mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer) (08/11/90)
As far as I can tell, the "virtual desktop" described herein is identical to the feature of 2.0 that allows the workbench screen to be bigger than the physical screen. I vaguelly recall a hack that implemented this feature a while back. If the author - or someone with proof of date of publication of that hack - could get that information to these people, it could save a lot of people some heartaches. In the meantime, I'd like to know what - if anything - CBM is doing about it's various infringements of people's intellectual property rights. <mike -- start of forward From: rms@AI.MIT.EDU Subject: [emacs] X marks the suit Date: Thu, 9 Aug 90 03:19:36 GMT I hope this taste of the shape of things to come in the computer industry will wake enough of us up before it is too late... Date: Fri, 3 Aug 90 10:51:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Nicholas John Williams <njw@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> To: staff@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Subject: TWM Virtual Desktop, Look & Feel Lawsuits etc. As many of you know, there was a version of TWM available recently, which had patches (written by Dave Edmondson of Imperial College) which added a "Virtual Desktop" facility. This allowed you to spread your windows out over virtual space and select which area to view at any one time. The feature was modelled after the Solbourne Window Manager, performing the same sort of tasks as their Virtual Desktop. Wednesday, the patches allowing TWM to do this were placed into the contrib area on expo.lcs.mit.edu. Following this, Dave Edmondson yesterday received a letter from Paul Lippe, the vice president of Solbourne stating that he had "engaged in unauthorized copying of Solbourne's virtual desktop utility feature". Legal discussions are currently underweigh and, until further notice, the vtwm in the windowmanagers locker has been made unavailable. Nick. njw@athena.mit.edu njw@doc.imperial.ac.uk -- end of forward -- Es brillig war. Die schlichte Toven Mike Meyer Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben; mwm@relay.pa.dec.com Und aller-mumsige Burggoven decwrl!mwm Die mohmem Rath' ausgraben.
jet@karazm.math.uh.edu (J. Eric Townsend) (08/11/90)
In article <MWM.90Aug10211058@raven.pa.dec.com> mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer) writes: >In the meantime, I'd like to know what - if anything - CBM is doing >about it's various infringements of people's intellectual property >rights. >-- start of forward >From: rms@AI.MIT.EDU >Subject: [emacs] X marks the suit >Date: Thu, 9 Aug 90 03:19:36 GMT The issue regarding Solbourne's inteface has been resolved. Virtual twm is safe. -- J. Eric Townsend -- University of Houston Dept. of Mathematics (713) 749-2120 Internet: jet@uh.edu Bitnet: jet@UHOU Skate UNIX(r)
ked01@ccc.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) (08/12/90)
In article <MWM.90Aug10211058@raven.pa.dec.com> mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer) writes: > > As far as I can tell, the "virtual desktop" described herein is > identical to the feature of 2.0 that allows the workbench screen to be > bigger than the physical screen. I vaguelly recall a hack that > implemented this feature a while back. If the author - or someone with > proof of date of publication of that hack - could get that information > to these people, it could save a lot of people some heartaches. Thankfully, *some* companies aren't out to try and control everything in sight, as *other* companies are attempting to do. Solbourne has just gone up significantly as a company I would want to do business with. As posted in gnu.announce, and elsewhere: >From: jim@doc.ic.ac.uk (James I Murphy) >Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,gnu.announce,comp.emacs,gnu.emacs,gnu.misc.discuss >Subject: Re: TWM Virtual Desktop >Message-ID: <62390@bu.edu.bu.edu> >Date: 10 Aug 90 10:17:43 GMT >Organization: Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, London, UK. > > >Re: TWM Virtual Desktop. > >You will no doubt have been aware of a situation that recently occurred >between Solbourne Computer Inc and Imperial College (London). >Mr Paul Lippe (Vice President, General Counsel) of Solbourne Computer Inc >and Mr James Murphy (Head of the Computing Support Group) Imperial College >have been involved in discussions to resolve this matter of the Solbourne >Window Manager and the "look and feel" similarities of a product written by >Dave Edmondson, a systems programmer in my group. > >Solbourne and Imperial College have agreed to a statement which is listed >below. > > 1. Dave Edmondson of Imperial College developed a "TWM virtual > desktop" which Solbourne believes has a similar look-and-feel > to the Solbourne window manager. > > 2. Solbourne contacted Imperial College to understand whether > Imperial College's implementation was a copy of Solbourne's > product. Imperial College has assured Solbourne that it did > not copy Solbourne's product, and Solbourne acknowledges that > there was no improper conduct by Imperial College. > > 3. Solbourne never threatened any legal action of any kind. > > 4. Solbourne and Imperial College have agreed without prejudice > that Imperial can do whatever it wants with the TWM Virtual > Desktop, including releasing it through the X Consortium at MIT. > > 5. Imperial College is satisified with the resolution of this issue. > >James Murphy. /kim -- UUCP: kim@uts.amdahl.com -OR- ked01@juts.ccc.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,uunet,oliveb,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 BIX: kdevaughn GEnie: K.DEVAUGHN CIS: 76535,25
aduncan@rhea.trl.oz.au (Allan Duncan) (08/13/90)
From article <MWM.90Aug10211058@raven.pa.dec.com>, by mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer): > As far as I can tell, the "virtual desktop" described herein is > identical to the feature of 2.0 that allows the workbench screen to be > bigger than the physical screen. I vaguelly recall a hack that > implemented this feature a while back. If the author - or someone with > proof of date of publication of that hack - could get that information > to these people, it could save a lot of people some heartaches. > > In the meantime, I'd like to know what - if anything - CBM is doing > about it's various infringements of people's intellectual property > rights. [much quoting deleted] I don't know if it was the only one, but there was a utility called BigBench by John Rowe. I can't find the original copy I had to get the details, but I recollect he is from Queensland, Australia. I just fired it up, and found that it doesn't work with 1.3, so I presume it did things that are not strictly approved. The executable file date on my disk is 24-Apr-89, so it must be older thatn that at least. Allan Duncan ACSnet a.duncan@trl.oz (03) 541 6708 ARPA a.duncan%trl.oz.au@uunet.uu.net UUCP {uunet,hplabs,ukc}!munnari!trl.oz!a.duncan Telecom Research Labs, PO Box 249, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia.