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Apple Moves Again To Squash Look-Alikes
An unnamed correspondent writes: "Looks like Apple is at it again, according to this ZDNet article Apple is now going after anything that looks like OS X, regardless of having the Apple logos removed. I couldn't care less if Apple releases OS X for Intel, I will not do business with a company that behaves like this. Better be careful, they might sue slashdot for using the OS X-like Apple icon."
God forbid you fucking tone-deaf "musicians" learn other chords.
Come back when you figure Giant Steps out.
Well if you actually worked at NeXT and the Apple when Steve made that exchange you would know more information than what you claim to know. The bottom line was a win win for both sides and now that Apple has the opportunity to thrash out some folks who spunge off of them I say more power to them. Innovation is the challenge, honor is Key.
Boy, this company really likes whining? I say, it's too damn bad for them. *nix users have Window Managers and Desktops that mimic the look and functionality of MS Windows 9x to the beat, but MS hasn't done anything about them, and wouldn't be able to either. The simple fact of the matter is, that if I -- as a WinME user -- want to have my desktoip/interface look and function like that is my right. I can get whatever costware or freeware skinning/modifying programs I desire, and make my desktop look like and function like whatever the hell I want it to -- that means I can make it function and look exactly like a *nix GUIs; can make it function and look exactly like the BeOS GUI; can make function and look exactly liket he Amiga Classic/Amiga SDK GUIs; and, yes, finally can make it function and look exactly like MacOS X' GUI. It is *my* desktop and I have the right to make it however the hell I want to. That is indisputable -- Apple doesn't question that. What Apple does want is to prevent me or anyone else who makes their GUI look exactly like MacOS X' from sharing that with others. This is clearly impractical and impossible. Even if you prevent ppl from posting their Aqua skins on the web, they will still share them interpersonally, or may even post detailed How-To instructions. This is clearly a desperate attempt by Apple to eliminate the rights of consumers to have their interface be as they desire it to be. It is wrong.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I'm not saying that I know whether Apple is right or wrong in doing this, but whether they freely acknowledge that someone else created the Aqua look doesn't change anything
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By the way, I've made a few custom icons from MS WinME w/c -- upon hindsight -- (esp the IE icon) resemble the idea of MacOS X Aqua's GUI icons, in their blue color and smooth gradients. check them out at http://home.rochester.rr.com/tweak/icons.jpg Now, is Apple going to try to sue me to prevent me from putting *my* custom made IE icon(pixel-by-pixel customized, using Icon Pro, I might ad)?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Okay, I'll bite on to some of the questions.
:)
I ask you, what about iDVD? What about Altivec code?
Ummm, what about it?
What about making Unix plug and play?
Hmmm, seemed like my RedHat 6.0 did a fair amount of that on boot. FreeBSD 4.2 was pretty darn good at picking up all my devices as well.
Hell, even making Unix so that you can install it on a machine with literally four clicks of a mouse button is pretty impressive. The last time I had to install IRIX, I was at it for hours.
How many clicks is it for a default RedHat install anyway? I can do a FreeBSD install with a couple of down arrows and the enter key a couple of times. Seems like most Unix systems these days don't have the problems of Irix.
What about iMovie?
Umm, what about it. You're talking about this as though nobody in the history of software prior to Apple ever wrote video editing applications. Next...
What about Firewire?
Now this might have been a really great thing. Even Intel and Microsoft were behind it big time, until they got the word from Apple about the high licensing fees. This prompted Intel to drop support and pay out big bucks for their own R&D, and for MS to just drop out entirely. Yet again, another good idea down the arrogance shooter.
BTW, I know Apple finally loosened the licensing situation quite a bit. The damage was done, the world moved on, and once again Apple is left with a technology that only they will support. This will insure the prices stay stupid high.
Theres quite a bit of technology just in those products listed there man.
Yup, there sure is. You can even give credit to Apple for some of it... even some they didn't goof up on the biz side. On the flip side, care to rattle off some of the Microsoft product line, and the wide variety of things they've got going? Hey now, MS Bob doesn't count!
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
They have every right to. These themes blatantly copy Apple's designs. They don't accidentally look similar. Who'd be naive enough to think this wouldn't lead to trouble?
Funny, one of the default KDE themes is Win98 and I haven't heard about Microsoft suing anyone over this.
Woops, forgot my zealot pills. Everything Apple good, everything MS bad. Ahhh, it's all coming into focus now. Goooo Steve!
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Apple did "steal" something, you stupid shit. They looked through tons and tons and tons of custom-created skins in the BSD/Linux and BeOS worlds to find what they thought were the best ideas, and the best skins, and they used many of them directly.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Oh please. I have an Orange, and not only does it have the same motherboard, it says "APPLE ][" when it starts up! It is most definately an almost exact copy of an Apple ][.
Howabout BT and hyperlinks then?
Prior art nullifying the patent. At least that's the concept of how to fight it. Nothing at all to do with whether or not they tried to enforce infringement.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Make a GIF creating software and tell that to Unisys when they come after you.
The fact is, once granted, a patent can only be lost if either the patent duration comes to an end (eg RSA), you forgot to pay the annual fees or because it has been (completely or partly) invalidated in court.
With patents you can even choose not to prosecute somebody and prosecute somebody else without affecting your rights (like in chess you are not forced to take a piece) whereas in Trademark laws you must prosecute everybody infringing otherwise you have dilution of your trademark (a bit like chequer where you must make a move to eat pieces if such a move is possible).
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
And, pray tell, when will Mr. Gates threaten to sue someone for creating a theme or other bit of software that copies the design of Windows? Most likely when all first posts on /. are on subject.
--
"Stop it, Ford," he said. "You're turning into a penguin."
Blessed are the geeks for they shall Internet the Earth.
When these products hit the market, they had nothing new. Zero. Nada. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.
Not quite. You see, the one HUGE difference in what Microsoft did was to actually bring a lot of these concepts and ideas together for everyone. Not just the folks that could afford a $2,000 Mac, or those that worked with way over priced versions of Unix. Unlike all that came before them, MS actually put together something that the majority of end users could actually use and afford.
Their marketing department isn't that good. There's a reason why 90% of the desktops running or doing so on Windows. You can run McDonalds analogies against this all you like, that's just the way it is.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Sort of -- it does boot up a Mac OS system, but its not entirely a closed box (the traditional Finder isn't run and a few services are directly piped to their MacOS X equivalent rather than run in a box. The CPU certainly isn't virtualised.
Its sort ot a hybrid between stuff like VMWare and the VDM system Windows NT uses to run DOS and Win16 applications.
Firstly, no, because VMware creates a virtual i386 PC, not a virtual Macintosh. There are programs that will let you run a virtual Mac on an i386 PC but you need a copy of the ROM from a real Mac (which is copyrighted). I think most of the Mac emulators emulate a 680x0-based (non-PowerPC) Mac, so you would be limited to using Mac OS 8.1, but the PPC is a much easier CPU to virtualise than most of the i386 compatibles, so this may have changed.
--srj/mmv
Not enforcing the copyright does not cost you the copyright.
As shown here, you have three years to file a civil suit or five for a criminal suit. Now where does it say the copyright holder loses the copyright? You're confusing a time limit on filing a lawsuit with losing IP rights. They are not the same.
Just because Disney can't sue one pre-school for painting Mickey on the wall does not mean they lose the copyright on Mickey and cannot sue the next infringer.
And thank you for posting that link and supporting my arguement that the Xerox case was over copyright and not patents. Now would you like to recind your statement in this post?
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
This is what happens when your a sore loser..
Man, ya gotta be kidding.
Be missed the boat. Its got nothing to do with quality (how else do you explain the very existence of M$) but its got plenty to do with marketing and being in the right place at the right time.
Be missed by "that" much but they missed. They have as much future as the NeXT cube.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
what Apple wants is the right to monopolize any type of general appearance they claim to have "invented," which would stiffle the market. They are desperate because they are losing, and thus pulling desperate bullshit tricks. Everyone has the right to make their desktop look like whatever the hell they want it to look like, and share that look with other people. You basically implied apple wanted to have sole rights to the "Windows" look 10 years ago, which would mean that they would monopolize GUI's. This would be unacceptable as it would force people to use Macs, when most ppl -- for good reason -- prefer to use PC compatables.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
It the past Apple legal has threatened to sue a 14-year-old kind for a Aqua-like gui hack, and a guy who patched Aqua itself to look a little different. So much for anyone taking the time to add their own lines of code to the mix. And they wonder why more developers are not working on apps for OSX.
Of course, the use of a similar bass line or harmonic progression is so unavoidable as to make for a pointless suit. But try to get a judge to understand this.
& copyright law is different again.
I am in violation of Apples wishes, I downloaded WinAqua theme for windowblinds, and oh, I'm not EVER going to buy any apple products because I got the interface right here!, and when I sell this computer, I'll tell people that it really IS made by Apple, and that it runs all windows programs!! hahahhahahahahha!!!!!!
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Not really. That was a case where the limited license MS had in Windows 1.0 for bit's of Mac OS pulled an alice and wonderland trick and grew into a mighty beast of death that let them rip the mac os to their hearts content. Look at:
http://www.madcapps.com/~Writings/lawsuit.htm
Now if only MS managed to rip it off more successfully maybe I wouldn't be so upset at those lamers. The start up screen in 2000 still uses dithered graphics for god sake.
I see two camps here... the folks that are heavily defending Apple and those that are completely angered. I ask again, why the heated debate? I venture to guess that MOST folks here on Slashdot neither own a Mac nor ever will. Perhaps there are a few folks that have a PowerBook running LinuxPPC, or use a G4 for FinalCutPro and DVD Studio Pro, or maybe are forced to use them in school, but those are certainly the exception.
Why bother getting all hot and bothered about the situation? If you're for Apple, then you're probably happy about the way things are going. If you're against Apple on this, then big deal, don't lose sleep over it... how big is Apple these days anyway? Do you see that many iMacs in Walmart or BestBuy? Do you realize there are way more WebTVs out there than G3 and G4 based Macs? If you don't like Apple, never will own a Mac anyway, and are pissed about the lawsuit, BIG DEAL! You're wasting your time venting on slashdot.
The long and short of litigation in the USA is the person with the most money wins.
no sig.
On the other hand, I really do think Apple's PR dept. is taking things a bit too far. Sueing a 14-year-old kid who made a skin for WindowBlinds or whatever is just plain dumb. He's not profiting from it, and you're not loosing any money from it. Now if a company decided to use an Aqua look and feel for a product of theirs without permission, that might be grounds for attack. Apple, and the rest of the industry, too (Apple *by far* is not the only coporation gulity of having an overzelous legal dept.), needs to look at what they are doing and realize it's destroying computing. If some kid makes an Aqua skin for WinAmp, that's an AD for MAC OS X in Windows. Free. Everyone sees Aqua and knows what it is, they should be glad.
As for people being sued for hacking OS X to change the interface, I'm just DAMN ashamed of Apple now. I remember when interface modifications where a Good Thing, independant developers where praised by Apple, OS hacks where part of the innovation that makes the Mac great, it's a good computer to begin with and Apple backed up the people who wrote Control Panels and Extensions that hacked the crap out of their OS. And now the Apple becomes the forbidden fruit? If Apple wants it's former hardcore following back (which it really should, it means nothing but good business) then they should really not discourage people from toying with their OS and improving it.
And besides, Apple has been promising OS skinning since the MacOS 8 days, it's been partially implemented in the system since then (Kaliedoscope, which is like WindowBlinds for Mac, simply patches into the system appearance code and allows user modification). If they don't include it with OSX it would be the dumbest move ever, seeing as you could do wonders skinning an OpenGL-based OS.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
If I find out about a trade secret of yours & I havent signed a NDA with you, you have absolutely no right to stop me doing waht I want with your trade secrets, including selling it to the world & making millions out of it.
That's why 'trade secrets' are trade secrets.
That is the unfortunate truth - a look and feel patent is a market share ploy. Computer companies are in a somewhat unfortunate position, because the "look and feel" of a desktop is pretty much what enables someone to be comfortable using a particular OS, and people want to have flexability in their OS choices. It's sort of like if Ford had patented the idea for a steering wheel for cars, and any other car out there had to use some different steering tool. Possible? Probably. Would anyone use it? Probably not. GUIs are in sort of the same ballpark. I've literally seen Windows users sit down in front of a Mac and not have a clue what to do, despite the fact that for the most part the concepts are the same. What if, in a car, I got a patent for a "device to visually report fuel consumption in cars." Does that mean no one else could have a fuel gauge? The point being made here is that there needs to be a limit to enforced learning curves in order for software companies to compete. Computer software is an extremely natural monopoly, much more so than telephones or cable television. People can use any telephone or watch any cable service - they can't always use any operating system. That's wrong. I state flatly that that is wrong. And those who disagree, I believe, is where the debate lies.
