daniel@unicom.UUCP (Dan Smith, not your average Lithuanian...) (03/31/88)
In article <5134@venera.isi.edu> raveling@vaxa.isi.edu (Paul Raveling) writes: >In article <2543@charon.unm.edu> cs2531bn@unmc.UUCP (Lazlo Nibble) writes: >> >>Far too late for that already. The courts have already decided that the "look >>and feel" of a user interface CAN be copyrighted. Remember the lawsuit that >>Broderbund won over one of the Print Shop clones? >> If you are referring to "PrintMaster", there was a good reason for that lawsuit. The programmers were originally writing that *for* Broderbund for the PC. Something happened (they didn't want to make certain changes in the program, contract dispute, etc.) and those programmers decided "fine! we'll start our own company and market it anyways". I was working at Broderbund at the time, and remember seeing an early version of PrintMaster - it was Printshop for the PC, for all practical purposes...it wasn't as different as the Mac/PM interfaces. I mean it was *really* close to the Apple II version of Printshop. David Balsam and Marty Kahn were pretty upset about it, being the original authors. Broderbund had a programmer or two start on a new PC version, and that ended up being marketed, and it did fairly well. dan dan smith, island graphics, marin co, ca|"A womp ba ba lu ba, a womp bam boom!" uucp: {ucbvax!ucbcad,sun}!island!daniel | ph: +1 (415) 491 1000 (W), 332 FAST, uucp: pixar!unicom!daniel, well!daniels | 332 EASY (H)| unix/guitars/films/tuna