[comp.sys.mac.hypercard] Are there any public domain interfaces anywhere?

thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (02/20/90)

Hi,

	Are there any public domain interfaces anywhere? I'm not thinking of the code
	so much as the art of the interface. I ask this question because I wondered
	what would happen to Apple's interface claims if Xerox made the original
	design of the Star public domain. I realize that Xerox isn't going to do
	something like this but it seems like the world could use a good standard. I
	have this insane vision of the next generation trying to patent the sounds of
	words like : file, open, close, etc., so that everyone has to talk to their
	computers differently.

	I personally like the IBM Paradox3 Lotus like double menu line as very
	simple... but that doesn't help much does it?

	Again, this isn't a coding problem, it is a artistic/design problem
	complicated by money and lawyers. The prompt for this thought was Paul
	Heckel's book, "Friendly Software Design.' He discussed the change from
	engineering control of the movies to artistic control of the director and
	suggested a similar change may occur with software.

	--Thom Gillespie

weh@sei.cmu.edu (Bill Hefley) (02/20/90)

Yes, but isn't this Heckel chap the same fellow who developed the Zoomracks
metaphor, patented it, sued Apple and settled out of court for some
arrangement with Apple because Hypercard does something like his metaphor?

And you said it was just the lawyers and accountants? :-)

thom@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (Thom Gillespie) (02/20/90)

In article <6162@gp.sei.cmu.edu> weh@sei.cmu.edu (Bill Hefley) writes:
>Yes, but isn't this Heckel chap the same fellow who developed the Zoomracks
>metaphor, patented it, sued Apple and settled out of court for some
>arrangement with Apple because Hypercard does something like his metaphor?
>
>And you said it was just the lawyers and accountants? :-)


I didn't say that Paul Heckel suggested a public domain interface, I just said
the idea occurred to me after reading Heckel. Heck, maybe now that Heckel has
his loot, he'll put the Zoomracks metaphor, and in the process the Hypercard
metaphor, into the public domain ... and then Xerox will naturally follow and
Apple won't have a metaphor to stand on.

--Thom Gillespie

p.s. I always thought that Zoomracks loocked metaphorically like the Appleworks
screen metaphor.