pml@SUN.COM (PM Lashley) (09/27/88)
First, let me apologise for posting something here which is not specifically
involved with emacs. I do not get uucp news (yet) and have no other method
of ensuring that those who have been following the Apple/GNU have a chance
to read the suggestion at the end of this message.
All of the below represent my personal views and beliefs; even though some of
them are phrased as absolutes. They should not be construed as the views or
beliefs of any other individual, or of any company, organization, or other
legal entity.
Apple has the right to the source code that they wrote. They do not have the
right to the basic window, menu, and mouse handling concepts. The point at
which they lose the exclusive right is neither clear nor obvious. I believe
that there is some truth to the claim that they are attempting to define that
line. I would prefer to see it defined very close to the source code. I
believe that in the long run, the closer the line is to the concepts, the more
damage will be done to both the industry and Apple.
What Apple is trying to do is analgous to George Lucas attempting to copyright
the concepts involved in the movie Star Wars. In fact there were no new
concepts involved at all. It was how, and how well, he put them together
that made it a great movie. Star Wars cannot be cloned with any degree of
success because cloning does not bring the fundamental artistry necessary.
Instead, LucasFilms concentrates on keeping their techniques secret and
maintaining control over specific, identifiable, characters (R2-D2, Princess
Leia, etc) and words (Star Wars, wookie, etc.). Returning to Apple; I support
their right to copyright the specific bit patterns in their ROMs; and I would
support an effort by them to copyright specific icons and window designs,
if the descriptions of them are sufficiently precise. `An icon depicting
a file folder' for example, would be MUCH too vague. In fact, I suspect that
any natural language definition of an icon or screen layout would be too
vague. Specific bitmaps should be copyrightable with some degree of variance
allowed. Formal language (i.e. PostScript) definitions should be allowed.
Both should be judged in the same manner as a copyrighten work of art.
My suggestion:
Buy one share of Apple stock (I am not sure exactly what they offer, but
make sure that you have voting rights). Show up at the stockholders meeting.
Make your views known there. With a little organization, this can be VERY
effective.
PMLashley sun!cohesive!kla!pat cohesive!kla!pat@sun.com
KLA Instruments POBox 5016, 3901 Burton Drive
Santa Clara, CA 95052
408/988-6100
P.S. Do not REPLY without checking the headers. Sun seems to be bashing them
on the uucp-to-internet transition. My correct address is in the
signature above.weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Matthew P Wiener) (09/27/88)
Is it time for a gnu.policy or gnu.copyleft list??? In article <8809262106.AA09340@serendip.kla.com>, cohesive!kla!serendip!pml@SUN (PM Lashley) writes: > `An icon depicting >a file folder' for example, would be MUCH too vague. In fact, I suspect that >any natural language definition of an icon or screen layout would be too >vague. Specific bitmaps should be copyrightable with some degree of variance >allowed. Formal language (i.e. PostScript) definitions should be allowed. Note that copyright law does not protect against independent recreation. That is, if out of thin air I wrote a word-for-word copy of some Stephen King novel--and I could convince a judge and jury that I have never seen or heard nigh of Stephen King all these years--then my version would be an independent work of art, and separately copyrightable! So I don't think it would be *possible* to effectively copyright some- thing as basic as an icon depicting a file folder. Hire a starving art major who has never used a Mac before, and get them to churn out icons. And to minimize any Apple derived connection that might be used against you in a later court case, boycott all Apple products starting now. These considerations don't apply to trademarks or patents. ucbvax!garnet!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720