Simple. I've said it before, I'll say it again. Apple has more money than the people they're going to squash. Therefore, Apple wins. End of story. That's why people HAVE to listen to them.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
The same legal backing they would have if someone made an F150 and claimed Ford made it.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Four Words: Open Standards.
:P)
(yes, there's four words there
we are building a religion
a limited edition
we are now accepting callers
for these pendant key chains
Ever heard about copyright? registered trademark? If you think Apple is the only one to do this you are naive. Microsoft, IBM, McDonalds, Burgerking and Apple (+ the rest of the lot). All will protect their "graphic profile", and their "tradmarks". We had an example in Norway a while ago where a little fastfood shop witch was called "Macdonalds fastfood" (the name of the owner was Macdonald) was sued by the international McDonalds chain, forcing him to change the name of his chack. The fact is that these companys spends heaps of money on profiling their products and their profile, and if someone else copys their profile, the copycats gets the advertising effect for free, and who wants to pay for a competitors advertising? In this case, apple has put alott of resorces and money in developing the os x graphic profile, and copying it would be copyright infringement. I do support Apples rights to protect their investments.
As clearly stated by Wardell, who was interviewed in the article in question. "Apple has the right to protect their intellectual property". You can't patent art, but there are laws to prevent people from exploiting your work. In this case Apple has used alott of resources to create a well designed GUI for their new OS, so i understand it when they don't want other operating systems to look like OS X right before the release.
So much fun in this post, where to start?
You actually would select the disc or drive and choose File > Put Away.
Again, this wouldn't have had any bearing on reality to me. I didn't want to "Put Away" the CD, I wanted the freaking drawer to EJECT! Ya know, like every cassette player has done since the 70's. Like Windows shows when you right-click (that's for them mice things with more than one orthopedic button) on it. You may have seen something very similar to context sensitive menus as Apple added this into OS 8.5 to mimic Win95.
Macs also haven't had printer ports for years. What you're talking about is an easy networking system that used the printer port before Ethernet was cheap enough. There is no equivalent generic PC system to compare it to. These days, and for the last three plus years at least, every Mac sold has Ethernet, and many have gigabit Ethernet.
I know what the term Printer port means, and the G3 desktops still have them. Whether the port is there or not, Appletalk STILL reverts to it whenever it finds itself unable to flood the LAN it's connected to with broadcasts. I also know that this isn't just a point of confusion with this here Windows user, as I have needed to point this out to Mac users who couldn't figure out why they couldn't get their network going again.
Apple invented overlapping windows, pull-down menus, pop-up menus, drag and drop, double-clicking, resizable windows, and more.
And outside the halls of Apple stuff like maximizing, minimizing, task bars, resizing from multiple points on a window, actively changable drag and drop menus (Win98's start menu for example), web browsers, file managers, and thousands of other things that Apple had nothing to do with while the zealots point at everything that moves and scream how Apple invented them. I'm not opposed to giving credit where it's due, but I won't budge an inch of revisionist silliness of the "one true faith".
Macs haven't had floppy drives for years
Oh boy, this one I sure know. Although the G3 series still had them, the newer boxes dropped them. This caused me all kinds of fun as I needed to perform a Quark Express install on a laptop without said floppy. Quark uses a floppy diskette as part of it's install. So I ended up spending $90 for a freaking floppy drive! Yeah, $90 was as cheap as I could find one on short notice. Oh, but I'm sure the quality of that drive far exceeded the $15 one they were selling for PC's.
tell me why AVI is now an "unsupported format" over at Microsoft?
First off, AVI files still play just fine with MS Media Player. Secondly, it's compression sucks compared to ASF or MPG, so why bother with it? For that matter, why do we continue to bother with the still overly bloated Quicktime?
You'll probably find that most of the bad things that you've heard are untrue or taken out of context.
It's very difficult to take personal experience out of context. These aren't things I've "heard", but rather what I've had to deal with in supporting these unstable as hell machines. At most I've seen the few that I still support run for about 6 months before requiring yet another full system install. Hell, I've still got Win95 boxes going on PC's I cobbled together from spare parts over 3 years ago. Can't exactly cobble together parts for a Mac now can ya? Jobs made damn sure of that.
The people who are running Apple right now really, really know what they are doing.
Yeah, they're spending more money for less of a computer that runs about 1/3 the software and only a tiny fraction of the available hardware. What hardware there is out there is damn near always more expensive, much like my floppy story. Sorry, can't write me off as just someone who "hasn't seen the visions of truth" because I've been to the alter, and wasn't impressed.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
...as stupid as having to push the start button to shut down windows.
It wasn't until I got to reading folks talking about Windows in public forums that it even occurred to me how silly this was. I have to admit, it is an oxymoron and all. Thing is, I never for a moment had a problem with figuring out how to shut down a Win95 box. I certainly had other things to learn when I first started using it, but once I saw the Start menu for the first time I simply acknowledged that was where the bulk of the system activities were going to take place. Also, ya kinda have to be blind to miss the whole "Shut Down" thing when you go into use the Start menu for other stuff.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
The problem that you have to deal with in the absence of IP laws is how are you going to get people to invest money in projects if once they finish anyone can use it freely.
Well, the Free/open software culture/industry is a good example. Another; I live in a country with alot of snow. It is quite common for a neighbour to share the snow blower with other neighbours. Many share recipes from cookbooks (which one has to buy) by copying. I could probably go on.
You spoke of IP. Think about what this means really. I have an idea, or a thought about how to do things, but I refuse to tell you or anyone what the thought is because I, and solely I, want to reap the benefits. Sounds like a pretty sad state of affairs to me. Also the very term "Intelectual Property" is an oxymoron : one cannot claim that anything "intelectual" is "property".
eno.
mm. you don't think inertia had anything to do with that? most businesses used IBM's since the mid-80's.
Of course I think inertia had something to do with it. Inertia had a LOT to do with it. Unlike many of their competitors at that time, Microsoft managed to ride that inertia away from over priced OEM hardware solutions. They were simply the first to fully recognize the importance of both supporting the old stuff while building a structure in which any component manufacturer could play.
Along these lines, Compaq deserves equal or higher billing for this very same understanding of what the future of the computer market would become. Well, here we are in the future, and it turns out that folks like Compaq and Microsoft were right. All the while, Apple is still based on the notion of a closed architecture.
Apple once asked the world to think different. The world has, and that different kinda thinking has lead us to a world in which thousands of companies can compete, succeed, and fail to provide the components that make a computer. Thank whatever god you pray to that the likes of Apple and IBM lost big time to those funky upstarts over at Microsoft and Compaq. Otherwise, our computer experiences would still be getting dictated to us by those that truly controlled all aspects of the platforms we use.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
I dunno...
It seems like lately more and more people have heard of and actually asked about where to get BeOS. They who tried it seemed to like it a lot.
This is also true about Linux.
On the other hand, you will probably never get average Joe to give up his beloved windows or macOS. They want to run internet explorer and office.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Ejecting a disk by throwing it in the thrashcan is almost as stupid as having to push the start button to shut down windows. :)
Maybe format the disk, maybe erase it, but eject it? Who came up with the bright idea?
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
No. In a civil suit the burden is on the plaintiff not the defendant and the burden is "a preponderence of evidence" not "reasonable doubt." In court, Apple would have to prove beyond a preponderence of the evidence that a normal person would think your product was OSX. And they have to prove that a "normal person" (whatever that is) would confuse them -- not that just someone would.
I have an idea, or a thought about how to do things, but I refuse to tell you or anyone what the thought is because I, and solely I, want to reap the benefits.
I think you are missing the point of IP law. Patents and copyrights give the author the ability to share their ideas in return for legal protection for exclusivity for a limited period of time. A patent is a contract between you and the government where you disclose the idea in return for a right of exclusivity. What you described, keeping an idea secret, was the state of affairs before the idea of patents took hold.
We're not creating artifical scarcity. The fact that most people can't or won't make music or software development their profession creates a scarcity of skilled developers or artists.
Of those who *WILL* make software development or music their profession, only a few are talented. Scarcity of talent.
Of those who are talented, and skilled, there will be a need for people with talent & skill in marketing, studio engineering, and management. These folks usually reside at a "recording label". Again, not an artifical scarcity.
Please people. The bits themselves are abundant. But you're ignoring what GOES INTO the configuration of bits.
Does this mean we should have copyright in its current form? Not necessarily. But we do need some kind of IP system to protect creators & allow the marketplace to distribute resources effectively.
Now to your argument -- Does this make us slaves to those that serve us? Mmm, in certain ways, if we ourselves don't have anything in demand to contribute to society. But now we're back down to ground-level principles: socialism vs. free market. Which I'd rather not get into.
-Stu
Who thinks that Aqua really isn't that pretty of an interface anyway?
I'm talking style-wise. I've not yet used it, so obviously in terms of HMI I can't talk, but I think that the screenshots I've seen just aren't attractive.
Then again, I think iMacs look like those cheap plastic toys you bought when you were five that broke before you got them home from the store....
Wait a second. Aren't they?
At any rate, Apple has devolved to a company that innovates in exteriors, not interiors. They'd be just as well off designing a way to put PCs in tacky plastic cases. In fact, they'd probably make a lot more money doing that.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
You're confusing a time limit on filing a lawsuit with losing IP rights. They are not the same.
What is an IP right anyway but a right to sue an infringer? If you don't take action against the infringer, you have effectively lost any value of your IP vis-a-vis that infringer.
Once you have one organization that has the right to make a copy free of encumberance you might as well pack it in, for you have no control over how many copies they make. In effect you HAVE lost your copyright.
typical reaction from a stupid mac user who doesn't understand shit. The fact is, most Mac users are just dumb -- that's why they get macs, because they're computers for dumb people. Now, if you had half a brain about you, you'd know that most of the "skins" that make WinME or *nix resemble MacOSX are extensions to free software -- no one is making money off of "apple's" hard work. And if you were consistent, you'd admit that most of the MacOSX GUI owes it's existence to themes already partially explored in the world of *nix skinning. The entire point of this article was that there was no copyright violation -- the skins do *not* have apple Logo's on them. There is, furthermore, no validity to Apple's claim -- MS hasn't tried, and if they have haven't been successful, in stopping people in the *nix world from implementing and posting online skins and themes that make *nix WMs work exactly like WinME, have they? No. The fact is, most of the REAL work that takes place in GUI appearance is done in the GPL world, by people who want new "looks" for their Unix GUI, or for their MS GUI. Then, what happens, is companies like Mac and MS come allong and use what other's have made for free in the GPL world, and put it into their GUI...then, they complain about "copyright violation" -- how hypocritical.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I've noticed the iMac/eMachines example being hauled out a couple of times to defend Apple in their witch hunt against OSX-like themes.
However, eMachines was a product clearly trying to divert potential iMac purchasers to their eerily-similar product. In short, they used the look, then tried to convince people it was their own look. This is clearly wrong.
Now we come to theme designers. If there is a product involved, it has already been purchased, and certainly not with the OS X look. The OS X skins are free, downloadable, and they all acknowledge Apple's creation of the OS X look, either through the word "Aqua", "OS X", and most (if not all) acknowledge that their themes are adaptions of Apple's Aqua GUI interface in the accompanying readmes. The theme creators are certainly not trying to deceive anyone into thinking they created and/or own the Aqua look. The themes are being created for people who have already downloaded or purchased a themeable GUI, and wish to emulate the Aqua GUI look without having to purchase the necessary hardware and underlying OS. I have little reason to believe Apple will create their own Aqua skins for GNOME, KDE, XMMS, WindowBlinds, etc.
In effect, Apple is trying to leverage their hardware and software sales by defending the UI in any way possible, saying "if you want to have a GUI with anything similar to our look, you also have to buy our hardware and software."
Stardock didn't create the Aqua-like look; a user created it using Stardock's tools, and the company is providing a way for the creator to distribute that theme. Apple has never gone after the individual theme creators, as far as I know; only the entities that allow those themes to be distributed through their websites.
I'm not saying whether this is morally or legally correct; I'm certainly not knowledgeable or wise enough to go that far. However, the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Theme creators aren't trying to pass off their copies as the real thing; they freely acknowledge that someone else created the Aqua look. Apple can try to claim copyright protection on the entire thing, but that might have to include the placement of widgets and icons - "trade dress" can be a tricky thing, and I'd love to see them try to take out the blue-and-white diagonal-striped progress bar *glances at Mozilla progress bar in certain themes*, or bubbly buttons.
Can you say "quagmire"? I knew you could!
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
There would be differences in structure - GNUStep runs over Display Ghostscript (and some PDF version of the same thing), which in turn runs over X. This would be transparent to the programmer.
Of course, GNUStep isn't skinnable yet from what I remember, so, somewhat ironically, anyone running this combination would see MacOS X apps looking like NextStep apps, and Gnome/KDE apps looking like MacOS X apps. It would probably be very... odd.
(Other note: My understanding is that the GNUstep people haven't gone for binary compatability yet, but I'm guessing that's a matter of time. All that needs to be done is to write MacOS X style wrapper libraries, from what I understand. Which is one of the reasons why I used the phrase "very very close" above, the other being that it wont run MacOS 9 apps, which MacOS X can do.)
--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Funny, I never thought a company with more than $3 billion in cash reserves was close to death, but I guess that shows what I know... Also, in case you missed it Apple is shipping 667 and 733mhz G4s this month now (announced at MWSF). And finally, there's no denying that Apple got the idea of the GUI from Xerox's PARC, but Apple also gave Xerox quite a bit of stock in exchange (can anyone provide a URL to verify this? I can't seem to find one so I can't definitively say this).
What looks like a Squash? They taste sort of like pumpkins, but nothing looks quite like squash.
Secondly, how are they going to get a computer to look like a squash and still work? I guess they managed to make the iBook look like a toilet-seat, so anything's possible.
--
--
- It ain't easy, being green.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Of course Apple has rights-- the question is, do they have the right to own every interface that uses the same screen colors as theirs? Put that in front of a court and I don't think they (Apple) would make out very well. But who needs courts when you can threaten a company with endless expensive litigation? Those tactics are ugly and unfair, and-- excepting the unlikely possibility of legal reform-- the only check on Apple's activity is customers like us voicing their displeasure.
Try to make a computer that looked just like one of Apple's, like the folks who made some of those translucent PCs? Did you "design" a user interface that was intended to look as much as possible as someone else's, without any new work? If so, you were stealing. Translucency of materials or transparency of buttons isn't the whole of the concept, despite what some folks would have you believe.
Note that there are plenty of PCs out there with translucent plastics that have been left alone. There are, however, some folks out there who can't manage to make a decent machine on their own, and who look to "borrowing" other people's ideas to make a profit. Those are the guys that Apple has been getting in the courts.
"The patent laws provide for the granting of design patents to any person who has invented any new and nonobvious ornamental design for an article of manufacture. The design patent protects only the appearance of an article, but not its structural or functional features. The proceedings relating to grantingThe patent laws provide for the granting of design patents to any person who has invented any new and nonobvious ornamental design for an article of manufacture. The design patent protects only the appearance of an article, but not its structural or functional features. The proceedings relating to granting of design patents are the same as those relating to other patents with a few differences. See current fee schedule for the filing fee for a design application. A design patent has a term of 14 years from grant, and no fees are necessary to maintain a design patent in force. If on examination it is determined that an applicant is entitled to a design patent under the law, a notice of allowance will be sent to the applicant or applicant's attorney, or agent, calling for the payment of an issue fee. The drawing of the design patent conforms to the same rules as other drawings, but no reference characters are allowed and the drawing should clearly depict the appearance, since the drawing defines the scope of patent protection. The specification of a design application is short and ordinarily follows a set form. Only one claim is permitted, following a set form. of design patents are the same as those relating to other patents with a few differences. See current fee schedule for the filing fee for a design application. A design patent has a term of 14 years from grant, and no fees are necessary to maintain a design patent in force. If on examination it is determined that an applicant is entitled to a design patent under the law, a notice of allowance will be sent to the applicant or applicant's attorney, or agent, calling for the payment of an issue fee. The drawing of the design patent conforms to the same rules as other drawings, but no reference characters are allowed and the drawing should clearly depict the appearance, since the drawing defines the scope of patent protection. The specification of a design application is short and ordinarily follows a set form. Only one claim is permitted, following a set form."
So I ask, is this a "new and nonobvious ornamental design", and is this an "article of manufacture"?
>>People who think that they have some deity given right to "own" something. Who said that you have the right to earn a living off of some ill-defined notion that humans have of property.
Damn straight! I just spent over 1000 man hours developing a trademarked high-performance CGI. If I ever find that someone has decided to use my trademark to help them sell their own goods I'll sue their colective ass off. This would be different if the program made itself. I wouldn't feel in any way inclined to do so in that instance. But that's not reality. The reality is that I put a lot of work into this and make no mistake about it... I OWN EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF WORK THAT I PUT INTO IT. This is called intellectual property. If you're trying to imply that that intellectual property was created before I was or that something else like nature created it, then I *must* insist that you visit a drug rehab facility because the THC has taken over your mind.
over the DC8 looking like a 707 Maybe because Boeing would have been laughed out of court if they tried.
And are you aware that almost every piece of music in Western history employs one of a few different modal or tonal progressions? If tonal, it will nearly always be some variation on a tonic-subdominant-dominant progression; if modal, it will involve one of two or three patterns.
These stylistic elements are very closely related to the Apple case, actually. For example, there are things that define the MOSX "look" to a viewer (mostly color scheme and patterns that suggest particular kinds of light diffusion). These are just general stylistic traits. They cannot be copyrighted, patented, or trademarked as far as I'm concerned.
BTW It seems like the highest time for M$ to steal another design somewhere, this one starts to be fairly old. And seems that their hype about 3D controls is just so they could wait till someone shows a good one and then give a proof how long THEY were developing this stuff.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Except they can't. They sued in the past over "look and feel" and lost. The courts have ruled that trade dress is not something that deserves protection. This is just bullying on Apple's part, and it's working.
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Also, George Harrison lost over "My Sweet Lord" which sounded too similar to "He's so Fine."
but in western music, we only have 12 tones to choose from, so some repetition is inevitable.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
What legal backing does Apple have on these ridiculous claims, anyway?
I can understand their protesting others using their logo, but how can someone do this with the "look and feel" of their products? Translucent plastic or translucent icons, I still don't understand why anyone listens to these ridiculous claims. "Intellectual property." Bah.
----
>Go out there and try selling a soft drink in a wasp waisted bottle shape and
>see how long you last before Coca-Cola is serving you papers.
You mean like Virgin Cola? They seem to be doing all right.
And I was under the impression that the whole look-and-feel business was squashed years ago
when Apple tried to kill GEM.
mm. you don't think inertia had anything to do with that? most businesses used IBM's since the mid-80's.
oh, and, iMacs are $700 now. though granted, in 95 they were more.
-Stu
if users don't ever buys computers based largely on the "gosh ain't it cute" factor, explain the runaway success of the iMac. I just think that Apple is the only company trying to compete in this space that really has stuff to worry about, and as such they have no choice but to look like a bunch of inner thigh appendages. Really, Microsoft doesn't worry about Apple stealing their look because of market share dynamcis. Linux isn't a company. BeOS moved to embedded. ... who's left? Apple's the only people trying to change user interface in a non-incremental fashion. Thier success is a matter of opinion, but if they are the only ones with their wallets and jobs on the line, they're the only ones who'll care about this stuff.
> I would have NEVER guessed to put a CD or
... it is far less sophisticated than even X Windows, which is also a Mac copy.
... you can find news stories on the Web about it still, I'm sure. Microsoft and Apple settled some long-standing issues out of court (one was the wholesale use of stolen QuickTime code in the now-defunct Video for Windows ... tell me why AVI is now an "unsupported format" over at Microsoft?), agreed to share patents and technology, and MS invested a paltry -- paltry -- 150 million dollars in Apple to make the whole affair into something Wall Street could understand. At the time, Apple had over 1 billion dollars in cash on hand (they have over 4 billion dollars on hand today) so they were in no danger of going anywhere and did not need rescuing.
... every IRQ conflict, GPF, DLL Hell, OS reinstall, config.sys, etc. It's worth it for Windows users to spend some time with Mac OS X on a new Mac and see what it has to offer. You'll probably find that most of the bad things that you've heard are untrue or taken out of context. And the rest of the bad things you've heard are fixed in Mac OS X. The people who are running Apple right now really, really know what they are doing.
> network share into the trash to unmount them.
That's why this is only a shortcut, for convenience. You actually would select the disc or drive and choose File > Put Away.
> Need Mr. Paperclip to get my floppy out ya know.
Macs haven't had floppy drives for years, and right now, as of this second, something like 80% of Windows users don't have protected memory either (any DOS version). If you compare how a Mac and a Windows box use removable media, I think you will find the Mac superior, especially if you have a Unix background.
> it reverts all your networking connections to the
> PRINTER port. No, it doesn't tell you that it did that.
Macs also haven't had printer ports for years. What you're talking about is an easy networking system that used the printer port before Ethernet was cheap enough. There is no equivalent generic PC system to compare it to. These days, and for the last three plus years at least, every Mac sold has Ethernet, and many have gigabit Ethernet.
> Yes, Win95 borrows graphical elements from the
> Mac, and several other GUI platforms. So? Pretty
> much every GUI following Parc has done the same.
Apple invented overlapping windows, pull-down menus, pop-up menus, drag and drop, double-clicking, resizable windows, and more. Most of the common GUI elements you interact with each day were invented by Apple engineers and just plain copied by everyone else. You probably wouldn't recognize the Xerox GUI as even being a GUI
> and MS won't be interested in bailing them out
> a second time.
The incident you refer to only happened three years ago or so
You know, you might think I'm an Apple fanatic who is ignorant of other computer platforms, but I'm not. I bought my first Mac in early 1999 after using Windows for almost 10 years, since 3.0 first came out. I regret every minute I used Windows, now
There is no issue here. These are not Aqua-inspired graphics, or reminiscent-of-Aqua graphics, or graphics that look sorta like Aqua, these are Apple's graphics, copied and pasted, bit for bit, into a Stardock theme. This is not "look and feel", this is just plagiarism. Even the logos were left intact.
... kidnapping a graphic artist from Apple and forcing him to make a Stardock theme for you?
This is a re-implementation of Aqua on Windows. If I re-implement Apache on Windows, and I don't release the source, Slashdotters would be very interested in whether I used the original Apache source or not. If not, then OK. If I did, though, then I'm a dick, plain and simple. Taking someone else's work and calling it your own is being a dick.
How can anybody reasonably defend this? I clicked on a screenshot that the Stardock company said "walks the line" to see Apple's graphics, bit for bit. How is that "walking the line"? What would be "out of line" in that case
it is far less sophisticated than even X Windows, which is also a Mac copy. Actually, the X Window System (NOT X Windows!! Read man X) is a system for sending graphics over a network. Perhaps you are referring to applications that use the X Window System for display?
2. As many people have mentioned, if you don't defend a trademark, you lose protection for that trademark. That's why Disney runs around suing preschools that have Mickey Mouse on the wall. It's not that they hate pre-schools or enjoy the ill will, it's that if they don't, any one can make use of Mickey. That's the way the law works. I take it you can see the analogy with Apple.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
This may be true as to the intent, but this is not what is being practiced today. That is what I take exception to.
A patent is a contract between you and the government where you disclose the idea in return for a right of exclusivity.
That is sad isn't it? "right of exclusivity"? Why should you have an exclusive right to horde an idea that could benefit the rest of society? My point is that this way of thinking closes off oppertunity for society to make the idea even better. That is a better system. Most people who have a patent use it as an offensive tactic not defensive.
just another thought,
eno.
The gum-drop style won't age well and Apple will have to go for another look pretty soon. Let's just keep this in mind for the time when Apple will change the look of their OS again, to something less silly; surely, they will end up close to some look on themes.org, and if they claim protection on their look, surely the authors of those other looks can claim protection as well.
I wonder if there's _any_ GNU package in there, as part of the utilities.
Well, their developer tools are all based around gcc.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
> Funny, I never thought a company with more than $3 billion in cash reserves was close to death,
They are if they had $10 billion just a few years ago, and are still draining it...
i don't know what the issue here is. i have a lot of friend who are graphic artists. the artwork they create is copyrighted, and they get mighty pissed if anybody "rips" their artwork.
i don't see why it's any different in user interfaces. the interface is artwork, it's drawn by artists. some people come along and completely rip off that artwork and the artist's company sues. would you think any differently if some guy was going around painting exact replicas of artist's artwork and selling them?
the fact of the matter is that Apple's graphics are copyrighted, and only Apple should be allowed to use them, end of story. i side with Apple on this one.
- j
What an insightful, thought provoking response you've penned as you sit in front of your computer, in your house or apartment, perhaps with some music playing in the back ground, sipping a beverage. I wish I could frame your article, because it's laughable left-wing idealism like yours coming from a group of happily self-professed materialistic nerds that defines Slashdot users as being the most hypocritical collective on the web today. Nicely done.
