rms@AI.MIT.EDU (08/04/90)
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
mal@efbhp1.draper.com (08/04/90)
OK, so who do we write to to tel this guy what a shmuck he is?
mal@efbhp1.draper.com (08/04/90)
Nicholas John Williams <njt@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> writes >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". So where do we write to tell him (Mr. Lippe) what a swhmuck he is? PS. sorry about the unreferenced reply earlier ML
grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu (Dirk Grunwald) (08/04/90)
>>>>> On 4 Aug 90 03:24:33 GMT, mal@efbhp1.draper.com said: m> Nicholas John Williams <njt@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> writes >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". m> So where do we write to tell him (Mr. Lippe) what a swhmuck he is? m> PS. sorry about the unreferenced reply earlier ML --- I briefly used 'vtwm' (it crashed too much on my server) & I've played with the Solbourne virtual desk top feature, but I was under the impression that the virtual desktop concept was older than Solbournes implementation, in fact, that it dated back to XEROX PARC days. VTWM differs in certain ways that make the SWM (solbourne window manager) easier to use & some what better. E.g., each window has a ``nail'' widget specifying whether a window is nailed in the display or should move within the virtual desktop. This is somewhat similar to the f.nail function in VTWM. But then again, SWM looks a lot like TWM, which was done when Tom LaStrange was at E&S, and it copyrighted by them and MIT. Perhaps Solbourne is in fact violating someone elses copyright by beeing too close to the look and feel of TWM (although that software can be modified & sold according to the copyright). If it's a simple matter of ``look and feel'' violation rather than copying code, perhaps just changing the VTWM virtual window manager would suffice, e.g. don't make it be a default window, force binding it to a key to popup the virtual desktop manager, which IMHO, would be nicer anyway, because the VD manager is the first thing I always nail anyway. Actually, if it's ``look and feel'' then how does having a *different* interface (and it is different, as I noted) infringe on SWM? Dirk Grunwald -- Univ. of Colorado at Boulder (grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu) (grunwald@boulder.colorado.edu)
ron@woan.austin.ibm.com (Ronald S. Woan) (08/05/90)
What is different about this virtual desktop from the "rooms" feature provided by xrooms or gwm? Ron +-----All Views Expressed Are My Own And Are Not Necessarily Shared By------+ +------------------------------My Employer----------------------------------+ + Ronald S. Woan (IBM VNET)WOAN AT AUSTIN, (AUSTIN)ron@woan.austin.ibm.com + + outside of IBM @cs.utexas.edu:ibmchs!auschs!woan.austin.ibm.com!ron + + alternatives woan@peyote.cactus.org or woan@soda.berkeley.edu +
toml@ninja.Solbourne.COM (Tom LaStrange) (08/06/90)
|> But then again, SWM looks a lot like |> TWM, which was done when Tom LaStrange was at E&S, and it copyrighted |> by them and MIT. Perhaps Solbourne is in fact violating someone elses |> copyright by beeing too close to the look and feel of TWM (although |> that software can be modified & sold according to the copyright). How does swm look a lot like twm? I know this doesn't have much to do with the original message but I would have to say that swm and twm are as different as apples and oranges. They're both window managers but in terms of look-and-feel, customization, and features, they're not even close. -- Tom LaStrange Solbourne Computer Inc. ARPA: toml@Solbourne.COM 1900 Pike Rd. UUCP: ...!{boulder,sun}!stan!toml Longmont, CO 80501
grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu (Dirk Grunwald) (08/07/90)
You're correct. SWM looks and feels like is a superset of TWM, allowing you to switch between Twm-ish, OpenLook and MWM behaviour. I had been thinking only of the Twm-ish portion of that.
tomw@orac.esd.sgi.com (Tom Weinstein) (08/07/90)
In article <24370@boulder.Colorado.EDU> grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu (Dirk Grunwald) writes: > You're correct. SWM looks and feels like is a superset of TWM, > allowing you to switch between Twm-ish, OpenLook and MWM behaviour. I > had been thinking only of the Twm-ish portion of that. Yeah, but seems to me that Borland is being sued for something along just those lines. -- Tom Weinstein Silicon Graphics, Inc., Entry Systems Division, Window Systems tomw@orac.esd.sgi.com Any opinions expressed above are mine, not sgi's.
zmacx07@doc.ic.ac.uk (Simon E Spero) (08/07/90)
In article <24370@boulder.Colorado.EDU> grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu (Dirk Grunwald) writes:
You're correct. SWM looks and feels like is a superset of TWM,
allowing you to switch between Twm-ish, OpenLook and MWM behaviour. I
had been thinking only of the Twm-ish portion of that.
Configureable to look like twm, olwm, and mwm, huh? Sound's like a
definite ripoff of gwm- wonder how big their French legal division is?
Colas?
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
zmacx07@uk.ac.ic.doc | sispero@cix.co.uk | ..!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!cix!sispero
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Poll Tax. | Saddam Hussein runs Lotus 123 on | DoC,IC,London SW7 2BZ
I'm Not. Are you?| Solbournes and Macs | +44-(0)71-931-7628
------------------------------------------------------------------------------pclark@SRC.Honeywell.COM (Peter Clark) (08/08/90)
How long has Solbourne been making 'virtual desktops'? There's some company that does the same thing for the Macintosh, and has been selling that since '87 or '88. I forget the name, but they also did the CloseView init that apple includes as system software. I'm betting that Solbourne aren't the first to do virtual desktops. Pete Clark Honeywell SRC Minneapolis, Mn
pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) (08/08/90)
grunwald@foobar.colorado.edu writes: | |You're correct. SWM looks and feels like is a superset of TWM, |allowing you to switch between Twm-ish, OpenLook and MWM behaviour. actually swm might be better characterized as offering either Motif or OpenLook decorations and characteristics -- as provided -- or a number of other interfaces within the limits of its configurability. it doesn't seem very much like twm (tom's window manager) or twm (tab window manager) to me at all. which is probably why i don't use it. i did spend some time getting it to be reminiscent of twm (tom's) but although i like the panner (and vtwm could do a better job of copying if that's what they like) i don't like it enough to give up twm (tab). actually the panner/virtual-desktop (i think the trouble must be about the panner since i'm sure lots of folks [me included] have had various ideas about virtual desktops, + multi-screens + etc., for some time) is neat. i'd like to know the origins of these ideas if they have some. i.e. did the people at parc(place) consider such a thing and then discard it and not really useful? if you have some pointers/annecdotes please mail them to me. [for those who haven't seen it] the "panner" is a small window that is filled with smaller rectangles. the largest of these represents the current visible portion of the "virtual" display and the visible portion is usually some small fraction of the total. scattered around this representation of the virtual display are smaller rectangles that represent floating open windows. in the "panner" you can click/drag things around (on/off/partially-on the screen), either open windows or the visible portion of the display (i.e. "pan" the viewport around). non-floating items are always fixed in the same place. i understand that other (non-x) versions of things like this let you perform all window manager functions, rather than just move, from inside the "panner". from my naive viewpoint a "panner" is just a variation on the icon-manager idea (or vice-versa).
lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot) (08/10/90)
I am told that there is something similar on one of the Amiga Fish (PD) disks. -- Eliot Lear [lear@turbo.bio.net]