bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) (05/17/89)
In article <31234@bu-cs.BU.EDU> tower@bu-it.BU.EDU@bu-it.BU.EDU writes: >From: tower@bu-it.BU.EDU > >From: randy@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Randy Smith ) >Newsgroups: ne.general,alt.activism >Subject: Fight User Interface Copyright: Picket Lotus >Reply-To: rms@wheaties.ai.mit.edu >Organization: Free Software Foundation > >As you may know, Lotus, Apple and a few other companies are trying to >create a new kind of legal monopoly: copyright on user interfaces. Let them. IMHO, the "user interfaces" Apple and Lotus have implemented in their products are pathetic. The fact that much of the software for X window systems changed from a usable collection of interface for X10 to a gaggle of annoying, toyish, Mac-like junk for X11 is only proof that some lemmings get degrees in software design rather than skittering off the cliff into the sea as they should. I don't even want to think more about the insipid implementation of a visage for Lotus' 1-2-3... >see what this would mean, imagine if the standard clock face were >copyrighted, and each clock manufacturer had to invent a different way >to display the time. Clock faces can be copyrighted; ask yer Swatch. Further, you'd be hopelessly afraid of your own talent if you believed you could not improve on an interface sufficiently that it would not violate the copyright; otherwise, it would have to be perfect, in which case you shouldn't be messing with it. It's probably appropriate that an interface could be copyrighted. Someone spends man-months or -years working out the ergonomic and psychological bugs in a system, and then some clod from I-Scru-U. Software Inc. goes and copies it into his own software... there's laws against that, the least of which mandate that credit for original work be given. If the discovery of room-temperature fusion can be patented, and the equations in the description of that discovery can be copyrighted, and you consider that nobody invented fusion, they just corraled it, then it is only _more_ just that something unique and created whole from the capabilities of a class of machinery deserves even more to be made the property of the individual who created it. Consider a film. I make a film. You, on the other hand, make a video tape with the identical images; the visual information is the same, but the representation on the tape is nothing like the representation on the film. One is a sequence of magnetic domain alignments, the other is an arrangement of pigment particles. Amazingly different, they are. Yet, if you didn't ask my permission to make those images appear on the retina of the viewer, I could sue your VHS HQ off. The user interface is the sensory input/output that I create, and the code for that interface is what you change. No difference. You may be able to copyright your code, but if it implements my images, you're going to get sued, and I will be right to do it. >Interface copyright will burden users with gratuitous >incompatibilities and software developers with obnoxious lawsuits. Obnoxious? How obnoxious is it to protect the results of long years of work and the fruits of experience and inspiration? Theft? Now _that_ is obnoxious. Gratuitous incompatibilities? Hardly. Incompatibilities result from the inability to transfer data. If I implement a data _storage_ method that depends uniquely on my data _presentation_ method, then either I've got data unique to that presentation, and useless otherwise, or I've just screwed up, big-time. It'd be a self-destructive act to prevent a user from accessing data with only my interface. Nobody would buy the junk. Then again, no data is accessible _only_ through a specific interface. A software engineer who can't extract information from _any_ storage method didn't pay attention in class. If I copyright a storage representation, I should get the same consideration as if I copyrighted the interface, or the code, or the manual, or the tune to "They Call the Wind Maria." If I keep the representation a secret, however, and prevent users from being able to access data that belong to them that may be stored in my copyrighted representation, then I should be stoned, burned at the stake, and boiled in oil, not necessarily in that order. (You listening, Apple? Closing the Mac was a BIG mistake... :-| ) >The situation is critical. Last month, we placed an ad in The Tech to >warn computer scientists in the MIT community of the danger of user >interface copyright. Now we'd like to carry the campaign one step >further by picketing Lotus in Cambridge. That's right: crowds, signs >and all the rest. Sounds like fun. Too bad you're wrong. You ought to have picketed to get them to _improve_ the interface, rather than to _release_ it... >We plan to demonstrate on Wednesday, May 24, meeting at noon at Tech >Square in Cambridge (outside, under the trees). So that we can find >out if there is enough support to make this event fly, we'd like >people on Usenet or Internet who plan to participate to send us net >mail. In a couple of days, when we see the response, we will send out >another announcement. Sorry. I have too much work to do. Besides, I don't agree with you. I'd like to make some money for doing my work, rather than seeing it all stolen away by inadequate academicians who don't have the intellect or creativity to implement their own or ask me for a copy. Now, if you want to walk into the FatCat's office and ask him how he can screw tens of thousands of users out of inflated prices just so that he can be the Higest Paid Executive in the US of A... Or, if you want to walk outside the offices of Apple and protest their inanity and lack of respect for the intelligence of the average computer user... I could picket either of these companies with great relish. I hate them. They suck. However, you've got the wrong issue, and you're on the wrong side of it. >Our ad inspired the Boston Globe, Computerworld and Infoworld to cover >the issue. A demonstration with a good turnout could have even more >impact. "Impact?" "More _impact_?" And here I always thought impacts came in unit quantities, and resulted in the application of Newton's first, second, and third laws... Sorry. Just a little grammar-flame in the middle of a really good philosophy-flame. >Gerald J. Sussman, Professor at MIT >Richard Stallman, Developer of Emacs Uh, really? Emacs? Things are starting to make sense to this Vi-user... 8-D --Blair "Interface, eh? Watch me save and quit this edit with two keystrokes, without redefining _my_ user interface to do it... ZZ"
tower@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) (05/19/89)
In article <2889@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
... a lot of argument about Stallman call to picket Lotus on May 24th
to protest Lotus' look and feel suit.
Houghton doesn't show a lot of understanding of intellectual property
law. Or of the reasons the Founding Fathers provided for it in the
Constitution, and why, when, and what Congress has done since then on
the issue. He also has a view towards rights that is very
individualistic and ignores the fact that almost all rights are
granted by society.
I refer those who are interested in this issue to:
"Why the Look and Feel of Software User Interfaces Should Not
Be Protected by Copyright Law", Pamela Samuelson, CACM (Communications
of the ACM), pp 663-574, May 1989, Vol 32, No 5.
It will provide the start of a background to intelligently discuss the
issue.
Most professionals involved in this area (both lawyers and
computerists) who aren't working for a company trying to misuse
copyright to protect user interfaces, agree that copyrighting them is
wrong.
Some feel that patenting is more appropriate. Some that a 4th kind of
intellectual property is needed. Some that all looks and feels should
stay in the public domain. There have been court case supporting all
of these views as well as the copyright one.
Most of the present problems in this area come from the fact that
computer technology, especially software, is very different from other
intellectual property. Congress and most courts have yet to truly
appreciate just how it differs and exactly what it is.
I suspect that the issue is headed back to Congress. If not, the
Supreme Court will sort it all out.
enjoy -len
PS: All looks and feels should be in the public domain. ;-}phssra@mathcs.emory.edu (Scott R. Anderson) (05/19/89)
In article <2889@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes: >If the discovery of room-temperature fusion can be >patented, and the equations in the description of that discovery can be >copyrighted, and you consider that nobody invented fusion, they just >corraled it, then it is only _more_ just that something unique and >created whole from the capabilities of a class of machinery deserves >even more to be made the property of the individual who created it. The discovery of room-temperature fusion *cannot* be patented. The equations in the description of that discovery *cannot* be copyrighted. What *can* be patented is the particular methodology through which the phenomenon is produced. And this has to be precisely spelled out. If someone else comes up with a different way to achieve the same result (e.g. using something besides palladium), then that *wouldn't* be covered by the patent. * * ** Scott Robert Anderson gatech!emoryu1!phssra * * * ** phssra@unix.cc.emory.edu phssra@emoryu1.bitnet * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton) (05/20/89)
In article <31414@bu-cs.BU.EDU> tower@bu-it.bu.edu (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) writes: >Houghton doesn't show a lot of understanding of intellectual property >law. I know plagiarism when I see it. Tell me you're better. Anyone? (Disclaimer: I'm not a Patent Lawyer, but I play one on the net...:) >He also has a view towards rights that is very individualistic and >ignores the fact that almost all rights are granted by society. A libertarian I'm not, but I want to protect my income, especially when it's earned through inventiveness. > "Why the Look and Feel of Software User Interfaces Should Not >Be Protected by Copyright Law", Pamela Samuelson, CACM (Communications >of the ACM), pp 663-574, May 1989, Vol 32, No 5. ^^^^^^^-pagewarp... >It will provide the start of a background to intelligently discuss the >issue. From a biased viewpoint, judging by the title... (Further Disclaimer: I'm not a Federal Judge, but I play one on the net... :-) >Most professionals involved in this area (both lawyers and >computerists) who aren't working for a company trying to misuse >copyright to protect user interfaces, agree that copyrighting them is >wrong. 4 out of 5 doctors, or something like that. Define 'misuse'. Does it include, as it may come to, if legislation prevents protection of this sort of 'intellectual property' (and a more nebulous term never was wrought),...where was I? Oh, yeah. Does 'misuse' include collecting royalties on and controlling production of original creations? Sounds like it would break most of the current patent and copyright laws right in half. >Some feel that patenting is more appropriate. If there's a thing to agree on, it's this. I just fail to see that there's an enormous difference between the copyright of the image and the patent of the systemics, and why one would agree to one and not to the other... >Most of the present problems in this area come from the fact that >computer technology, especially software, is very different from other >intellectual property. Different, maybe, but only in its ease of alteration and dissemination. Otherwise, it's chemical formulae and process control and algorithms and all that blort that's gone before it...and any blues singer can change a few notes... >Congress and most courts have yet to truly >appreciate just how it differs and exactly what it is. Well, we could go on for DAYS about the speed of light in an electromagnetic-field-free vacuum... :-) >PS: All looks and feels should be in the public domain. ;-} Gee. Should I add alt.sex.binaries to the newsgroups line? ;-d --Blair "Disclaimer: I'm not a look and feel, but I play one on the net..."