So why are all "energy drinks" sold in cans of the same size and weight as "Red Bull." Is that OK? If yes, what's the difference? If no, are they paying royalties to "Red Bull?" Should they expect to get sued? I'm just curious...
ahem, that subject should read copyRIGHTed .. woops .. gotta learn to preview. ;)
- j
I don't see how this has anything to do with trademark unless they're using the Apple logo itself (which they might be doing).
It would be rather sad if Microsoft could invoke Apple's leniency towards skins developpers to jusitfy ripping Aqua for Whistler.
They aren't going to do that. They're going to stick with their look. But, they are using transparency. Perhaps Apple can sue the hell out of them for the idea of partially transparent windows.
So I guess you would be more than happy to give up much of what you own so that you could help the rest of society. Why aren't you donating that fancy computer you are posting with to a school or underprivaleged family? What about that internet connection? Wouldn't that money be better spent on helping people? Do you live in a house? Give up some of its space for the homeless to move in with you. Oh and your job...you will now earn the average income in your country, no fair earning more. The rest of your income will be given to those that are less fortunate. There is a reason why socialism hasn't ever worked.
-- soldack
He ask "then can musicians sue other musicians something that they think sounds like their music?" not 'then can musicians sue other musicians something that sounds like their music?' (Just because someone may 'think' that Metallica sounds like AC/DC, doesnt necassarily mean they do sound like AC/DC) Besides many bands sound like each other, but they don't sue each other - look at all those tribute bands that play in pubs.
On the other hand, where is the incentive to come up with these revolutionary ideas if anybody can copy them within five minutes of them going public.
Where would our car industry be today if that were the case?
The patent system was created because inventors would come up with brilliant things--and then take them to the grave, rather than tell the secret and get ripped off. Part of the deal with a patent is that you have to tell the secret, and everybody can use it soon enough.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I'm not a gui guy, but how do we know that apple hasn't come up with some technique/idea that could revolutionize gui construction from now on. This would have an adverse effect on the rest of the computer field, if no one could build on it and make it even better.
Granted odds are Apple has no such elements in their design, but if Apple is allowed doing this, what happens when a company comes up with something *really* revolutionary? They would hold onto the rights, and others would not be able to add to that idea and make it evolve. The net result would be that the computer (hitech) industry would suffer greatly. We need to think about the future before we get over zealous about the past.
just a thought,
eno.
No, you're not. For the record:
Slap an Aqua-like skin on Gnome or KDE running on XFree 4 on FreeBSD -- you won't get transparency, scaling, font handling or colour correction to the same degree (if at all). The only thing both systems share is the console-accessible userland. The kernels different and the GUI is vastly different.
--srj/mmv
Get a clue..
What's going on here has absolutely nothing to do with "..ripping off all somebodies work and sell it with your name on it.."
What's going on here is a loser corporation with too many loser lawyers with nothing really important to do, trying to intimidate a website that specializes in skins that **kinda** look their OS..
Nothing more.
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Microsoft and Intel are pretty dark companies, but the reference to Red Hat is rediculous. The whole reason this is news is because Apple is taking down stuff that doesn't have their logo on it. Of course Red Hat wouldn't let someone use Red Hat's brand name. But Red Hat certainly does not fall into the same realm as Microsoft and Intel, get a clue.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Or the Unisys patent who waited for a really long time until GIF became an industry standard and then tried to litigate and were...uhh...NOT laughed out of court.
Just like how everyone one wants the goverment to break up Microsoft. Gee, why don't they innovate instead of turning to the government?
In case anyone is interested, this may be a more appropriate link to that story: The Full Story
Except that Aqua is a lot more than a skin. Aqua = full alpha-channel transparency of everything. Do you see any other OS with soft shadows around windows?
I used GEM on the Atari ST line, where it was (thankfully) not castrated by Apple.
It would have been nice had that not happened - GEM on the Atari was running in a full 32 bit flat mode. It used to kill me to try to optimize my MS-DOS machine's upper memory block layout to try to get another 10K of ever-so-valuable low memory, then go home to my ST where I had 4 M of memory available to me with no fuss.
In a way, however, Apple hath reaped what they hath sown: by crippling GEM they made it easier for Windows to flourish.
www.eFax.com are spammers
You should make it look like a satire. It will then be protected by the First Amendment (I assume you're American; if you're not, check your local law, but most democratic countries protect satire).
although it isn't OSX, it does incorporate an Apple logo so I'd be interested to see how this develops.
Bad. Vulnerable to trademark infringement suit (IANAL). But if you change the logo in some funny fashion while leaving evident where it was spoofed from, you should be in the clear. Heck, it worked for Larry Flynt, didn't it?
All of these problems and disputes arise from the central idea that you can own an idea. You cannot own an idea. It is not tangible property. My use of the idea does not prohibit you from using it. This is not true with tangible property. These IP laws do nothing but put the government and well connected people/corporations in a position of power to decide who can earn money. IP never should have made it into the US Constitution. Our concepts of business, service, innovation and the such would be far more evolved by now if we had not made that mistake.
Stuart Eichert
Stuart Eichert
Do we know for sure Apple doesn't have a design patent on OSX? How does one search for such info? Is it possible to determine how much is covered without a lawyer? Would this cover "satire"? Isn't the whole thing funny? Is that satirical enough?
Just use a "real" apple. Eat a small part on the right and then photography it !
The real problem here is that Jobs has painted apple into a corner. Computers have become a commodity- pretty much anything you can buy is fast enough for the average user, and most of the competition (outside of the server and workstation space) is going on at the very low end of the price range. Apple took a comptuer that isnt appreciably better than a 1000 dollar pc and is attempting to add 2000 dollars worth of value by changing the way the user interface looks.
Jobs has overlooked the fact that all of its competitors in the OS space already have user friendly UIs. All that really separates a machine with OSX from a machine with windows 9x is that the OSX has glowy semi-transparent buttons. Most 14-year olds with passable photoshop skills can clone this for a winamp skin in an hour or two.
My point is that user-friendliness isnt a distinguishing feature that you cant substitute for competing with price. It used to be that apple had the only nice gui in town and that more than balanced the high prices in many people's minds. User friendliness and snappy guis are available for every single OS on the market today, even the free ones like linux. Admittedly, OSX may be superior in some small ways to win2000, gnome, KDE or BeOS, but to most people if it allows you to drag and drop files, THEY DONT GIVE A SHIT. If people start copying the "aqua" interface (interface? its fucking see-through buttons) apple suddenly has to sacrifice its margins and compete on price, like everyone else. That will hurt big-time.
These are just hilary rosen type "oh shit, we made a bad business decision- quick your honor help protect our bottom line" lawsuits. The shareholders would force Jobs to sue even if he was personally against it.
Have you bothered to even look at OS X and its insides? After you do that, *then* you can say it's for idiots and artists. Besides, Apple has every right to protect what they've spent million$ on. I'm sick of hearing these damned stories.
Nothing is better than God. Chicken is better than nothing. Chicken is better than God.
er no, apple paid xerox for the technology. if you had bothered to look up the facts then you would know this.
My old monitor puts soft shadows around every large-contrast-difference area, does that count? :)
Come on, man, thats *funny*!
Industry sources say that the only person who may have a legal challenge is Bill Gates and insiders at Microsoft say there have been meetings with company lawyers.
When a local paper questioned whether or not George Bush Jr. would have a possible legal challenge, a member or the patent office said "Absolutely not! Our research shows that he is called merely a 'dumbass' and would have no claim to actually being an asshole. One trait of assholism is strong decision making capabilities, and Mr. Bush falls short expecially when compared to the likes of Mr. Jobs and Mr. Gates. Now those guys are assholes."
Hey, you think your house is cool?
wait a minute. your all correct that the poster is off kilter, but why does that reflect on all slashdotters or even all liberals?
is it fair to say that the far-right nazi's sucked ass and therefore conservatives are all evil?
i am less concerned about the posters naive statements then your sweeping remarks about them.
Synergies are basically awesome, and they're even better when you leverage them. -PA
Oh, you mean like UNISYS and those nifty GIF patents?
To misquote Churchill, never has an operating system (FreeBSD) used by so many been administered by so few. - NetCraft
Is it though?
The current state of economics says that I must have a computer to work, so I own a computer. The current marketplace says that I must own music, so I own music. The weather says that I must keep a roof over my head, so I have an apartment.
I am a child of this world, yes, I freely admit that, but does that mean that I cannot dream of a better one?
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
Microsoft is like that sometimes.
Microsoft gets ugly when they realize what they've been smoking. They're friendly to those who won't get in against them.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Oh, ok. So lemme get this straight: you, someone who most likely does not purchase Apple products anyway, is going to now not purchase any more Apple products in the future. That will certainly be effective. What are you going to boycott next? Mack Trucks? JPL? The Bolivian government?
I've been waiting for Apple to sue George for the new iMac color-esque grills.
I wonder if Scott Adams has a variant on the great Dilbert where it is demonstrated that the boss's laptop is an etch-a-sketch.
"Hey, how do you reboot this iMac?"
"Turn it up to medium."
"Oh, yeah. Thanks!"
"I wonder when he'll realize we gave him one of those George Foreman grills..."
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Customers of their skin development software make & then send a copy in & then it gets linked on their website for people who want free downloads of it.
-Dead Lesbian Witches! Think about it!
...Windows Whistler does precisely this.
Ick. I have to go and clean my teeth now.
--
Peter
bzzzzt! Wrong!, thank you for playing all of you
The real story is that Xerox threatened to sue them both, as they both had copied the concept from the Smalltalk 80 graphical interface. .net respectively...
Personally, I think Parcplace system (now owners of the Smalltalk stuff, that Adele Goldberg took with her when she left the Parc) should sue Sun AND Microsoft for java and
The patent is still valid, but a court will probably not support you. Trademarks legally become invalid if not enforced. Get it right.
The patent will be valid, but a court might not support you. Trademarks become invalid if they aren't enforced, not patents.
- StarDock has no problems with Apple's requests for removal
- StarDock is still in negotiations about the whole thing with Apple
- StarDock *explicitely* states that Apple has every right to protect its IP (just like the skin-community), please read the last paragraphs of the article!
Imho, the story should be marked as (0, flamebait)...Jonas
(Slashdot login: Halo1, forgot password and don't feel like requesting it currently)
Howabout BT and hyperlinks then?
Any day now, some asshole record exec is going to get this idea to copyright the chord progression I IV V I, and then western civilization will come crashing to its final halt. So let's hope none of them are reading this . . .
people are too lazy to look up the facts and instead prefer to trot out the same crap lies. and then slashdot mods these lies up as "insightful" ha
What computer company? These are individuals creating skin-themes that are uploaded to be shared for free. We aren't talking about a "company" at all!
Apple lost legal control of their Look and Feel about 10-13 years ago (different circumstances, same result). When Apple lost that control, Microsoft was free to copy Apple's interface innovations, which eventually came extremely close to killing Apple.
Now Apple has a new L&F, one that truly makes them stand out from the crowd. Apple has betted it's entire existence on OS X being able to appear superior to Windows, and the Aqua L&F is a huge part of that. If Apple loses legal control of it again, than they have lost their best chance at being able to thrive in this industry, and they will either be forced to remain a niche player for another 10 years, or they will die.
I can't really say that I blame them.
but how is a gel-like button trademarked? _is_ it trademarked? That's why I excluded the apple logo itself, I understand why they have to go after that. I just don't understand how they can threaten any site with _screenshots_ of its skin without treading on some sort of rights.
What computer company? These are individuals creating skin-themes that are uploaded to be shared for free. We aren't talking about a "company" at all!
yeah if you got 6 hands :)
Mac OS X is based on BSD - a completely free and open OS. If you were to put an Aqua skin on BSD, you are damn close to having a copy of Mac OS X.
No, you're not. Mac OS X is far more than BSD with a skin. BSD doesn't have the Cocoa APIs, the PDF-based graphics engine, NetInfo, Bundles, or any of the many other things that Mac OS X interesting.
Apple has far more to offer than just slick design. The problem is that the clueless think if two things look the same, they are the same. This means that people will use Windows or Linux or whatever with an Aqua skin, and they'll think what they've got is just as good as OS X, when the reality is very different.
In other words, Apple needs to protect design so rabidly because so many people can't see past it.
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
what is the intent of people making these themes. Are they trying to sell them? How or what is Apple losing?
I don't see this as being any different from Paramount sueing Star Trek fans for writing fan fiction.
If they are selling their themes or a program using it as its GUI then fair enough. Otherwise I don't know.
--
Steve Jobs: We're better than you are.
Bill Gates: That doesn't matter.
