Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
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'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
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
"Think Different. Or else."
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.
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