for other technologies, they seem to be leading the way in hardware products (or is that just me being ignorant about hardware trends?). If I recall, they were the first with the ergonomic keyboard, the wheel doohicky, the intelliEye (didn't someone tell the marketing people not to put so many vowels together? oh well) optical system, that bad-ass phone that you could hook up to your PC, the Timex watch data synchronization thing...
And the paper clip guy is pretty cool too, from a technical standpoint (if not from an actual usefulness standpoint). It's a Bayes (belief) network- you can find out how it works by rooting around for that topic on the MS research site.
so called "innovation" in the software world (Score:3)
The biggest "innovation" of the community for which Linux is currently the poster child (Open Source, Free Software,
I put "innovation" in quotes because in the digital world it's a pretty nebulous term and hard to define. Ideas and code and software are extremely promiscuous and incestuous. Pick any "innovation" of the last 5 years and you will find antecedants from the 80s and 70s and 60s.
Linux is a hotbed of "innovation" because it lives in an environment stripped of the rules and taboos forbidding sex. Anybody can screw anybody else, mixing genes and chromosones with glee and abandon, creating offspring similar but not quite the same as anything else. Gene swapping is common in the proprietary world too, but's hampered and restricted.
It's mostly reimplementation of closed-source tools.
True, many portions are reimplementations of closed-source tools. But many closed source tools are implementations of open source academic research products.
Re:Say what? (Score:3)
I've used Apple II's. I've used PETs, right back to the earliest models. I've used TRS-80's. I've used ZX-80's. For that matter, I've used Prime 350 mainframes, when "advanced display" meant a decent teletype.
And -you- tell -me- to learn history? *COUGH!*
The "very first commercial home computer game" was not, as you claim, "Mystery House". That -may- have been the very first game with mass popularity, but "home computer" games have been traded for sums of money from the days of the Altair. It was (and is) human nature to exchange and exchange is what brought computers to the home in the first place, long before the Apple I, never mind the Apple II, was even a glimmer in it's designer's eye! I'd bet there were rogue copies of Pong being sold at schools, in clubs, and at meetings, before the Williams' even knew what a computer was.
Apple was the "first homebrew computer company to get serious venture capital funding and professional management", eh? Well, if you add enough conditions, you can turn anything into a first. Z is the first letter after Y, for that matter. Being last means you're the first to not have someone behind you, too.
Other "homebrewers" you might want to study closely are Sir Clive Sinclair, who had a booming radio, amplifier, metal detector, and other equiptment business long before the dawn of the microprocessor, let alone the dawn of home computers. The ZX80 may have come after the Apple II, in mere date, but if you want to argue firsts, it outsold the entire Apple range to that date, and had more of a homebrew design than any of the later Apple computers could even dream of. (It also worked better than the early Macs.)
Disks were a late invention, for the home computer market. Tapes were all the rage, especially in the mid 70's, and tapes were how games were distributed. Earlier generations of home computers were programmed by switch, so instructions were typed or written.
Apple were -never- the Microsoft of anything, except maybe in their dreams, and I doubt either Jobs or Waznick were that conceited. Commodore -owned- the business market (as far as personal computers went), and a fair percentage of both the educational and home markets, too. Of the remaining market, the Apples barely touched Europe, which mostly concentrated on local talent, and at least half of what was left built their own out of spare parts.
No, Apple were rich, yes, but not awe-inspiring or all-powerful. They were moderately successful, reasonably well-off, but not much beyond that.
As for their professional marketing, that nearly killed Apple stone-dead. The early Apple Macs switched themselves off when you removed the disk from the drive. It was slow, expensive, had little memory (mostly used for graphics), and was only practical with a hard drive (which was an expensive add-on). Those were amongst Apple's worst times, and spelled the start of their financial ruin. It was at this time that they shed their "homebrew" look, went corporate, forbade clones, and nearly died. Apples's market crashed through the floor. The only reason IBM and Microsoft survived the early days was that people ripped IBM off left, right and centre. =THAT= spared IBM and Microsoft for the same reason the lack of clones killed Apple. No competition, no growth, no life.
If Apple were as successful as you say, and had learned the same lesson IBM did in the early days, I'd be typing this on a Mac-lookalike. I'm not, and the responsibility for that lies at the door of the people you worship.