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
My old monitor puts soft shadows around every large-contrast-difference area, does that count? :)
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
The new George Foreman grill looks exactly like an iBook.
Duh... Of course MS won't sue anyone using the Windoze look and feel.
Microsoft would then be using the same arguments Apple used in the lawsuit every third comment in this discussion refers to... A jugde would have a hard time keeping a straight face hearing Microsoft's arguments in a case like that.
MS argued, and still argues that UI is not distinctive and can't be protected. If MS want to rip Aqua off, they sure as hell won't be going after people trying to do to them what they have been doing to Apple all along!
OsX is skinnable, and it doesn't solve anything.
I forget exactly where the skin site is for OsX but people have already skinned the login screen, and the interface widgets.
I think there's a link at www.resexcellence.org...
Apple still designed quartz and the appearance for it. Defending themselves against Stardock who sells a product that makes windows feel like osX is clearly a violation of Apple.
Now I like Gnome and its freedom, but it's wrong to steal something that's not licensed as free.
Period.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
If you can explain how apple is losing money off of _windows_ users downloading an aqua theme, then please enlighten me! I don't mean how apple "could" lose money sometime in the vague future, and I don't mean the use of the apple logo itself. Hasn't this "look and feel" issue been put to rest after the whole Apple vs MS thing?
The value of the Apple brand is impacted by things that look like they're from Apple even if they're not. If I make a crappy ripoff of Aqua and it gets passed around, people may think that the real Aqua is just as crappy, and that's going to reduce the chances that they'll ever consider buying a Mac.
What I would do, if I were Apple, is create my own Aqua-like UIs for other operating systems - a Windows desktop, Unix GUI themes, etc. and either sell them cheap or distribute them freely. If they have to crack down on this stuff, then there's obviously some demand. There are plenty of people who wish they were using a Mac but are stuck with Windows and they'd go for it. Also, people who've never used a Mac would be able to get a feel for it on their Windows PCs, so it might help them recruit new users. And by doing it themselves, they'd insure high quality and reduce the need for other people to make Aqua-like skins for Windows apps.
There are plenty of skinz who look like Windows but MS aren't a bunch of morons to sue. Apple on the other hand just seem to look for an excuse to sue anyone. Why not sue the entire Aqua Blue planet?
Well, Whistler, while not going on all Aquaish, does indeed bear striking resemblence to Macs.
Maybe not in the way it look, but in the overall feeling. Especially if you choose the new settings.
Not to mention that I'm sure that there will be MacOS X themes for Whistler. For those who *really* like to torment their eyes.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Another reason they may have been laughed out of court is that they recieved Apple stock for that little visit at Palo Alto. They just felt later on that they had not quite recieved enough stock, however they were paid for it. Always annoying to keep hearing ignorant claims about how Apple is as bad as M$ because they did to Xerox, what M$ did to them. You guys have any idea of how much crap Xerox people came up with at that particular research center that was never followed up on?
One thing that should also be noted: the apple thingie is a Trademark. And as people many people here have stated they must protect it.... *shrug* If you say so guys. The skin in particular contained an Apple thingie.
And they say Steve Jobs has a reality distortion affect....
ps: I am not saying that Apple's legal staff isn't a bunch of assholes, they are complete assholes in my opinion. However if you think that going after someone who makes a skin they feel infringes their 'trademark' makes them worse than a compnmay who wilfully breaks contracts and then uses the legal team to keep the law from being upheld (in the case of Real, Looking Glass, and Sun) or outright steals a product and uses the legal staff to hold the case up in court so they can continue selling stolen code (Stacker) then I must say that we have very little in common in the way of ethical standards.
You don't say? An ENTIRE 667 or 733 mhz??? Ho-lee fucking shit! That's amazingly fast and comptetive, espceially since you can get a 1ghz TBird for $170! Go away.
-CoG
"And with HIS stripes we are healed"
-CoG
"And with HIS stripes we are healed"
Handel's "Messiah"
I think this is interesting from a psychology standpoint. Apple basically sells the product based on aesthetics. Thefore, when their aesthetics are challenged, they respond. I bet that if someone was to imitate another facit of the OS, Apple probably wouldn't care.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Even moreso; Apple is entirely GUI. The hardware is just a means to push a consistent system. Apple's main concern is selling their idea of the perfect GUI with a proprietary hardware architecture to ensure consistency and profits.
It's no shock that Apple would want to own as much of their baby as they can.
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
Today it's quite common to have 2 companies come up with the same technique, but one of them is quicker to patent so the other company is in violation. How can any industry really flourish when you are constantly afraid off stepping on all these lan mines.
eno.
They did. They lost.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
even if everyone in the world stole their look, it would at the least bolster their pathetic sales. The peepz rich enough and (stupid?) to buy a real mac for the look, are going to buy the original because they want "the groovy see through case". Apple needs a new tactic to get more headlines and sales..
===sam=== free nessus vulnerability scan = www.vulnerabilities.org
Oh really. I guess my comprehension skills just aren't up to yours.
What's going on here is a loser corporation with too many loser lawyers with nothing really important to do, trying to intimidate a website that specializes in skins that **kinda** look their OS..
No. What's going on here is that a bunch of people wasted the last two years of their pathetic lives pouring their creativity and soul into crafting a beautiful interface and people are ripping it off. You must've been that kid at the beach that kicked over the other kids' sand castles because they looked better than yours.
Why don't YOU "Get a clue.."
I'm glad Apple is defending it's innovations.
--
"macs are for idiots and artists"
I'm failing to see the distinction between the two here.
-CoG
"And with HIS stripes we are healed"
-CoG
"And with HIS stripes we are healed"
Handel's "Messiah"
If Apple wants to sue somebody, they should sue the makers of Vitamins, a game that takes the Aqua "pill" buttons and drops them into a bottle on top of viruses, as in Nintendo's Dr. Mario.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
That doesn't make sense. Why would YOU stop people from imitating YOUR style? I mean, it's YOUR style isn't it? Maybe you don't mind if your style gets ripped off. Maybe you do. "small time themer" could have asked first and ripped off later. Maybe Apple IS concerned about market confusion. They know more about that than I do. They might even know more about that than YOU do.
I would also say that it is rather petty of them to go after small time themers, that pose no threat to their business.
Okay, you got me there. But what about the poor schmuck college grad working for two years out of college, working at Apple, pouring his/her creativity and soul into making that beautiful aqua interface? Maybe they're only making 25k per year and have to face a layoff next year because nobody gives a shit about Aqua anymore because anyone can get it anywhere for free now?
They have every right to. These themes blatantly copy Apple's designs. They don't accidentally look similar. Who'd be naive enough to think this wouldn't lead to trouble?
http://www.gamespot.com/features/macvspc Equal speed processors, yet the PC was almost twice as fast benchmarking quake....And I bet some mac freak will shreik and cry that the test was rigged..blah blah blah...Can anyone give me ONE, just one, good reason why a mac is to be preferred over a pc?
Hasn't this already happened? When they sued microsoft for jacking their look and feel, and lost. Why do they think they can win this time?
DesktopX and Object Desktop by Stardock aren't just for skinning windows. (WindowBlinds by Stardock accomplishes this)
DesktopX and Object Desktop together with the AquaInk theme create a layer on top of the cruddy windows gui that not only LOOKS like osX but RESPONDS like osX... apps like the email and analog clock are suddenly on the desktop floating with drop shadows, the dock zooms and moves like it does on osX... this isn't a rip-off of only look, it's a rip-off of functionality.
A skin is one thing- a complete thievery is another.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Well I don't know exactly what the law is on that particular topic (UI and all) in the USA right now, but I can assure you that there is more to trademarks than actual logotypes.
The colored Apple with a bite on the side is an obvious trademark of Apple inc. But just as a particular type of container can be trademarked (think Coke glass bottle) or even a certain font and color combination (think Nivea cream), the idea that the very specific look of Aqua UI widgets could be considered a common law trademark (not a registered one AFAIK) is not that crazy.
This is a simple rule of Intellectual property: if you don't enforce your patents, they become invalid. This means even Joe Schmoe, if he's infringing on your patent. If you don't like this behavior (I can't say that I do), the problem is with the laws, not with the people trying to follow them.
After you do that, *then* you can say it's for idiots and artists. ...
Well.after doing that
i still say it's for idiots
Besides, Apple has every right to protect what they've spent million$ on.
i don't care what THEY have spent THEIR money on.
I'm sick of hearing these damned stories.
Me to. Mac* should die. And all idiots too.
Remember the "look-and-feel" case where Apple bitched at Microsoft for "borrowing" elements of the MacOS?
Did anything productive come about because of it? Will anything happen here? Can Apple do anything if someone refuses them?
All three questions have the same answer -- a resounding NO. Apple is behaving like a bully and attempting intimidation via empty threats.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
They seems to be a trend of Apple being overly zealous of their "intellectual property," and actively takes battle against anyone who tries to do anything even remotely like what they're doing. Perhaps they WANT to be a niche product?
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Uh oh... looks like winamp will have to remove the "OS" section of their skins site, since the I-have-a-pole-up-my-ass-precendent is being set...
If Apple can sue for something that resembles its OS, then can musicians sue other musicians something that they think sounds like their music?
Also, how far does this extend? If Apple sues for something that looks like their OS, then what provisos are they usuing to determine if it's too similar?
Answer: Probably none.
It disturbs me to see yet another example of Big Business thinking that they own everything, and crushing everything that they percieve as a challenge under their silicon-toed boot.
--Demosthenes Never Underestimate The Power Of Stupid People In Large Groups.
What about Lotus 1-2-3? For that matter what about Visicalc? Isn't every spreadsheet in existance "looking and feeling" like other spreadsheets? I agree its ridiculus to think one owns a "look".
But Coke allegedly paid off most of the companies it sued to lose to help establish stronger case law then they might otherwise have created.
Or as the widow of the president of Cleo-Cola said to Walter Mack (of Pepsi-Cola) "My husband thought he was right too, but they still put him out of business. And I still have a photograph of the check they gave him." After a copy of this check was introduced into the Coke vs Pepsi lawsuit, Coke asked for a 2 day recess and met with Walter and offered to withdraw the suit, which they did.
To misquote Churchill, never has an operating system (FreeBSD) used by so many been administered by so few. - NetCraft
I hope your not really trying to defend anything with arguments like those. If you truly believe in a hardcore leftist lifestyle, either live your life accordingly (even somewhat) or you are simply all talk.
I know Apple had gumdrop look-alikes. And there were toaster look-alikes. But squash look-alikes?
;]
Seriously, that's what I thought when I read the title for this article. Squash look-alikes.
I imagined spaghetti-squash shaped Macs, and butternut-squash shaped Macs, and pumpkin-shaped Macs. Then I saw it was an article about intellectual property and all that. Then I decided it was high time to go to sleep.
Angry IT woman in big clompy boots. And talking lint!.
The briefs filed in the case indicate that up to 70% of all computer industry professionals infringed upon CSC's patented "like shit" look and feel. Dr. Evidens cited studies showing that on any average Monday, sixty to seventy percent of all programmers are reported to "look and feel like shit."
The Closed Software Corporation also notes excessive unlicensed use of other patented Look and Feel combinations, top among them "like hell," "awful," and "totally gnarly."
Despite the fact that the CSC lawsuits are some of the largest and most comprehensive in the history of the computer industry, Evidens speaks of widening the scope of the litigation. "You see," he said at a press conference recently, "these violations are not limited to the information industry. I regularly see individuals in the banking industry, insurance, government, and yes, even the media, in unlicensed use of various patents that we hold." When asked about his goals in filing further lawsuits, Evidens merely smiled, and offered a flash demonstration of two of the more recent CSC patents, "filthy rich," and "powerful."
Industry analysts are watching Dr. Evidens and his lawyers closely, (and, according to Evidens, are coming arbitrarily close to violating another patent, the "nervous" look and feel) to see the results of this case, and to find how it will affect future developments.
Originally posted to rec.humor.funny by goldstein@arecibo.aero.org (SAMUEL GOLDSTEIN)
because linux community is the ultimate copying machine, do you see ANY innovation by linux community?? no. Why?? because those people only know how to copy how to emulate what other ppl do. If apple start to sue people for copying what they've designed, they feel insecure, because nearly everything that they've done in the past will fall apart. (except maybe the linux kernel) I think apple is already kind enough to let windowmaker go, because they are not using that interface anymore, but that's just a total rip off of NEXT's R&D. I used to support linux whole heartedly, but if what I see in slashdot is what represents linux, then I think it's really F**KED up big time.
You've got it backwards. A short time before the introduction of the Macintosh, Apple was sued by the association of American MacIntosh apple growers (whose name I can't recall); that's why "Macintosh" has a lowercase "i".
I have a hard time putting right or wrong on somebody's action unless I know why they did it, regarless of what the laws say. Since they did not state it in the article I'm assuming it's to stop competition/increase sales. Does the folowing consumer really exist? Consumer: "Hmmmm I want a computer, I really like that Aqua colored interface with transparent thingies, oh I can only get that with OSX looks like I'm buying an Apple".
Mainstream? Apple's share is not even 15% how is that mainstream?
I gave OS 9 a try, it sucked big time and crashes a lot. Hell you can't multi-task while doing a CD-Copy, now that's crap. And what am i supposed to do with a one button mouse? If the interface is supposed to be easy how come I can't seem to handle it? Geez even UNIX command-line is more user friendly than that piece of crap. And the interface is ugly as shit for some reason it gives me the impression that i'm using a monochrome monitor
I really don't get what these people are afraid of. Do they actually think their financial security as a corporation is threatened? Or is it paranoia from the past (being 'stolen' from -- but Xerox PARC doesn't count...)
-= jester =-
Seriously. Apple was very inventive in making their design, and the only purpose for another computer company using it would be to attempt to look like an Apple. i say go ahead
"Cornflakes are not the innocent critters they seem"- Sterling Morrison
Re-read his post... he didn't claim Apple invented ALL those things... the last line claims that, "Sure, Apple didn't invent everything themselves, but they sure recognized good ideas and aggressively drove them into the mainstream before any other computer company."
You people can be so quick to respond and judge you don't see the forest for the trees.
- MaineCoon
Meowing inanely at all the petty bickering and wrongfully "Im Right You're Not" people.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
Yeah! I bought one thinking that I could get on the information superhighway with it, but the manual read only of cooking, and bun warming!
:)
He who knows not, and knows he knows not is a wise man
There was a _long_ time where Apple's "look-and-feel" stance got them boycotted by the GNU project. Been done before, could be done again if they step over the line. Guess it's a good thing they decided to base OS X on BSD licensed software.
I wonder if there's _any_ GNU package in there, as part of the utilities.
I'm not exactly sure what apple is going after here. Sometimes I'll see the apple logo in themes and think 'yeah thats a little bad'. But other times I just see the buttons, borders, and windows that look similar. So now they're taking them down?
.enlightenment dir and can't download it again...
It's kind of like saying 'i'm going to sue this coke company because they stole the look and feel of my aluminum can that i stored my beverage in'.
Actually i'm just pissed I got my Aqua theme deleted when I stupidly erased my
like Be runs on PPC ..
.. like Amiga..
get the facts straight Be's real competition is microsoft not apple. You gotta kick Microsoft's ass not apple.
lol actually I mean you gotta kick WinCE's ass. BeOS on desktop is dead for more than a year already. Dont tell me about it's superiority, if something's dead no matter how good it is it's still dead
Thank you.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Mickey is copyrighted and quite simply shouldn't be any more. Disney is being a major ass when they sue a pre-school for infringement. I just hope the verdict on Eldred v. Reno overturns the Sonny Bono Act. Otherwise come 2018 we'll see Disney tossing a few million once again upon Congress to keep Mickey out of the public domain. Come 2019, when Mickey's copyright expires, Disney will have owned him for 91 years. That's what? 3-4 generations? For all intents and purposes, Disney has a perpetual copyright on Mickey and this is in violation of the letter and spirit of the law.
btw, it is either or when it comes to IP. You get to copyright or trademark. Not both. Apple can trademark their logo. Fine. They can't trademark their gui. Nor can they copyright it. The gui is essentially a collection of controls. They'll have to go back to the Supreme Court and get Lotus v. Borland overturned. Possible but unlikely.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
In other news, it has been reported Apple is taking up a suit against the entire apple industry, including apple orchards. When asked for further comment, Steve Jobs replied, "You need to expand your horizons man. There's an entire world of litigation yet to be explored."
Apple: always innovating...
---
Stardock
was the company under fire. No one else.
What does stardock make? Windowblinds, a windows GUI replacement tool. And what is Aqua? a GUI. So this is not apple "coming down on anyone using the aqua likeness." Far from it. If one were to investigate, they'd see that apple is protecting their GUI from knock-off GUIs from the competition.
Apple is surprisingly good about this kind of thing IMHO. Previously, not themes were removed from themes.org or anywhere else if they did not actually use the string "aqua" in their names. (To this day there is a mac OS 9 appearance manager theme called "Liquid.") Apple lets all the TV and toaster and hair-dryer makers use the iMac style for their products, as long as they are not selling computers, which would be direct competition stealing brand value. So, it would logically follow that apple would try and stop OS GUI makers from copying a copyrighted OS GUI. That sounds like a pretty valid use of copyright... that is, if they are violating fair use. Considering that Stardock sells WindowBlinds for money, this should be cut and dry logic.
Phonics.
Sure gigabit ethernet is an IEEE standard, but who else has offered it?? Months ago when Apple introduced 1000Mbps ethernet, no other major computer maker was offering it on their systems. Today, they still aren't...
Trade dress refers to packaging and display stuff. If you make something that looks like coke so that people buy it thinking it is coke, then yes Coca-Cola can and should come after you. If, however you make something that tastes like coke and sell it in a diferent package so that no one confuses it with coke then that is just fine. You can even advertise that it tastes like coke.
Likewise, if you sell software in an OSX box that isnt OSX then by all means Apple should go after you. They have a duty to their customers to ensure that when someone buys something that they think is OSX they get OSX. But in this case, they are taking something that everyone knows isn't osx and making it "taste" like osx.
>is it fair to say that the far-right nazi's sucked ass and therefore conservatives are all evil?
Well, yes actually.
It's another thing to blatantly use the same thin lines that adorn all the windows (and the case of the iMac). Copy the Bondi blue exactly by looking up its Pantone color. Placing an apple in the exact same areas of the screen, with the piece cut out, just like the logo.
Agreed a hundred percent, and when Apple went through themes.org a few months back and removed the obvious clones, most of Slashdot supported them in their Action.
But this isn't fake Apple logos, exact lines. basically, its anything which looks like a gel-capped widget.
I wonder if someone did gell capped widgets in another color (green or orange) whether Apple would sue...
Perhaps Xerox should've sued Apple for stealing THEIR intellectual property!!!
Speaking of which...
For those of you who haven't heard it yet, hurry and download "Every OS Sucks" by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie!!!
Get it here. Quite humourous.
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Apple was using some weird benchmark based on Photoshop... Others have tested the 500 Mhz G4 againt 500+ MHz AMD chips and found the G4 lacking.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
I totatally agree. Apple is going to piss people off by doing what they're doing. Whether they are in the right or not makes no difference. Look what happened to Metallica when they pushed Napster to ban 300,000 users for sharing their songs. That's a lot of pissed off Metallica fans.
If Apple were smart they would do what you suggested. If enough people saw an Aqua theme running on a win95 box or a linux box, Apple gets more exposure. More exposure means more business. It's free advertising. None of the Linux distros are selling a window manager that emulates Aqua down to every detail. There are themes for that and even then, it may look like OSX but it still is not. The functionality is still not there and the feel is still different. Apple should save their money instead of going after FREE gtk themes that don't even come pathetically close to Aqua.
Better be careful, they might sue slashdot for using OS X-like the Apple icon."
Actually, it is likely that apple will not sue slashdot for using the logo. If you look very closely, you can see a little copyright symbol at the lower right corner. Apple would have no grounds for suing slashdot, so there is no possible way for them to hold up a case...
Now I feel like a complete dick for flaming a guy's innocent joke. Oh well, such is Slashdot.
47.5% Slashdot Pure(52.5% Corrupt)
Uhh, NO.
USB was made by INTEL. And makding an open source OS is not an innovation. Neither is slapping a Sorenson codec in a program and releasing the source.
Why would windows themers be angry about this... the themes are for KDE and other X window managers/desktops.
First of all, Apple did not steal the GUI from Xerox. Apple paid Xerox for certain pieces of the GUI concept. Apple invented many other GUI elements.
Second, Apple lost their suit against Microsoft because Apple had licensed some GUI elements to Microsoft, and the court felt that this was enough to justify the wholesale rip-off of the Mac GUI by MS.
Third, there are at least two forms of intellectual property protection for design: design patents, and trade dress. While I'm not sure about design patents, I believe that with trade dress you are required to enforce the IP or risk losing it.
Fourth, Apple puts significant effort into GUI research and development. Read the Apple Human Interface Guidelines if you want an idea of how seriously they take the matter. To rip them off of all their hard, expensive work against their will is just plain wrong.
The GUI constitutes a large part of Apple's advantage over their competitors, open source or otherwise. Yes, they are competing against GNOME and KDE--since OS X is Unix, they're now in the same game as Linux, BSD, etc. If RedHat could just ship RH X with an Aqua-like theme, it would hurt Apple's sales.
IMHO, GUI design is the one area where open source hasn't come close to commercial software, and possibly never will. Good GUI design is vastly different than other forms of programming, and cannot be broken down into the kind of distributed, modular development model that open source uses. Even the best open source GUIs out there are really just imitations of the Mac OS and Windows, with some pretty skinning features. When will open source developers get it that GUIs are more than just shiny buttons and widgets? Consistency is incredibly important, but it's not to be found between GNOME apps, for instance.
I'd love to be proven wrong on this one. Somebody, please make an open source GUI that is genuinely revolutionary. Don't just copy Windows. Oh, and please don't make yet another web browser...
I'm speaking of their attitude, not their product.
The Mac OS IS far superior to anything from M$, but its only for their hardware.
Great OS - one step forward.
Proprietary hardware - two steps back.
When Jobs & Co port the OS to other platforms they may not need M$'s money to keep them afloat.
Just something to think about.
Although I admit that a few of the examples in this comment, the key point is that they are things that are integrated into the OS itself- Being able to mount a drive across the internet and have it become integrated into the system API (i.e., being able to save from word onto that drive), etc. is pretty cool.
By SMP being standard, sure it was for a while on professional workstations, but aside from the BeBox which had a limited market, Apple was first to make it standard on every machine they sold. Of course they removed it when they ran low on chips, but I have a feeling that it will be back this summer.
Also, the wireless lan thing- yes, the technology was invented by someone else. That is readily obvious- the point again is that Apple came up with a nice way to integrate it into the products. Similarly, gigabit ethernet was obvious invented by someone else, but the Mac was cool enough to make it the standard NIC in their workstations. When you buy a PC, the standard is 10/100. Get the idea?
I find that there is a lot extra value in Apple hardware. No company is perfect, sure. If they were perfect by the Slashdot defnition (sorry to those who don't fit the typical Slashdotter mentality), their machines would be cheap, specs open, and source code available. But then they would be put in price wars with people who have an easier time knocking things off, and gosh, then they would end up out of business.
If RHAT came up with the clever idea to make their linux look like OS X right out of the box, Apple would be in trouble. That is why they are heading off theme designers at the pass. Microsoft doesn't need to do this because they have the market. Apple does, because with each competitor with their features, they lose market. And in ECO 101 we learn that losing market is bad.
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
-E. W. Dijkstra
Why does this always come up on Slashdot? I know we all care about free speech but I don't think Apple is posing such a serious threat to us. Apple is paranoid, yes, but they have good reason to be, from their experience with Microsoft. Apple sells a look & feel for an OS. Should anyone be free to copy it?
I want Apple to stay in business and keep on innovating; everyone else is just trying to copy each other. At least it sometimes seems like that.
*Yes, you can be overly elitist.
And we all know how acurate website counters are.
In court, you would have to prove beyond a balence of probability that everyone knows it's not osx.
Is this right?
Also, is *balence* supposed to be *balance*?
I just want to say that... oh wait, give me a moment, I have to go get something out of my closet...
[step, step, step, step]
[creeeeeak]
[rummage, rummage, rummage...]
hmm, I haven't needed these in years... where are they?
[rummage, rummage, rummage]
Ah, here we are....
[slam!
[step, step, step, step]
[zzzzzzziiip!]
Okay, now that I'm in my oh-so-comfortable asbestos underwear, I'm ready to weigh into the holy war. Before I start my completely objective analysis of this situation, I must state--as the author of the Slashdot article stated indirectly by his choice of words--that I am totally subjective; I have been an avid Apple fan for years; my first computer was an Apple ][c, and I and am even posting this from one of those forgettable numbered Macs from the Gil Amelio era (Power Mac 7500/100 in fact). I like my Mac...no, I love my Mac; I love the way a Mac chimes on boot, smiles at you when it finds its startup files, and even apologizes for system errors. It's mushy and not "technically efficient" (that's arguable, by the way), but it's humanizing. It is that look and feel that has kept me attached to Apple even when I recognized that I could get more things more cheaply by getting a PC. In fact, the only thing that kept a PC out of my life is the fact that I would have had to deal with that Gawdoffle Windows 95 GUI... I hate that GUI. I prefer DOS to that GUI; at least I understand the DOS commands. "F8 refreshes the window..." ah yes, that's easy to remember.
Regardless of the laws, Look and Feel (L&F) is a vital element of the computer experience. It is the interface that ties the most critical element of the computing system--the user--to the computer itself. I was actually a little surprised that Apple would clamp down on others imitating their L imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery, and it is some of the cheapest advertising Apple could get.
However, I can fully understand; in those years of chaos when many believed Apple would take the plunge, its L&F was almost all that was holding the company together. IMHO, they are understandably paranoid about plagarism of those ethereal elements that make a Macintosh user experience what it is... and no, I'm not talking about the extension conflicts!
Now that Apple seems on an upswing, I think it could possibly afford to let something as little as an Aqua-like skin slide. But then again, since L&F is so hard to objectively define, maybe Apple is safest by being paranoid about its interface. As for the legal ramifications of all of this, I'll let the courts decide; that's what I pay them for.
Take care,
Mark
Take care,
Mark
There is a solution...
No route to host
--
What would happen if a company said "we have invented the exhaust system, no one can use it", and other companies said similar things about ideas/techniques they had come up with. Could you imagine what cars would be like today?
You are joking, right? Early car manufacturers were keenly aware of patents and used them as a regular part of their business. The Selden patent was THE most famous patent infringement trial.
A major reason the Henry Ford was able to get venture capital was that he had a strong patent portfolio - including a basic patent on the transmission.
Another famous case was the breaking of Otto's patents on the Otto cycle engine based on some prior art. This allowed Damlier to go into business.
Patents had a major affect on the early automotive industry.
Ummm... he actually brought Apple's stock to it's all time high. The pummeling you've seen as of recent is just an exagerated version of the tech fallout on NASDAQ.
Yes, Bill Gates appears to be evil at times. Yes, Steve Jobs could appear in the same light.But i bet if you acquired the power and influence they possess, you'd be just as hated by slashdot's AC's...
IMHO Apple should be flattered that so many people like their GUI enough to make look-alikes on systems other than MacOS... btw, aren't a lot of non-technical new users to computers interested in the way a computer looks almost as much as how good it runs? Isn 't Apple using asthetics in other areas to lure customers? This speaks to me as free advertising in a sense...
----
I must admit, for a brief second I interpreted the headline to mean that Apple was going to make something that looked like a squash. And I wasn't even very surprised.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
NO. there are many ways to present a spreadsheet to a user. It's not like a spreadsheet is A copywritten or a trademarked item. Just aS GUIs are. There are plenty of variations on the theme of a Graphical user interface. But only on actually appears to the user as Aqua does... and no one else implented anything siimilar to it until after Apple demo'ed it... Isn't that rather clear cut. Just as Apples case vs. eMachines? No one thought to introdcue an all in one PC housed in translucent plastics until apple intro'd the imac, and then all of a sudden, emachines comes up with the "same idea" even utilizing the same color scheme no less....
I didn't mean to insult all artists...My buddy is a graphic designer, he swears by macs. "Macs are for idiots and SOME artists"
Steve Jobs can buy her out, as long as I get to eat her out.
;-)
Did you hear that? No, not that suspicious slurping sound. I meant the sound of karma being dragged-and-dropped into the "Trash" Icon on some moderator's OS X desktop.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Yes... emachines even went so far as running ads for the eOne in MacWarehouse catalogs, proudly stateing it contained a 366 or 433 MHz processor, but never once mentioning it was an x86 processor or that it ran windows....
The thing looked nearly identical to the iMac, it was almost absurd. The G4 powerbook looks completely unique, in it's own class, IMHO. Yes, it may be inspired by the viao's, but it's not like they stole Sony's molds and reproduced something in the same casing. they took an idea and put their own spin on it. eMachines didn't do that. Nor are any of the skinmkers. They're mearly taking apples idea's and repackaging them as their own without actually adding anything to them
Just one word... RAMBUS
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
I listened to several other tracks on TDTiaB's album, all were great. I wonder if they'd be mad that I downloaded it into my Napster directory, tho...
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
It seems that this type of legal action tends to be made by companies that are in 2nd or 3rd place as just a part of their attempt to move to 1st place. The strategy of using lawsuits to squash or bruise competition or copycats (such as CMGI's search engine patent suits) appeases the short-term goals of marketing teams and company officers, but it usually hurts the company in terms of PR in that the public sees these actions as frivolous attempts to protect a weak marketing strategy as well as building resentment among the communities which might have helped build support otherwise.
"Sure, it's Apples fault that Motorola can't/won't get their chip to go faster."
Yes it IS Apple's fault... Their license agreement forbids them from using the IBM PPC chip, which has already hit 1 GHz, I believe...
And several reputable hardware sites have already debunked the myth of the G4 PPC being faster clock per clock than an Athlon...
Face it. Apple is dead. They are relying on pretty plastic cases and a pseudo-Unix OS to save them. Unfortunately they don't know that plastic cases suck (RF leakage) and that they should just adopt an established Unix (BSD/Linux) rather than copy and call it "OS X"
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Just read this...
http://www.computerlaw.com/lookfeel.html
Jonesing for a +4 Informative...
> I will not do business with a company that behaves like this.
Not everything is Free or even free. Some things, are worked hard on, by many people, for a corporation, for profit. Those things are Owned by those people/corporations. Whether it be music or software, original artistic works are being created. If Sting can sue or demand royalties when an R&B group uses his sound as part of a song, then Apple deserves the same rights over Aqua.
So, if the {KDE,GNOME,Enligtenment} people maybe get up enough cash, they could licence Aqua. Otherwise, unrightful users get sued. This is normal Business. Apple is not the bad guy.
Start Running Better Polls
All right, one more time. Apple PAID Xerox to use their GUI technology. Apple then improved it substantially for the initial version of the Mac OS. (For example, I don't believe Xerox's UI could have overlapping windows.) There are plenty of valid reasons to criticize Apple, but the "Apple-stole-from-Xerox" fabrication is not one of them.
They are never going to be able to caputure enough marketshare just by trying to make computers that looks "cute" like the VW Beetle.
Looking cute is hardly the only redeeming feature of Apple hardware and software. Why are many people here looking forward to OS X? Generally not because of the candy-colored UI, but because it is the first OS that provides the full power of Unix in a form that regular consumers can easily use.
Finally, Apple has over $4 billion cash in the bank and is expected to return to sustained profitability this quarter. They are hardly in "imminent danger of death".
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Apple pioneered the GUI, and they deserve to have other people respect their creations.
If you mean GUI in general, don't make me haul out the Xerox PARC references. If you mean the current GUI, Apple only owns it because they bought the people who designed the basis for it, a little Steve Jobs operation called NeXT...
As well, look and feel is not protected - witness Apple's failed lawsuit against Microsoft many years ago. Also witness how Microsoft hasn't chased down Red Hat for their AnotherLevel look-alike, the qvwm team for completely porting the Win95 look, etc...
I think you have your creators wrong.
> - USB standard
Intel
> - FireWire standard
That one was Apple, True.
> - 802.11b wireless LAN easy add-on (and first affordable base unit)
I believe that was Cisco
> - UNIX-based (BSD, Mach) mainstream OS
You've got to be kidding! Apple invented UNIX?
> - Open Postscript imaging model everywhere
Adobe
> - Open OpenGL standard for 3D imaging
SGI
> - Promoted (BTO and standard) DVD-RAM and DVD-R
Sony
> - Digital Video monitor support standard
True -- they created two of their own properiatary interfaces. But ignoring the other standards out there to create something that accomplishes the same purpose and improves upon nothing (except forcing people to buy Apple hardware with their Macs) is not innovative, except perhaps in a marketing sense.
> - Gigabit Ethernet standard
I believe that was Cisco also.
> - SMP standard (on high-end)
That's been around since the '60s
> - Darwin open source
You mean the Darwin name, or the open-source concept? Darwin is an Apple API... of course they invented it. That's like praising Microsoft for inventing Win32. What ABOUT Darwin is so innovative?
> - QuickTime Streaming open source (server)
They own the QuickTime trademark, true. But RealNetworks was the first with streaming video servers.
> - World-class industrial design (Cinema Display, G4 Cube, Pro Mouse, Titanium G4 PowerBook, etc.)
See the above message... this is just design. Nice design, but that was his point.
> - Real Java in mainstream OS (in MacOS X)
Sun
> - First mass-market, consumer-friendly application for video editing (iMovie), audion (iTunes), DVD production (iDVD).
These have been on the shelves at software stores for 10 years. iDVD has some nice features, but is most innovative in that it brings the ease-of-use of Toast to the DVD.
> - Integrated remote storage (iTools)
XDrive, idrive, driveway, freedrive.
> - Objective C, Interface Builder, etc., in mainstream OS.
Next.
Apple's done some cool stuff, but don't believe their marketing lies... they're about style, not technology. Of all the ones you named up there, the only innovation was FireWire. The rest were either someone else's innovation, or something that i would never consider an innovation (like a trademarked name, rather than an idea).
I don't see how this is any different from Apple going after computers that look like the iMac or the Cube. This is exactly the same sort of thing, in fact, it seems like the next step up. They're moving from what the machine looks like to what the OS looks like. I don't see how this has anything to do with work done by Xerox PARC or Microsoft. The distinctions people are making between the look of the physical machine and the look of the OS are rather forced and by no means a given.
I'd be willing to bet that the problem here is that Stardock (a for-profit business) was making
/profiting/ from Apple's work, not just /distributing/ Apple's work.
/too/ much.)
their themes using graphics copied from Apple screenshots, rather than 'cloning' the graphics without copying.
So, in a sense, they were
(Which, judging by how they dealt with the KDE/GNOME theme designers, they don't mind
--K
Ah... well... just for the records: There is virtually no innovation in the Win-UI. Every single element that you can see there (yes, even the ugly 'start'-button) has been invented elsewhere.
Microsoft would have had a very hard case.
Apple spends plenty of money on R&D.. They just don't want other companies using their research in order to come to market with products that compete with theirs. That isn't asking much.
So far as your cars comment goes... Has it ever occured to you that maybe theres enough room in the universe for more than just x86 PC's? Does apple NEED to get 10% market share to survive? No. They can live quite comfortably as a $10 or $12 billion dollar company that does $3 billion in sales per year.That's not a bad position to be in, yet somehow you imply that they're dying?!?
And lastly... Again, and undrinformed comment. MHz is for people who know or care nothing about processors. They're not equal. Yes, Apples been stuck at a bit of a plateau for a while, but again, comparing the G4 to the fastest Athlon you can buy, you'd be sorrowfully disappointed about how many transistors are wasted for such a little performance gain...
But then, i'm one of those people that figures that 500 MHz is good enough for most people to last quite a long time.... Until someone actually creates a piece of software that actually needs more than that. And no... Voice Recognition will not be te next big thing....
As far as i'm conserned Apple really lost all touch with reality when they had the balls to call thier latest efforts "supercomputers".what a bunch of fuckups. nice to see the Steve Jobs reality distortion field working at full force.
What you have just said is really not true. Or, it is no more true of Microsoft than it is of Apple. Asides from Xerox Parc, other researchers in Bell Labs, MIT and Stanford were working with the elements windowing systems long before the Mac. Like Apple, Microsoft worked with existing ideas, and has created a pretty good UI out of them (for actual functional multitasking, I much prefer the Windows and X ways of doing things far more than traditional Apple way; I've always thought that the unrestrained praise for the Mac interface has been overwrought and uninformed.) And the actual design elements on scroll bars is the issue, anyway - Apple isn't suing based on real "innovation" when it is a suit about color schemes and the shape of window borders. The bare fact of it is that Microsoft has chosen NOT to sue small companies that mimic its unique design elements for skinning purposes, and Apple again has.
No... i'm actually one of those artists... When ever i have some serious batch processing to do (read: Actions), i always set it up on my dual processor NT machine to burn through. But if i actyauly have to sit at the computer, i'd rather Power Mac 8100 (80 MHz PPC 601) running Mac OS 7.6 to a 1 GHz Athlon running Win2000. The mac interface is just that much better for one. The color management is superb. Inter application communication works much better.
Yes, the mac may win a couple benchmarks. But thats just for marketing, as the graphic design industry will never leave the Mac platform... It's just a jab at intel hoping to get the fence sitters on apples side.
Aqua skin? WTF are you talking about?
Come back when you have a clue.
My question for Apple's legal department is how can they be justified for a person emulating the appearance of the environment. If it was emulating the functionality of OSX I could better understand they're claims here, but get real.
