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Themes Removed At Apple's Behest
A couple of people wrote in noting that Themes.org has had to comply with a request from Apple that they remove the following themes: Aqua, AquaX, eMac, and eMac-GTK.
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let me say once again. it's the logo.
if you build a theme with the OS X widgets or even one that looks exactly like platinum, nobody can complain, because, after all, Apple already lost that battle in the '80s. it's pixels. look and feel or not, it can be copied. bla bla woof woof. there are dozens of mac-like themes that do exactly this, a lot more than the 4 or so that were pulled.
but, once you use the apple logo, a copyrighted, trademarked, protected-by-pitbulls-and-lawyers piece of Apple, you have stepped over your 'fair use' or 'parody' (or whatever) boundary.
microsoft could do the same thing, but it seems they have bigger legal fish to fry, and couldn't care less if you copied their logo, let alone user experience (sic).
Apple is completely within their rights here, once again, and is doing what is legally required of a trademark holder in defending their trademark. considering it's one of the world's best recognized brands - in some surveys even moreso than Nike's - it only makes sense that they defend it more emphatically than most companies. granted, a little more effort than having one of their freshman lawyers send out a C&D letter could smooth things over considerably, but all those here (and on themes.org) crying foul over the Big Guy bullying the Poor Little Open Source movement could be a little more mature and sympathetic as well.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
If someone copies their design, then they really don't have a heck of a lot to sell to people. It's unfortunate that they feel a need to protect their design so rabidly, because of course a UI is more than just a color scheme, but if you live inside a company with that kind of a business scheme, your top worry is that someone eles is going to become a pretty as you, and so keeping people from using their color schemes is just one of the logical things to do, from their POV.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I always considered M$ a wanna-be-an-apple. And this one comfirms this. M$ never decided to take over the users likes, dislikes or hacks. Directly I mean. It had always turned around and fought in the sides.
Now Apple keeps being Czar of all Czars in this area. Why the Hell they decided to go that way? Because it hits their sales? No. Because someone should be more ethic and ask Apple for permission? Neither. Because Apple wants to figth the market? Naaaaa...
Because Apple thinks always this way - it's mine! it's mine and IT'S ALL MINE!!!! I don't give it anyone. I don't even give to its own partners or brothers. I will keep it only to myself. I'll even put screws that can only be open by my screwdriver. And I will not give it to anyone. And I will sell this to anyone. Like a can of Coke. Everything inside, don't worry for nothing I didn't miss a piece. If I did miss something then it's you who are wrong, not me. And even if I'm in the damn ****, my personell is hitting the streets, and I'm losing billions, I will not give anything to anyone. I'm cute and good. And in the end people will finally find I'm right...
To old timers. Did I miss anything here? I think the main resume is here...
If you look at the history of Jobs/Apple, you can find where Jobs felt the 'borrowing' for the Lisa an Mac of the Xerox star was fine and wonderful.
Yet, when others do the same 'borrowing', Apple/Jobs get upset.
And, at this time, Apple *CLAIMS* the themes in question are their IP. This has not been decided by a judge, so Apple *MAY* not own said IP. Take it to a judge....
Themes.org had a choice: Stand on the principal on 'this is a protected form of expression' and go bankrupt, not to mention creating a case history of an Apple win (not on merits, but because Apple's $4 billion in the bank to spend on lawyers) *OR* publically pull these themes and let a whole bunch of ppl thump their chests over the injustice, and a smaller subset to choose not to buy Apple products.
Themes.org took the route that allows them to remain, not to mention being the easist.
If you want Themes.org to fight this, give them a legal war-chest for the fight. Oh, and be sure to pay for the defense of the authors of the disputed themes.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
The idea is "Don't bite the hand that feeds you". Because Apple is gaining so much from OSS, it seems strange that they would sue over a few icons. It's like me giving you a house but you taking me to court for stealing $100 from you. It's your legal right, but it sure is stupid.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Seems my Mac theme is the only one left. Perhaps Apple leaves the accurate themes alone out of respect (kidding).
Or perhaps it is because I don't use the Mac logo everywhere. I may have used it once, but I'm sure I had a legal-like disclaimer.
Oddly, at one point I did have a Mac logo, a little dark grey one and now I see it has made its way into a winamp theme.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
So my use of Aqua based themes must be the only thing keeping me from buying a PowerMac Cube, eh?
This isn't so much about copyrights as it is about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. The people making/using/hosting these themes are obviously fans of Apples Aqua look and feel. Apple should be happy about it.
There is a house (hell maybe even more than one) painted in the colors of the Denver Broncos. These people are raving fans of the team, do the Broncos shout "You can't paint your house the team colors, those are our colors!," or do they have the local news do a story about them. If I were Apple, I'd have the themes downloadable from my own website!!
The argument is about what he _should_ be allowed to do, not what the law currently allows him to do. You haven't responded to that part, only to the question of legality of the maneuvers.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Someone make up T-shirts with the themes in binary!
xerox, and it wasn't stolen.
