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Apple Gets Testy About GUI
ShogZilla writes "Apple threatened Skinz.org (a windows "skins" site) & Stardock (makers of the win32 app "windowblinds") with legal action if a certain skin
The problem? The skin (winaqua) alters WinOS window frames to mimic the Mac OS Aqua appearance - kinda. It's very altered, the graphics are custom, & the layout is different - but that doesn't appear to matter.
After the threat, both sites initially complied, but have reconsidered & have reposted the skin; it does not use any graphics from aqua, it does not contain any mac logos etc; it's an original work - just inspired by the aqua GUI.
" I'm still waiting for an Aqua theme for E - Aqua just looks so darn /purty/.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
go to : http://sawmill.themes.org/ themes.phtml?themeid=947266463 .. ... to make thing really pretty use :
I'm using it quite for a while
And
http://gtk.themes.org/themes.p html?themeid=947543904 the matching GTK theme ! YEAH !
Don't you think Apple deserves to be able to protect Aqua's GUI? Apple has spent thousands of man-hours creating this look for the future OS, and these themes authors have simply lifted it. Unfortunately, the courts don't seem to agree that Apple deserves any protection. It's funny how Apple can sue over the look of their computers, but not their OS? Perhaps Apple can look closely at the themes on these sites, and see if there are any instances where the authors lifted elements from the QuickTime movies on Apple's MacOS X site.
Luckily for Apple, Aqua is a lot more then just a theme. It adds transparency to the entire interface and other refinements that a theme simply cannot duplicate. No one can claim that adding a Window's theme to a Mac or Mac theme to a Windows machine, in anyway duplicates the GUI of the other platform. The GUI is a lot more than a simple theme.
Sig goes here
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
What completely freaked me out about the whole Look and Feel case was that Apple was so clearly in the wrong - it had licensed it's technology to Microsoft - and that it had *did not plan* for the possibility that it wouldn't win the case. I love and use Apple products, but there's no excuse for arrogance and NIH. It also looks like Stardock saw the Aqua interface before it was announced at Macworld - the press release announcing and debuting the new skin was released only a few hours after the keynote. Either someone was working *really* fast or they had prior knowedge. At this stage it's difficult to tell because the details are not clear. Another thing; Stardock originally called the skin Object desktop. Check the Stardock press release. Oh, and check out As The Apple Turns for a lighter view of the situations. If you don't get it the first time, trawl through their tape library. If you still don't get it, i give up. ;) Ben ***** 'If it ain't got an animal or a piece of fruit on it, it's worthless."
Golf; a good walk spoiled. -Mark Twain
A computer graphics professional should be able to protect his work, like any artist, against someone who creates a cheap rip-off. The Aqua interface (IMO) is beautiful, and the result of many hours of hard work, trial-and-error processes, refinements, etc.. That kind of investment doesn't deserve to be stolen by some mediocre photoshop kiddie who watched the MWSF keynote address and said "Hey, good idea, I think I'll swipe it."
Gross.
They might want to be careful, I don't know US law, but could their initial removal of the material (offending or not) be seen as implicit acknowledgement of wrongdoing? (A la the reason why most discussion boards are fully censored or not at all - you censor one and effectively take responsibility for the rest)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Plug and Play?
The taskbar?
DirectX?
Um, Office?
Much as I hate Microsoft as much as the next corporation, some of the features in Office (particularly Excell) are gobsmacking. (Win32, on the other hand, is bollocks, but credit is due for Office). This is why they have a monopoly.
Microsoft have even been spotted posting RFC's and drafts for open standards recently. They've finally started behaving themselves (thank God).
Apple have no right to tell us what we can and cannot put on our desktop. If they can't sell products on merit of being better products then they clearly can't keep up with technology. Why doesn't MacOS have themes yet?
I actually see Apple being a great deal more of a threat to open-standards than M$ (remember the Indeo codec?).
Yes, Apple deserves to be able to protect their GUI. _If_ you define the GUI as the total of theme+window manager. In Apples case this means, theme+window manager+kernel.
Does Apple have the right to protect a 'theme'?
No, it does not. There are countless references to this, unless the copycat _duplicates_ an art _exactly_, this is when copyrights kick in, "design" an sich, is not protected.
Relevant court material can probably be found in the Apple vs Microsoft "look and feel" case.
Is it funny that Apple can protect their hardware looks, but not their software looks?
Not really, just on the surface perhaps, but the fact is, Hardware lookalikes will directly impact Apple sales, this can be prooven.
Software lookalikes will have NO IMPACT whatsoever on Apple sales, UNLESS the COMPLETE OS will be copied. I cannot imagine an Apple Artist buying a windowz workstation, JUST because theres an aqua theme. Its therefore utterly stupid to fight themes.
It also contradicts the recent Apple "willingness and flirtations" with Open Source. It therefore is not even from a marketing viewpoint sensible. What? Open Sourcing the (parts of) OS but sueing on a theme?? Get a grip.
(This should get through the ThickBoned Head of Marketing guru Jobs.)
Greetz SlashDread
I find this scary just because they were threatening to sue because their OS's look has been mimicked.
Those of you who are running themeable window managers such as enlightenment windowmaker etc. are probably aware of the existence of themes that mimic various OSes' appearance.
Please check out www.themes.org to get an idea of what I am talking about.
Do the theme authors risk a similar lawsuit threat? Is themes.org heading for trouble?
I hope some kind soul on slashdot can enlighten us about these questions.
OLE springs to mind. Linking a spreadsheet object to a word object and having both display in one application window was, I think, a true innovation at the time.
Possibly some professor had done the same in a lab 5 years earlier, but that hardly counts, any more than saying the internal combustion engine is just a copy of the steam engine because they both use the compressed-gas-cylinder-camshaft technology.
Anywa, here are some more, these are all just IMHO, so please correct me if I'm wrong:
docking toolbars and menus
DHCP (and very good it is too)
realtime spell checking (wiggly red lines in word)
ODBC
A comprehensive approach to disabled users
Comprehensive (if occasionally random) support for non-roman charactersets and languages
And finally, MS get big bonus points for ditching ASCII and shifting to unicode everywhere WAY before anyone else.
Flames to me personally if you must, please...
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I'm patiently waiting for the folks at Universal Church of Sidus Julium (a bunch of people worshiping Julius Caesar as a deity) to launch a lawsuit against Apple, claiming a look-and-feel violation from Apple's use of Roman numerals in the name of OS X. After all, years of research and development that went into inventing the Roman-numeral system, and Apple is clearly a latecomer hoping to cash in on the numeral X's sexiness and consumer appeal.
I normally tend to support Apple, but this one is rediculous.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
How can one stake ownership to the aesthetic feel that a theme provides to it's underlying window manager. A theme by today's standards provides no more than this.
:).
In my opinion, the real situation would be different if the themes in question were able to provide functionality that could emulate the MacOS, but they cannot. They neither acheive this nor reproduce copyrighted material of Apple.
What would follow next if Apple succeeded in their petty argument, would web designers be able to sue other sites for coding, from scratch, a site that has the same look and feel as their own?
Perhaps Apple should be quiet and accept the fact that if people are going to the trouble of creating look-alike themes from scratch, then they are both advertising Apple's original OS existance and advertising how cool it is (Aqua, cool
I neither use nor endorse Apple products, I find a bitter aftertaste from using previous products of theirs. But like many others, I find the existance of themes representing (read: merely looking-alike) the MacOS system making me more and more curious as to how 'cool' the original platform is.
Perhaps because of these theme's creations, I may even purchase a new Mac since I have almost tried before I've buyed...
Cow of ThirdEye
I have been reading /. for awhile now, actually a little over 2 years. One thing I have noticed, especially in comments on the MacOS, Gnome, K, etc is a lack of understanding of what makes a good GUI. Winaqua DOES NOT replicate the MacOS GUI. It merely mimics the MacOS Desktop. Winaqua CAN NOT replicate the MacOS GUI, because the underlying Windows code is not there to support it. In other words, the GUI is more than a set of icons, dock, desktop, theme. Now, alot of Linux desktop managers (they are not quite even GUIs yet) LOOK ok. They have neat buttons, sliders, icons, docks, etc. All the bells and whistles. They do not, hovever provide as decent a GUI as even MacOS 7, much less 9 or X. Why? They may look kewler. Hell, they DO look cooler, but their interface considerations, consistency, depts of admin capability do not even touch nT, which itself can not touch the Mac OS. Apple should leave well enough alone. Do not flame me here. I am a Apple/Lisa/Mac head thru and thru since 1979. But Winaqua is a joke. MacOS X is more about Mach, BSD, OpenGL, Quartz, Consistency and the overall fit and finish that it is about a set of dials and buttons. Oh, and one more thing...Windows did not invent any of the above items. I do not know if anyone here refuted the arg that they invented taskbar, menus yet, but these were also invented at PARC, and HEAVILY improved by the first MacOS designers.
1. There's a difference between imitating GUI concepts (such as curved edges and other 'look and feel' factors) and blatantly copying a piece of copyright art, even if done using the 'look and copy' method rather than the 'cut and paste'. People going on about GUI similarities between WIN95 and MacOS should look at this GIF animation showing a screenshot off sawmill.themes.org, with elements of the original MacOS X screenshot differenced out. Black means identical pixels.
2. Being able to emulate MacOsX's precise look on Win32 and X machines will harm Apple's campaign to market Macs as a trendy alternative - which is why they spent so much time and money developing it. Of course, you are are perfectly entitled to develop a similar look using their ideas. You shouldn't be able to just copy it directly.
3. This isn't about the right to emulate. That was settled in Apple's case versus Microsoft. This is about the right to copy.
As an analogy, think of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Originally a masterpiece. However, any half-decent artist can paint a very good copy of it. The true artist, though, takes the eyes, the smile and the use of color and paints his own masterpiece.
To say that the skin is an original work is like saying a forgery of the Mona Lisa is an original work. Looking at the skin indicates to everyone that the source of the images used for the buttons, window controls, etc is MacOS X. If a user interface can be considered a work of art then it deserves the same protection as any other art form.
I have often seen unauthorized copies of Enlightenment windows on the Skinz site. The least these guys could do is ask the original author for permission to 'port' these window designs and accept it when the author says 'NO'.
Copying with permission is fine, copying without is theft!
M.T.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
"Think Different. Or else."
When I finally found the official objection, it turned out to be a rant (more or less) against Apple. What I want to see is: The official letter from some official Apple representative stating the official objections Apple had. Until I see it, I reserve judgement.
Why? Here are some possibilities that "clear Apple's name":
Post the official objection. The wording will be more telling of Apple's position than the hearsay we've seen so far.
Nah, nah, nah, you've got it all wrong, mate.
That none of the allegedly ironic examples given in the song are actually ironic is deliberate. It's ironic that the song, called Ironic, is not ironic, thus making the song ironic. Thus the non-ironic song is thus very ironic, which is itself doubly ironic, or meta-ironic... er... or something.
Therefore Alanis is not a silly moo at all, but in fact very clever. Unless she really is dumb and is just being ironic about it all.
--
This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
I'll give you your (1) (maybe), but automatic footnoting is hardly a Microsoft innovation. I had it in my FORMAL portable text formatter back in 1979-1980ish, which I believe pre-dates Word 1.0. And I probably cribbed it from Waterloo Script or one of the other text processors around.
:)
As for "Bob", the less said the better
-- Alastair
To give credit where credit is due, MS spends a decent chunk of change on original research. Check out research.microsoft.com to see what they're up to.
And as for other technologies, they seem to be leading the way in hardware products (or is that just me being ignorant about hardware trends?). If I recall, they were the first with the ergonomic keyboard, the wheel doohicky, the intelliEye (didn't someone tell the marketing people not to put so many vowels together? oh well) optical system, that bad-ass phone that you could hook up to your PC, the Timex watch data synchronization thing...
