worley@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (Dale Worley) (09/28/88)
Copyright (and patents) in the US is based on the concept that if the law gives a limited property-right in intellectual property to the person who creates it, people will be stimulated to create useful things. See, for example, the US Constitution. I generally agree with this idea. ([this is based on a discussion I had with RMS on the subject:] On the other hand, RMS is that rare breed, a genuine socialist. He believes that there is no "true" ownership, that all property is held in stewardship, and that the concept of "ownership" of physical objects is only a useful mechanism for allocation of unsharable resources, rather than a fundamental reality.) Historically, the boundary between what is copyrightable and what is not is based on what is the "creative" part of the work. In practice, this has meant that the part that is hard to generate is protected, the window dressing is not. This makes sense from a commercial point of view, also, since it protects and stimulates things which are hard (expensive) to create, and ignores things which are easy (cheap) to create. So, what shall we do with user interfaces? In some cases, clearly so little work that has gone into them that there is no creative effort to making them. On the other hand, for some products the user interface is a major aspect of the product that required significant effort to design. In most cases, the code to implement the user interface is enormously harder to write than the design of the interface itself. In this case, it seems unreasonable that the interface should be considered a copyrightable work itself. But over the long run, as programming becomes more efficient, it may be that the bulk of the work in producing a user interface may well be the visual design of it, not the writing of the code that impelments it. Historically, there has always been a tension between the goal of providing copyright protection to stimulate work, and the goal of allowing as many people to produce as many similar products as possible to improve competition. The boundaries between these two regions have always been adjusted on the grounds of "the public good" -- the determination of what is, on the whole, (economically) better for society. It seems like we are entering one of those eras when technology changes "what is the expensive part of a work", and thus causes the law to change "what copyright protects". This is much like the late 1800s, when the invention of cheap paper (and thus the rise of mass-production printing) changed the expensive part of a book from being the paper to the words. Before that, writers were hired by booksellers so they could sell paper, and copyright wasn't too important. Unless you are either a libertarian or an RMS-ist, you have to recognize the boundaries will always be shifting. Dale
dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Der Tynan) (09/30/88)
I have a couple of points I'd like to throw at the general discussion;
First, it seems to me that there really ought to be a gnu.misc newsgroup.
Looking at the current list, all the groups refer to GNU products. Nothing
about the GNU organization, or anything else. Certainly this discussion
doesn't belong in a newsgroup about emacs. I don't actually subscribe to
this newsgroup on a regular basis, but recently I've been reading it
diligently, because of this discussion. Where's gnu.misc??
Second, overall, it seems a real flakey thing on Apples part, to start running
after everyone who breaths windows (reminiscent of Coca Cola's (tm) wars over
the word Coke (tm) -- Mr Pepsi himself learnt something here?). Here is a
Corporation who allowed people to distribute Apple DOS with their products.
Who turned a blind eye to people patching and hacking at their DOS, and
redistributing it. Now, all of a sudden, they are protective of "their"
technology. I think the days of Apple as a youthful, innovative company are
drawing to a close. To quote Carl Gutekunst on Sun Microsystems;
"They are quickly reaching critical mass..."
I think that perhaps Apple has become courageous on the blood of past
'conquests' like Digital Research. I was very sorry that DRI gave up the
battle, setting a nasty precedent that hopefully will be nipped in the bud
by Hewlett-Packard. In the meantime, anything we can do to help will, in the
long run, be beneficial to all of us.
- Der
--
Reply: dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Der Tynan @ Tynan Computers)
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Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by... [WBY]paul@UUNET.UU.NET (Paul Hudson) (10/03/88)
As I understand it, DR had enough financial trouble at that time to make settling out of court the right thing to do. I hope HP and Microsoft will be too large for this. Paul Hudson Snail mail: Monotype ADG Email: ...!ukc!acorn!moncam!paul Science Park, paul@moncam.co.uk Milton Road, "Sun Microsysytems: Cambridge, The Company is Arrogant (TM)" CB4 4FQ