/. story)
apple paid xerox to go through the PARC and take what they felt like using, since xerox thought there was no use for the stuff. stock options on the biggest IPO up to that point. xerox made big chunks of change for what apple 'stole'
and the pirate flag was internal apple defiance - the mac group was fighting with the apple][ group. later it was used to show their defiance of the IBM dominance of the PC market.
IBM never did their own interface until OS/2, and then it was only in order to get out from under the thumb of microsoft, something they're doing again by getting in bed with Linux (via redhat, but that's another
get your facts straight before you call anyone hypocrites and pirates.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
Apple is STUPID! I can understand if someone was using their logo(one did, so that's ok but the aqua ones did not), but haven't they learned that Look and Feel stuff doesn't fly? anyone remember Apple trying to sue Microsoft?? What's so HIGH tech about a pixmapped gumdrops??
Gorkman
I was thinking about this for a while.
On the one hand, the themes in this case are used by computer savvy folks (likely Linux or BSD folks) who know the difference between a Mac and PC. They will not be confused.
On the other hand, there are a lot of folks who are new to computers and don't realize that a Mac is not the same as Windows is not the same as PowerPC is not the same as Linux. So Apple spends a lot of money to design a case; someone comes along and copies that case and puts them in stores. A new computer user sees lots of Apple ads, runs over to his local computer store and sees an e-machine or some other knockoff. Will he/she know the difference, or will they think it's the easy-to-use iMac?
Again, we know the difference, but many people think FreeBSD is some new Windows application to put their homepage on the Internet.
Themes are arguably different than a case design. But look at it this way: regardless of which OS you choose, the user interface is becoming similar. Someone mentioned that Windows appropriated elements of the Mac GUI. Well, enlightenment, the gnome and KDE desktops, and all manner of window managers have similar features. How does Apple differentiate itself? By its look-and-feel and themes.
I don't mean (or want) to defend Apple, but I still remember how the Linux and BSD communities reacted when MS released features in NT2000 that had long been available in Unix.
Many then wrongfully infer that this means you only protect from exact duplication. They forgot (or ignored until now) why Apple lost.
There may be other court decisions that allow copying look-and-feel, but not this one.ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
Do the themes' names contain Aqua, Mac, or Apple in them anywhere? Yes, they do. Aqua, AquaX, eMac, and eMac-GTK were removed. They contain Apple's trademarks in their names. This is why they were removed.
Perfectly reasonable.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
here is some analysis of the actual ruling in the apple v. microsoft case. please review it.
please note that it indicates that "[r]emarkably, neither the district court nor the Ninth Circuit ever resolved the ultimate question of real interest in look and feel cases. "
additionally the much-ballyhooed case was a resolution of the licensing dispute between apple and microsoft. apple didn't think that microsoft should be able to use any part of the mac desktop that they felt like. microsoft and the courts disagreed.
the most important bit of this is simply that the desktop metaphor is not defendable.
whether the overall look and feel of a product is defendable or not is not addressed by this ruling. just the desktop metaphor in the particular instanciation of windows 1.0-3.0 and the original mac desktop.
to the topic at hand, apple has dumped years of work into the widgets and engines that drive osx. they are not an open-source house. period. they don't have to be. i'm sorry if you don't agree, but there it is. they built it, somebody copied it.
open source or no, if you copied a term paper or cs class problem set from another student in college, you'd be tossed out on your ass.
how is this so different?
8===D
It is part of my unique user interface and cost me all sorts of time, trouble, blood, sweat, tears, and lost lives to bring it to you. You may use it if you buy my new ASCII based interface. By pressing this button, you tell my interface to be happy. If you use it in your interface for the same purpose, I'll sue you! I swear I will.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't think Apple "stole" the GUI from Xerox. Xerox was stupid enough to give it away. BTW, I believe there was an actual license involved. (I read about this way back about 1987 when Apple sued MS over the GUI.)
Apple did invent a lot of the original GUI in the Mac and Lisa.
Microsoft happily copied Apple's genuine innovations in GUI design. And again, there was a license involved. Similar to Xerox, Apple (Scully) was stupid enough to give it all away to MS, which is why the lost the lawsuit.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
There is a whole lot more to look and feel than a few bitmaps of widgets and a color scheme. Apple is just a stingy spoilt brat. They'd sue mirrors for look and feel infringement.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
There are also plenty of themes that copy MicroSoft's, including the default appearance of KDE, and also the default appearance of most non-themed toolkits such as FLTK, FOX, and JX.
Yet MicroSoft did not threaten anybody over this!
We are all damn lucky the meglomaniac who is in charge is Bill Gates. Just imaging Steve Jobs in that position! (or Scott McNealy, for that matter...)
not having access to the themes (any more) or the C&D letter, i can't check, but if you're correct, and these themes don't have the logo, they must contain some other elements that Apple has trademarked or copyrights to.
hell, it may be the names - Aqua is (tm) Apple, as is Mac. to avoid these themes bringing confusion in the marketplace as "the Aqua interface" and "the Mac interface" (both things Apple hopes to be very specifically theirs and nobody else's) and "the Aqua/Mac user experience" might be the whole point of this latest round of C&Ds. again, nobody but the authors (and recipients of the nasty letters) can say for certain.
the _last_ round was about the logo, at least. i had hoped the theme authors had learned their lesson last time...
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
So what if Aqua is NeXT? Apple bought NeXT, so it owns their IP, too.
Apple lost their lawsuit with Microsoft because Apple had already licensed some of their GUI and related technology to Microsoft, and the court found that, in light of the agreement, Microsoft didn't infringe on Apple's copyrights, patents, and trade dress.
These themes do, howerver, infringe on Apple's trade dress, and Apple has a legal obligation to do something about them or lose its legal protection.
Please, please, please, could someone explain to us all the differences between patents, copyright, trademarks, trade dress, and other forms of intellectual property protection. Nobody here seems to get it.
Just some info...
They did not buy 25%. They bought $150 million worth. A big difference. (This is all well documented in news.)
What is the worth of 25% of (at the time was) a $10 billion company? Vastly bigger than any other PC maker. In about '88'ish they spun their software out into a seperate company (Claris) that was bigger than Compaq. (Imagine that.)
BTW, MS did make a very tidy profit on their investment. Apple stock was way down at the time, and two years later was 10 times as high. ($12 to $120)
Also FWIW, a rumor, the reason MS bought $150m of Apple stock? They finally got caught with their hand in the till stealing secrets from Apple's R&D. Just a rumor at the time it all happened.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
"I meant to do that" - Pee Wee
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
my thinking is the /. story icon (and places like ZD and C|net using apple's logos for news items) is considered "Fair Use"
after all, i can't talk about a company (good or bad) without using their name, which is a trademark itself. and the press has certain leeway in these matters.
note the tiny R-in-a-circle. that's permission enough for most folks.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
> The Apple ][ was an amazing machine - it inspired a generation of hackers. (I still have one.)
:-) Heck, it was pretty easy to remember most of the 6502 opcodes!
:)
Yes, the reason it was a such a great machine, was that a person could comprehend the WHOLE machine. From the "funky" bitmap graphics addresses (was linear from left to right, but not sequential from top to bottom), right down to the disk drive controller, and using tricks to read "illegal" byte containing 2 consequitive zeros. D5 AA 96 is forever burned into my memory.
ApplePC - one of the best emulators around. Even has mockingboard support !
Long live Aquatron, Lode Runner, and Rescue Raiders
Is KDE (or GNOME) really so difficult to use that we need the Aqua theme?
Ok, here's another stupid question...
Does putting the Aqua theme on KDE make it easier to use?
As I learned it back in '84 (Apple Human Interface Guidelines -- which Apple seems to pay less and less attention to everyday.) the good of a human interface goes way deeper than the pretty icons attached to the widgets.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Someone pointed out in a reply to another post I made in this section that the names of the themes being removed are all Apple trademarks.
Then I realized that OSX2, another Aqua-like theme, wasn't listed in the removed themes.
Go to the global theme search page and look for "Aqua". There are a heck of a lot of Aqua themes for various window/desktop managers.
So was it the names of the themes Apple objected to? Why is Apple being selective with their removal requests? Are they just not aware of the other Aqua-like themes still available, or is it something else? And I ask again; why isn't Apple trying to contact the theme creators?
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Now look at what the Aqua theme copies from Apple. To use a musical analogy, this is a different performance of the same musical work. If Aqua were music, then Apple would be owed royalties for the Aqua theme, fair and square.
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
,i>I use Secret Recipe #1 for my lemonade. Jim Bob analyzes the chemical structure, duplicates it, calls it Secret Recipe #2, and starts marketing it under that name. Should I have the right to sue him for stealing my intellectual property?
Well, if he pattented his lemonade, actually yes. That's called reverse engineering. If he can prove that you performed tests on his lemonade prior to your procuring "Secret Recipe #2", he can and should sue you. If he doesn't have a pattent, and it is a trade secret, then you have decided that your lemonade is so superior to anyone else that even after your pattent runs out no one will successfully duplicate a glass of lemonade equal in quality that pattenting it will only hurt you. If someone develops the same "lemonade technology" then, unfortunately for you, more power to them.
Jim Bob comes over to my stand one day and starts talking with my customers, trying to get them to come over to his stand and try his own Secret Recipe. Should I have the right to sue him for manipulating my customers?
Well, if you own the property you have the right to have him removed for trespassing, soliciting your customers (as long as it is posted), and potential harrassment if he fails to leave when you ask him. Immediately off of your property, he can do whatever he wants. This is why there are so many people standing on the other side of the street from an abortion clinic protesting abortion normally, and not in the front lobby.
--
You say you want a revolution?
While I don't disagree with your logic, I think that Apple may be afraid of losing sales on the PowerPC side of things. With LinuxPPC available, Apple may fear that they will lose future OS sales to one of these Unix variants. Currently, LinuxPPC runs faster than OS-X, and if LinuxPPC looks and acts like OS-X, then they could lose *lots* of OS upgrade sales
Doh!
"Smalltalk had a three-button mouse and pop-up menus, in contrast to the Mac's menu bar and one-button mouse. Smalltalk didn't even have self-repairing windows - you had to click in them to get them to repaint, and programs couldn't draw into partially obscured windows. Bill Atkinson did not know this, so he invented regions as the basis of QuickDraw and the Window Manager so that he could quickly draw in covered windows and repaint portions of windows brought to the front. "
(This was written by Bruce Horn, who worked at PARC and Apple at the time)
Granted, my memory was faulty (it was Atkinson, not Hertzfeld), but if you had overlapping windows that didn't redraw, it would be pretty crappy. The Star implementation sounds like a prototype. What Apple did is a finished product.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
The simple fact is that the themes in question violate Apple trademarks and copyrights. If someone did the same with VA Linux logos and widgets, VA Linux would do the very same thing.
Also, note the wording on the Themes.org site: they say that they "decided to accommodate Apple's request," not that Apple had sent them a cease and decist and would have sued their asses off if they had left them up. There's a big difference, but even at that point, Apple would have every right and legal responsibility to order the removal of their logo and trademarked/copyrighted names such as "Aqua" and "Mac".
This is a very reasonable request. Note also that Apple did not order the complete removal of all Mac OS themes, just the ones that contain their copyrighted and trademark logos and names.
I think Apple is being very reasonable, and should be applauded for not taking the makers of the themes in question, to court. As much as that may piss of open source advocates, protecting and defending your copyrighted and trademarked materials is imperative in modern business.
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"Cogito Eggo Sum: I think, therefore, waffle."
For those who are crazy about macintosh themes, check this link here. It's an FTP site that has a variety of different themes including a few Aqua themes. I suppose that macintosh hasn't seen them yet, otherwise they'd be getting requested to remove their material as well.
Well companies like Apple spent a lot of time and money doing UI research and making their products look and feel as nice and consistant as possible.
This is why MacOS 10 users have to hack their system to restore the look-and-feel they had in version 9 of their OS? Doesn't seem too consistent to me.
It is more complex than this.
Apple originally made dozens (maybe even over a hundred) claims against Microsoft.
Because, previously, Apple had stupidly licensed Microsoft, most of their claims were thrown out by the judge. Only 4 claims remained. (Don't remember what they were. Go read InfoWorld about 1987.)
They lost those four claims. And, although I would have loved to see MS have to pay big bucks, I'm very glad that Apple lost on these particular claims. (I wish they could have won some of the other claims though, but that's just their own stupidity.)
In fact, Apple has done so many stupid things that it is just amazing that they are still in business. Of course, Spindler, and his wonderful Inventory Control almost managed to kill Apple without any help from MS. The only reason Apple survived so many of their stupid mistakes is simple. Buckets of cash to pour onto it. For a long, long time, Apple always kept about $1 billion in cash on hand, and only a tiny amount of long term debt -- enough so that they could operate for an entire year without selling anything. A very envious balance sheet.
Back to the topic... Lotus also lost a lawsuit against Borland involving Borland's Quattro spreadsheet (vs. Lotus 123) over the fact that Quattro had a macro system that enabled you to load in and make Quattro exactly emulate 123's keystroke sequences -- which require quite an investment of learning on the part of users. This was much more a functional issue than a look & feel issue and was widely regarded at the time to be bad news in Apple's suit against MS -- and it was.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
And what the hell is the big deal anyway. The interface of the Mac OS is property of Apple, and if someone tries to copy it, bad luck to them. It's Apple's property and they can do as they like: it's called capitalism people, and you all wouldn't be so well off without it.
Cheers,
Daniel.
--
Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511
VA Linux made the correct decision here in complying with Apple's very reasonable request to remove these themes from their website. As well as avoiding potential legal trouble, the fact is that it would have been unethical for them to allow people to download these themes.
Why? Well companies like Apple spent a lot of time and money doing UI research and making their products look and feel as nice and consistant as possible. To then have someone spend half an hour knocking up a copy for another operating system simply means that their intellectual property has been appropriated and that their time and effort in making their product has been wasted.
The "big two" GUIs for Linux really need to move away from being copyware and start to develop their own "look and feel". At the moment they're playing catchup with Apple and Microsoft, and it's no wonder that people want themes that echo these GUIs on their Linux boxes. Like them or loathe them, nobody can deny that OSX and Windows have slick, professional desktops that show a consistancy and elegance still lacking in KDE or Gnome.
Perhaps as these projects mature more emphasis will be placed on the look and feel rather than functionality. Until then it's not suprising that people are jealous of more mature desktops and want to have them on their machines.
No, no, no, you can't just "Xerox" a "Look & Feel" ;-)
How to make a sig
without having an idea
Has anyone criticizing Apple actually looked at the theme they are complaining about? Here's a link to a screenshot. See it for yourself. Notice the blue apple and the Mac smiley-face icon on the menu bar at the top of the screen. Those are Apple trademarks and if they don't defend them against every infringement then they lose those trademarks.
Not to mention the fact that the casual onlooker might see a computer running this theme and think it is actuall running Mac OS X (not so far fetched since it has the official Apple logo on it and everything). That user will also see the crappy icons at the bottom that don't look half as cool as the real OS X dock, the non-translucent menus/windows, and the windows that don't "slurp" into the dock when iconized and will come away thinking that Aqua sucks when of course they were never looking at the real Aqua in the first place.
Apple clearly doesn't want people mistaking these half-assed themes with the real Aqua which took a lot of effort, design and engineering to build (unlike these cheap rip-offs).
Apple has always been protective of what they deem to be their designs, their 'look and feel'. Remember the long running lawsuit against MS for Windows being derived from Mac OS? They've brought litigation against groups that sought to use a logo like their multi-colored apple, iMac-styled cases, etc...
What I find interesting is that, to my recollection, there were never any such issues with NeXT, given how it is often Jobs who drives the designs. There were a number of 'NeXT-like' themes back when NeXT existed, and nary a peep from NeXT about them.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
I would probably be accused of being an Apple apologist.
There are plenty of things I'm unhappy at Apple about. Apple has made so many bad business decisions that it is amazing they survived some of them.
I don't mind seeing Apple being bashed over stuff they deserve to be bashed over. (Like this.) I just hate to see Apple blasted over untruths and distortions of truth. Just look at some of the outright untruths that are in this thread about Apple. Sometimes people say things that are just so factually wrong, or unfair.
Maybe it's just because of fond memories of a time when Apple really was amazing. And their product was amazing. They captured people's imaginations -- including developers. Bicycles for the mind, and all that.
It probbably is something like this. I certianly wouldn't speak up if someone said something unfair about MS.
Now, there's nothing particularly compelling about Apple.
(I wish I knew the answer to this question: what make one an apologist for something anyway?)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
pardon the digression in the way of amazon.com...
Wow. That's hitting the nail right on the head, as to the issues surrounding IP. You have taken an ideal statment, and pointed out the real dillema facing current Intellectual Property law.
The company that I work for designs many pattentable proccesses and devices. Sometimes we pattent a process, sometimes we pattent a device - these are very distinct differences. When you pattent a device, you are the only one who can make a device which performs the funcionality described under the pattent. When you pattent a process, anybody can produce the product, but you are the only one allowed to produce the product in your pattented manner.
With software, you produce a finished product - a device,or tool. But you really take and construct it through a carefully developed process. If noone has come up with this way, or this product before, then you have truly created something new. The problem with software, however, is that the instruction set is small enough that it is intuitively easy to see how someone created "one click shopping" or, in this case "a really bitchin' GUI." Thousands of people have done it, a portion of it, or can see how to do exactly what you did. There is a necessity to prevent copycat coders to instantaneously produce an identical product, claiming it as their own. Face it, Amazon (in an old case) beat everybody to the punch - albeit a stupid punch. Obviously, amazon couldn't pattent selling books, obviously amazon couldn't pattent a quality of care, but they had obviously produced something which when examined, everyone would want. They had designed something really cool. Anyways, yes...
I now don't like what amazon has done, but I can't fault them for it.
You have given me new insight into many things about pattent law, IP, and whether Amazon.com is truly evil...
--
You say you want a revolution?
It's interesting to me that Apple would make a big fuss over this when it pertains to the open source community, but leaves M$ untouched. I mean after all, Bill stole the GUI from Apple. Think about it, the original Mac menu was on top and had an apple icon in the top left corner that allowed the user to access many programs. All that our "friend" Bill did was move the menu (aka taskbar) to the bottom of the screen and change the apple-icon menu button to a "start" button. In response to Apple, even as evil as M$ is, they didn't make anyone remove FVWM-95 or QVWM from themes.org.
Just putting in my 2 cents....
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Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
I can understand that its annoying to have ideas that you've payed for (i.e. paying for interface designers, ergonomic engineers and so on) and having people steal them. It seems that there will be more harm than good to come out of this though. Apple doesn't need any more animosity than it already has.
On the other hand notice that themes.org hasn't bothered to respond to requests for information on why the themes needed to be removed. Were there some simple demands (Don't use the Apple logo, its a trademark, don't use the term Mac in your themes, its a trademark as well) that they refused to comply with?
Unfortunately Apple generates its own FUD. Since themes.org won't elaborate I would reason that either a) there was a stipulation that they couldn't post the text of the letter b) themes.org is trying to hide something. By not having an official press release from Apple they've allowed the apple bashers to generate all the propoganda.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
How ironic. Today Xerox was trading at 6 dollars all time low, and Xerox was forced to sell part of it to a Japanese company. Does this sound like "The Theives won the war?"
For the eighteen-bazillionth time, Apple didn't just come in and start stealing ideas from clueless Xerox, as "Pirates of Silicon Valley" depicts. Jobs gave Xerox a whole bunch of Apple stock, and more importantly, Xerox understood Apple's intent. They may have not known how popular this stuff would be, but they knew the deal. I believe Woz talks about this on his site.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
...the logo is nowhere to be found in any of the Aqua-like GTK themes!
How do I know? I'm using one of them right now, and I have the other installed.
Now, it might have been in one of the E or Sawfish themes, but I can confidently say it wasn't in any of the GTK ones. In fact, I don't think anyone would have included the Apple logo after the first Aqua theme was removed for that very reason, and removed again at Apple's request even after the logo was removed.
As for the "They spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars..." argument...please. Aqua is NeXT with curvy, bubble-like widgets, at least on the surface. They certainly don't provide any functionality improvements that Aqua gives (does it give any?)
If the logo isn't in any of these themes, Apple barely has a leg to stand on, unless they want to copyright curvy, shiny widgets. I wonder if they've sent similar letters to the theme authors. Is creating a theme enough to whiff off Apple, or do you actually have to offer it for download before they'll launch attack lawyers?
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
OS X is supposed to use some stuff from FreeBSD right?
How come Apple feel its okay to lend stuff from open source world and sell it to others, when its not okay that the open source world lend their themes and release them for free?
Don't like the signal they are sending here.
it should also be noted that aqua is the latin word for water, which has been in use for several millenia.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
This isn't the first time that Mac has decided to drop their lawyer brigade on someone that might be infringing on their copyrights with design. Another story I remember a while back, link to the slashdot story here, They were suing other companies for producing what macintosh said were "iMac clones". I can't remember, but I think in one of the articles, they're reason for suing the iMac clone companies, was because they "did not want to confuse they're customers."
And this isn't even the first time macintosh has gotten on themes.org. Look at this older slashdot story here.
Besides, I think that Aqua is has a very nice look and feel. If everyone used Aqua look-alikes, then I would get sick of it pretty fast.
Keeping
To take an example from the physical world. When Japanese companies started making motorcycles that looked and sounded like Harley-Davidson bikes, H-D tried to file a patent on the sound and sue. The final outcome? You can't protect the look or sound of a motorcycle.
Why should look and feel of software be any different?
I may dislike oracle and microsoft, but I hate apple.
I used to love them.
The Apple ][ was an amazing machine - it inspired a generation of hackers. (I still have one.) You can take a reasonably gifted kid, hand them an apple ][ and 30 minutes later, they'll be coding. It is so friendly. If you want to get more in depth, you can build your own hardware - it's that open.
Then Steve Jobs became the driving force behind apple's design decisions. Therein lies the problem. Woz was a toolmaker, his designs were like duct tape and bailing wire - you could use them for anything. Jobs is an artist, he wants to make something you look at, not something you interact with. Using a macintosh is like visiting an art museum, you can look, but there's a plexiglass wall keeping you from really looking closely. Using my apple ][ was (and is) like fingerpainting - you were only limited by your own creativity.
That's why I hate apple - they used to make the best computers, and now they tell us to be like everybody else and "think different."
Well I think differently - and I hate what apple has become.
--Shoeboy
I was going to buy a imac for my neice this weekend...now I think I'll just giver her a clone.
Thanks for helping me with the decision, Mr. Jobs.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
It isn't just the UI that was copied, the Aqua them uses several apple logos in a variety of places. That is a clear trademark violation.
.^
^.
( @ )
Soylent Foods, Inc.
I mean, now that I can't make Enlightenment look like Aqua I'm just going to have to go out and buy a Mac.
--
I would be a paid subscriber if Taco and Hemos weren't such cunts
Apple has usage guidelines for there trademark on their website. A relavent section might be:
1. Company, Product, or Service Name: No third party can use or register, in whole or in part, Apple, Macintosh, iMac, or any other Apple trademark, including Apple-owned graphic symbols, logos, icons, or an alteration thereof, as or as part of a company name, trade name, product name, or service name.
It should be noted that inoder to be able to inforce these rules against someone creating a competing product with Apple, they have to be inforced against places like themes.orgThey also tried to patent the sound when the trademark wasn't going to pan out. Honda and Yamaha went to court over it and things were just resolved this year.
I use Secret Recipe #1 for my lemonade. Jim Bob analyzes the chemical structure, duplicates it, calls it Secret Recipe #2, and starts marketing it under that name. Should I have the right to sue him for stealing my intellectual property?
Jim Bob decides to advertise his lemonade stand just 10 feet away from my own stand, by hanging a custom Print Shop sign on a public telephone pole. Should I have the right to sue him for advertising within my territory?
Jim Bob comes over to my stand one day and starts talking with my customers, trying to get them to come over to his stand and try his own Secret Recipe. Should I have the right to sue him for manipulating my customers?
Obviously these are blatantly stupid examples, but that's the point I'm trying to make. Intellectual property is blatantly stupid, and immoral as well.
And you thought the US is built on a free market.
First of all, what rights are you refering to? The right to use copyrighted material for your own cause, without permission from the owner of the copyright? Oh yeah, I forgot about that right. Regardless of the money factor, Apple does have a right to things that originated from them. I don't care if it aligns them with open source or not - the fact remains, you don't (nor does anyone else) have a RIGHT to their material. If they decide to let you use it/have it, that is ther prerogative, but for the time being, they are not letting that happen.