And the paper clip guy is pretty cool too, from a technical standpoint (if not from an actual usefulness standpoint). It's a Bayes (belief) network- you can find out how it works by rooting around for that topic on the MS research site.
-jacob
This isn't a flame, but like anyone in the Linux community should talk. What amazing innovations have come out of us? It's mostly reimplementation of closed-source tools.
... use the flag of your choice) is the development model. It's not what the software does (end results), but how it is produced (how you get there) that's significant.
The biggest "innovation" of the community for which Linux is currently the poster child (Open Source, Free Software,
I put "innovation" in quotes because in the digital world it's a pretty nebulous term and hard to define. Ideas and code and software are extremely promiscuous and incestuous. Pick any "innovation" of the last 5 years and you will find antecedants from the 80s and 70s and 60s.
Linux is a hotbed of "innovation" because it lives in an environment stripped of the rules and taboos forbidding sex. Anybody can screw anybody else, mixing genes and chromosones with glee and abandon, creating offspring similar but not quite the same as anything else. Gene swapping is common in the proprietary world too, but's hampered and restricted.
It's mostly reimplementation of closed-source tools.
True, many portions are reimplementations of closed-source tools. But many closed source tools are implementations of open source academic research products.
I've used Apple II's. I've used PETs, right back to the earliest models. I've used TRS-80's. I've used ZX-80's. For that matter, I've used Prime 350 mainframes, when "advanced display" meant a decent teletype.
And -you- tell -me- to learn history? *COUGH!*
The "very first commercial home computer game" was not, as you claim, "Mystery House". That -may- have been the very first game with mass popularity, but "home computer" games have been traded for sums of money from the days of the Altair. It was (and is) human nature to exchange and exchange is what brought computers to the home in the first place, long before the Apple I, never mind the Apple II, was even a glimmer in it's designer's eye! I'd bet there were rogue copies of Pong being sold at schools, in clubs, and at meetings, before the Williams' even knew what a computer was.
Apple was the "first homebrew computer company to get serious venture capital funding and professional management", eh? Well, if you add enough conditions, you can turn anything into a first. Z is the first letter after Y, for that matter. Being last means you're the first to not have someone behind you, too.
Other "homebrewers" you might want to study closely are Sir Clive Sinclair, who had a booming radio, amplifier, metal detector, and other equiptment business long before the dawn of the microprocessor, let alone the dawn of home computers. The ZX80 may have come after the Apple II, in mere date, but if you want to argue firsts, it outsold the entire Apple range to that date, and had more of a homebrew design than any of the later Apple computers could even dream of. (It also worked better than the early Macs.)
Disks were a late invention, for the home computer market. Tapes were all the rage, especially in the mid 70's, and tapes were how games were distributed. Earlier generations of home computers were programmed by switch, so instructions were typed or written.
Apple were -never- the Microsoft of anything, except maybe in their dreams, and I doubt either Jobs or Waznick were that conceited. Commodore -owned- the business market (as far as personal computers went), and a fair percentage of both the educational and home markets, too. Of the remaining market, the Apples barely touched Europe, which mostly concentrated on local talent, and at least half of what was left built their own out of spare parts.
No, Apple were rich, yes, but not awe-inspiring or all-powerful. They were moderately successful, reasonably well-off, but not much beyond that.
As for their professional marketing, that nearly killed Apple stone-dead. The early Apple Macs switched themselves off when you removed the disk from the drive. It was slow, expensive, had little memory (mostly used for graphics), and was only practical with a hard drive (which was an expensive add-on). Those were amongst Apple's worst times, and spelled the start of their financial ruin. It was at this time that they shed their "homebrew" look, went corporate, forbade clones, and nearly died. Apples's market crashed through the floor. The only reason IBM and Microsoft survived the early days was that people ripped IBM off left, right and centre. =THAT= spared IBM and Microsoft for the same reason the lack of clones killed Apple. No competition, no growth, no life.
If Apple were as successful as you say, and had learned the same lesson IBM did in the early days, I'd be typing this on a Mac-lookalike. I'm not, and the responsibility for that lies at the door of the people you worship.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)