You also have to understand this fact: Apple is a BUSINESS. Last time I checked, businesses were in the business (ha ha, pun!) of making money. Sure, a side effect of that may be that the consumer is elated, but it is by no means a requirement of the company to please every person on the earth - or give away their material. Sure, it would be nice, but they don't have to, and you (or anyone else) certianly do not have a RIGHT to anything of that nature.
Silent encroachments of those in power and sudden usurpations? What a joke. They just don't want people to steal their thunder, and rightly so. Most people don't.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Lotus also lost a lawsuit against Borland involving Borland's Quattro spreadsheet (vs. Lotus 123) over the fact that Quattro had a macro system that enabled you to load in and make Quattro exactly emulate 123's keystroke sequences
Does this remind you in any way of the Tetris Company cases? Copyright on a general look and feel copyright is dead. But doesn't the Aqua theme remind you a bit of Dr. Mario?
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Now, if themes.org or someone else where charging for the Apple-like theme, there would be a very legitimate complaint -- but nobody is profiting directly off of the theme.
---
seumas.com
Apple (Jobs and engineer cronies) stealing the entire "look and feel" from the now floundering Xerox (PARC) was OK??
please...the entire concept of "look and feel" is so overblown. a good part of all GUIs borrow from each other in that dept. hell, we'd be using command lines for life if they didn't.
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
Last year, Apple Computer sued eMachines, Inc. over the similarity of an eMachines wintel computer to the iMac.
The basis for the suit came from law governing the apparel industry, called "trade dress." The law is intended to protect Designer clothing from cheap look-alike knockoffs.
Apple won the suit, and eMachines had to withdraw that product.
The applicability of this to the themes is left as an exercise to the reader.
Did they just miss this one? It has been there a long time ("Updated 4th February 2000"). So, I wonder how Apple's lawyers decide which ones to go after and which ones to ignore.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Apple is going down the same path they went down in 1995. They are paying more attention to the color and curve of their models when they hold a miniscule piece of the market instead of concentrating on ads that aren't overly cocky. Now, I can't remember a time where I didn't want smack Jeff Goldblum until the Apple-sauce ran out of him.
They do not learn from these mistakes and will again pay for it in earning reports and declining stock once people wise up and see that the shine on that machine is not helping them get any useful software to run on the thing.
A Mac to PC convert.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Here is a paper describing Smalltalk 76, and here is what Jobs and Hertzfeld likely saw .
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
On /. "A couple people wrote in noting that Themes.org has had to comply with a request from Apple "
On themes.org "We have reviewed the letter and decided to accommodate Apple's request"
Subtle difference.....
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
The news item says nowhere they 'had to comply', it says they read Apple's request, and decided to comply.
No court decisions, nothing like that. They simply chose to honor Apple's request, which may seem somewhat valid, though we all would probably say 'it's a theme! it's like, parody, or homage, to apple, not 'stealing''. Still....
I keep seeing this assertion repeated by Mac critics. Have you ever owned, or even used an iMac?
I actually liked the "hockey puck" mouse. Its main defect was that it didn't have an optical sensor like many newer mice.
The keyboard was OK, my only complaint was that some useful keys had been deleted.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
OS X is a good example of this problem: A lot of flashy stuff designed to demo well, very little attention paid to actual usability. To quote Bruce Tognazzini: "The purpose of the icons, the purpose of the entire OS X look and feel, is to keep the customer happy during that critical period between the time of sale and the time the check clears."
It puts Apple in a situation of being overly dependent on look-and-feel, so they feel they have to go after themes.org. They're probably nervous that if people see you can get those pretty pictures on another OS, they'll start wondering what exactly it is that makes a Mac a Mac. Of course, true innovation in OS design is more than a matter of hiring a few great graphic designers. But then, Apple hasn't been an innovative company for quite some time.
Do domain names matter?
Perhaps someone at Apple woke up and decided that it's time to put a stop to the propagation of that candy-coated eyesore known as Aqua. ;)
Sean
Isn't this the exact same sort of thing that Apple tried to use to crush microsoft back in the days when they were actually a competitor? I believe they tried to claim that a GUI was their IP. At the time, it more or less was as far as commercial systems went, and windows 1.0 (anyone else besides me have to support that monstrosity?) was more or less an attempt to bring a mac style interface to windows hardware, that much was clear.
Apple lost the suit, but there is one remaining artifact from the whole legal battle... look on your windows desktop and notice that you have no "trash can". It's a recycle bin instead. I recall the presence or absence of a trash can being a big deal during the trial.
Bill
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
and then give it away for free.
C'mon guys. MacWord Expo's just around the corner and Apple want to announce lots of interesting things, most probably including the fact that they're about to become the largest supplier of Unix stations just like they became the largest supplier of RISC stations when the PowerPC came out.
Cut the guys a little slack. You'd be pissed as [expletive deleted] if somebody rained on your parade before it even starts. Give Apple the courtesy of letting them hold their dog&pony show bask in the expected earnings and then rip off their GUI.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
... this makes no rational sence.
Now, I am a Mac user and have been for more than 10 years. I began learning Linux and WinNT/9x about 4 years ago, and even though I've prefered Linux, I always liked the way the Mac looked more than anything windows or X had to offer. Sure, I liked to hack the way that my mac interface looked and felt (woohoo, RedEdit!), but for the most part I've ended up going back to the classic Apple Platinum since the very first Kaleidoscope theme and beta releases of MacOS 8. And now my Macs running Linux PPC all have the Aqua theme with Helix Gnome running on them.
Now... Apple... Steve, baby, talk to me. Why is this wrong? Why can't I and all the other people out there who like both their Macs and their Linux actually have them both? For that matter, why support MKLinux and then not let those of us who use it or another distro make it look and feel as Mac like as we want? We are running it on your machines.
*shrug*
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
As many persons have already pointed out, there's quite rich pile of case law (M$ vs. Apple, Lotus vs. Borland etc.), which makes it clear that copyright doesn't protect UI. Of course, any single element of UI can be protected, but as far as there isn't any direct copying you are in the clear water. To rephrese this, you can't protect idea (in this case look&feel) with copyright.
What comes to user perspective, at least most of legal literature from law&economics tend to think, that the benefits from not to give protection to UI clearly overrides the negative impact in UI-investments. So, you can make money with good UI but you are not going to get a monopoly from the government to support it...
Ville
My DeCSS archive:
here.
read it up and let me know if i need to check [my] facts about this....
i particularly like this quote from the article attributing creations to Bob Taylor: Now retired, Taylor says there isn't anything on today's PC that isn't a legacy of the Alto project, from the display to the software to the GUI.
oh, but i think he's suing for "look and feel."
once again, whatever.
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
fine, they "borrowed" it. they certainly didn't create the idea of the GUI and probably wouldn't have if they had never seen Alto.
BTW - i assume that post is factual enough for you...it had the info i remembered except for the stock payment part....
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
At least they asked VA Linux to remove the material and didn't immediately go to court. Given the level of competency of most Macintosh users (this is not a slam), I can see why Apple would be concerned about, not a simlilar product necessarily, but a visual clone of their product before their product has been released. It is somewhat reasonable to assume that some potential users will confuse Apple's Public Source license with "open source", which is the first level of confusion. Also, the GUI (Aqua) for OSX is similar in nature to X and a window manager, which is what "Themes" is all about. The themes in question are not similar products, from the screenshots, they are identical products. This is the second level of confusion. AFAIK, the primary unfree, or non-public part of OSX is Aqua. The reference to Apple's suit against Microsoft for a similar look and feel does not apply here. If a user (don't ask me about the conditions under which this might occur) downloaded and used this visual clone, it would not operate in a manner concurrent with claims from Apple. This could potentially have negative effects on the perception of Apple's future product.
It is difficult for many open source advocates to understand a decision like this from a company who seems to be moving in the right direction, but you have to remember that Apple, as a company, has to follow a different set of rules. Investors in Apple did not jump in because Apple is a "bleeding edge, open source, Linux, dot-com" machine, they did so for the same reasons someone would invest in Oracle, Sun, IBM, etc. Apple did not do Public Source to contribute to the "movement", they did it to contribute to their bottom line. Although Apple may be a better company than they were, the are still Apple and they are still looking out for themselves.
You can tell a college man, but you can't tell him much.
there are already mac themes for Win 2.03, 3.1, 95 and 98, check out the kaleidoscope site
You're right and their wrong. How dare they do anything thing like announce their hardware and software at MacWorld Expo without consulting you?
They're going to announce new cool hardware and a real OS that they want people to use. How could they resent having you rain on their parade... You who make such a big impact on their bottom line.
It must suck being you. Everything looks so brown. Or is that 'cause you have your head up your ass?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
If themes.org refused to remove themes with the Apple look-and-feel (and remember, look-and-feel ain't copyrightable; you can patent certain ideas, but nifty pixmaps doesn't a new invention make), they'd send a cadre of lawyers upon them. And not necessarily to fight it out with t.o -- the case law (as cited in other comments) is pretty clear, particularly the Apple v Microsoft case -- but to bully them into submission with the threat of long, expensive legal battles. Here is where the US citizens are losing many, many, many of their rights, and this is what the government absolutely needs to address. Being a capitalist, I do not believe the government should enforce egalitarianism within society or the marketplace; being rational and fair-minded, I cannot excuse this country from not strictly enforcing egalitarian views upon the judicial process. The court should err on the side of the preservation of the rights of people.
This does not mean the deconstruction of Big Business (though, I admit, I would like that as well): it means levelling the playing field between all people before the court. Justice is blind, you say. Indeed, justice is blind -- so blind, in fact, that it cannot see that it is judging David v Goliath. David might win eventually, he probably would in this case, but does he have the means and resources to last it out? In most cases, no.
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
Apple lost a law suit that contended that all GUI's with certain functional characteristics were proprietary. Most of the other GUI lawsuits were based on similar claims.
However, the similarity of Aqua themes to Aqua is MUCH greater than the similarity of Mac OS to Windows.
Do your homework. You are looking for case law dealing with trade dress infringement.