I guess this means they are suing because they think users may be persuaded to use the theme instead of buying OSX. So this proves it true, Apple users are, in general, buying it for it's fruity appearance and not for it's preformance.
I'll let someone else comment on every part of it, but here are some points I can refute.
... . Your point?
... it's a horrid experience. Automatically doing the right thing instead of torturing the user seems like a praisworthy thing, and better than anybody else's solution so far.
> - USB standard
> Intel
> * Lucent, Intel, HP, Compaq,
> * There's an aspect of USB that Apple did amazingly well, BTW. Plug a USB device into a Mac, and it'll download the driver, install it, and enable the device. Try simply plugging a USB device that needs a new driver that's not installed yet into a PC
Really? In Win98, I plug in the device, I get a message, "detecting new hardware", then I get the choice of either using the default driver (if exist) or pointing the OS to the driver, or letting the OS look it up in the internet.
Win ME/2K/Whistler does it even better.
Linux is harder, I'll admit.
> - UNIX-based (BSD, Mach) mainstream OS
> You've got to be kidding! Apple invented UNIX?
> * No, I didn't say that Apple invented UNIX. I said that Apple is the first company to ship a mainstream desktop OS based on UNIX.
There *isn't* any *nix based mainstream OS.
The closest thing to it is Linux. There are *way* more linux desktops than OSX desktops.
> - SMP standard (on high-end)
> That's been around since the '60s
> * Not as a standard feature of mainstream desktop computers.
Nope, again:
A> Macs are by no mean mainstream OS.
B> NT had it from the start (3.1? 1993?)
C> Unix had it *long* before that.
> - Real Java in mainstream OS (in MacOS X)
> Sun
> * Solaris isn't a mainstream OS. It's a server OS. It's a good one, but not a consumer OS.
YMMV, but I know several people that use Solaris as a desktop.
You can get a SPARC+Solaris for less than a 1000$, good deal.
And, anyway:
A> Macs aren't mainstream OS.
B> Windows had it first, and the MS implenation of JVM was even better than Sun, IIRC.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Chanted by protesters against the Lotus-Apple look and feel suit a lifetime ago IIRC...
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
it sounds like they think that the look and feel is all they have. and if someone copies that, they have nothing left.
-Adam
ender-iii
That is bullshit. Does this mean that Rasterman should be suing Apple because they use translucent windows (ETerm had that *years* ago). Apple has already lost the look-and-feel legal battle with Atari, Franklin and ahem Microsoft. Now Steve is at it again, and Apple loyalists come to their defense every time.
I love Apple products. My first computer was an Apple //e. I also owned the //c, a Mac Classic, A PowerMac 6100 and 2 iMacs (rev B and C). I also love my Aqua theme for Sawmill/GTK. What is Apple's goal here? To piss me off? It worked. Apple has to be Apple's own worst enemy.
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Now, if Apple had given these authors permission to make Aqua-like schemes that would be used to drive sales of a product (even indirectly), it'd be OK. But this is perfectly legal and permissable, and has been done for ages.
"Macs are for idiots and artists, but I repeat myself" :-)
This is the most pathetic attempt at a troll I have ever seen.
Go out there and try selling a soft drink in a wasp waisted bottle shpae and see how long you last before Coca-Cola is serving you papers.
Incidentally, read the fine print on a plastic 600mL bottle of Coca-Cola and you'll discover the bottle shape itself is a registered trademark of Coca-Cola. I think that's what you're referring to.
--
Firstly I think Apple can rightly claim to have brought the GUI to the industry, yes, it is true that the Xerox team developed it, but Xerox couldn't see the use for it, Steve Jobs did, he aquired it fairly and used it.
Secondly I praise Apple for having the ingenuity to actually design a computer (namly the iMac) that wasn't just a boring grey/beige colour, a box and a monitor.
BUT I am disapointed that Apple have taken this hardline against anyone who designs a system that has the Apple "Look and Feel". I know that Apple went after eMachines, and I feel that they have indeed used the Apple "Look and Feel" in their design. But is it not said that imitation is the sencerist form of flattery. Besides, Apple should be happy that their inivation has spread into the Microsoft/Intel dominated PC market. But I can understand why they are doing it.
Bill Gates was impressed when he saw the Macintosh system for the first time, as much as i do not like the way he does buisness, he is good (no, fantastic) Buisnessman, he saw that this would allow a great deal many more people to use computers inside and outside their workplace. So he (and I'm not about to mince words) went about stealing it, Thus windows was born. Although the Macintosh GUI was far superiour in ALL aspects the Windows/PC combination buired it. I am reminded of the line in "Pirates of Silicon Valley" where Steve Jobs points out that the Mac GUI is technically superiour to which Bill Gates replies
"It doesn't Matter"
And that is the truth, it didn't matter. Microsoft had better marketing, more companies onside, Apple was just Apple.
and so the Apple paranoia was born, and Apple's actions of late show that it is alive and well.
Apple need to realise that they can survive and thrive in the marketplace by leading inovation, not owning it. they where badly burnt once by Microsoft, but what major players in the computing field were not, if anything it shows that they were, and still can be, a threat.
Companies like Apple are the reason that the Computing industry still moves forward in the face of corporations like Microsoft, but the paranoia is destroying all their good efforts. It is one thing to protect your Intellictual Property, but it is another to be a whinging bitch. If Apple are not careful they will turn into another Sun
Trav
Leg Godt!
If you want to put a blue Apple logo on your menu bar, consider buying a Mac.
Did anybody actually read the full story, and specifically, the comments of the President of Stardock (the guys who received the letter?):
Wardell emphasized that Apple has rights in this matter and that it has not been unprofessional in its approach or dealings with Stardock.
"Every time a company tries to enforce their rights, they are always made out to be bad guys," he said. "The fact is Apple is trying to innovate, and if you take away their incentive to innovate, it hurts everybody. I think it's good to see Apple, within limits, protect their rights."
"We very strongly believe Apple has rights to protect its intellectual property up until they infringe on the rights of others," Wardell said. "We need to make sure we protect the rights of the 'skinny' community, too."
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Apple did invent FireWire (around 1989, I think) so you are wrong about that.
Apple promoted Java more/better than Sun? OR OpenGl more/better than SGI? Come on!
I realize I'm not exactly going with the flow here, but I can't understand why the average slashdotter will fight to the end to defend the enforceability of the GPL or the proper use of the Linux trademark/name but will scream bloody murder when a big compagny defends their own IP.
The law Apple is using here is the same one that keeps your software free as in speech.
If you can use it for purposes you feel are worthy, respect the fact that a compagny might feel the same way about the look of their upcoming UI.
Besides, what does Apple have now other than a distinctive UI? BSD under the hood, more and more generic hardware parts, Windows catching up fast in useability...
It is likely that the main target of their "playing tough" game is Microsoft, not some small time skin developper. But when trademarks are involved, if you don't enforce them, you loose them. It would be rather sad if Microsoft could invoke Apple's leniency towards skins developpers to jusitfy ripping Aqua for Whistler.
I don't know if anyone remembers "Gem" or not. Back before Windows was created, the first DOS-based GUI for the PC was Gem. I actually remember using it. It was nice, and it worked well, and was much more widely used than Windows. But Apple decided that it looked too much like their Mac OS, and sued them over it. This lead to a large court battle, which tied up Digital Research (I believe that's who made GEM) and allowed MS Windows 3.0 to be released before the next version of GEM, and consequently, Windows is now what it is today.
You'd think it could be well argued that the sysadmins involved would be making the decision as to which OS is used. Maybe focussing on the actual lost revenues is where they should be looking?
toeslikefingers.com - because
XOR is not an algorithm. It's simply a logical table.
.sigs are useless; it doesn't protect you from imposters.
While it's true that parts of the OS X source code are "open" and parts are closed I fail to see why that's relevent to this discusion which does not involve code.
:P)
Another thing that is not especially clear from your references to Red Hat is how theming your window to look like OS X hurts apple financially. Care to elaborate on that?
On the other hand, these law suits do seem to involve freedom of creative expression. The way I see it the themers can not be motivated by money since they don't make any from their work. Perhaps a paralel to this in the music world is that if someone writes a song that you like then you can perform it at a party without paying any royalties to the artist. (I hope that's a legal example.
Some where there is a line to be drawn on these issues. I generally tend to side more on the freedom end of things. In my opinion, as a programmer is that I should be able to write any program I want to and give it to whomever I want. Perhaps, graphics artists deserve the same right... Except if they "clone" another persons work it's as if they have the "source code" so the paralel breaks down at some point...
In the end I think that Apple should take it easy... Smell some roses or something. Artists goof around doing stupid stuff like this all the time... Let them have their little fun.
Hmmm...
Now I wonder why they didn't attack any of the prolific *nix themes that emulate OSX. Possibilities:
- *nix isn't used by enough users to worry about (hah!)
- They fear the wrath of one of they're major future user bases.
- In time, all things come to pass.
I think #2 is much more likely it, but this article may just get that.----
PHP, it kicks ASP!
Trade dress is similar to a trade mark, protection for trade dress exists to stop the use of iconic images and branding that could create confusion in the market place.
In this case I would say apple may have a right to argue that aqua look alikes may confuse some consumers about the difference between Unix GUIs an OS X, but I would say that there real motive is to try to stop people imitating their style, and is really not about any real fear of market confusion.
I would also say that it is rather petty of them to go after small time themers, that pose no threat to their business.
Real art is like unto sacred. Its the "design" portrayed as "art" that gets me. I like a nice design and style is cool, but art is more than just looking cool.
It's another thing to blatantly use the same thin lines that adorn all the windows (and the case of the iMac). Copy the Bondi blue exactly by looking up its Pantone color. Placing an apple in the exact same areas of the screen, with the piece cut out, just like the logo.
OS X is not totally open source, folks. The underlying system is, by the GUI is entirely Apple (And rightfully so. If they didn't own the GUI they would own none of OS X, and wouldn't be able to make a profit on it [*cough* Redhat trying to make money off free products *cough*]).
If you're going to tweak your KDE 2 theme to have translucent windows (if this is at all possible) be my guest. If you want to put a blue Apple logo on your menu bar, consider yourself screwed.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
What makes you folks think Apple is acting in an unusual fashion? Haven't you folks ever heard of the concept of 'trade dress'???
Go out there and try selling a soft drink in a wasp waisted bottle shpae and see how long you last before Coca-Cola is serving you papers.
Slashdot seems to be the center of the rip-off universe. It seems to be the prevailing opinion that it's just fine to go out and rip off copies of ANYTHING that people have worked hard to create in order to earn a living. You folks really should GROW UP.
Alright then.
What? You want a sig?
Isn't this similar to th issue which Apple lost to Microsoft for?
Spencer Ogden
Umm... Who are you arguing with? We all agree that OS9 sucks. We aren't talking about it anymore. We are talking about OSX. OSX is much better.
------
Oh, sure, making cube-shaped computer took them a lot of R&D. Years of it. Especially after there's Cobalt Cube and a number of other cube-shaped ones.
So, do I understand right that no one now has right to make cube-shaped computers? Then God bless us Apple does not make midi-towers - or we'd have to have all PC's look like Dali picture item, because all normal shapes would be taken by Apple. You know, one or two Dali-shaped computers would be nice, but I'd prefer to reserve good old midi-tower for myself too.
In fact, all these attempts by Apple only hurt them and hurt their market share.
BTW, if I now go home and paint a pigeon just like Picasso's - should I be sued too? Does it mean that if we have two artworks that are similiar one of the artists should sue other? Don't you see how stupid the thing gets?
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
The Supreme Court has defined trade dress as the "'total image and overall appearance'" of a good, further specifying that it "'may include features such as size, shape, color or color combinations, texture, graphics, or even particular sales techniques.'" Furthermore, evaluation of trade dress infringement claims requires the court to focus on the plaintiff's entire selling image, rather than the narrower single facet of trademark.
The part that I'm concerned about, the selling image, is why I believe Apple has the right to go after these people. True, they are not losing customers to this, but what happens, I believe is an overall dilution of their product. People are buying the cube not necessarily because it's the latest Mac, but because it's a CUBE. I know tons of PC users who want it, and they want it solely for the design of it. Now imagine if three other companies release cube shaped computers. How special will Apple's be? How much R&D will go to waste because you can pick one up anywhere? The same thing goes for the Aqua look. True, there's a whole lot more to OSX than Aqua, but at the same time, its just another aspect of it, and if every operating system looks like it, then its not so special. Aqua's look is Apple's property, and it will hurt sales to have everything start look like it.
First of all, I'd hardly call myself 'Apple apologist'.
What you have just said is really not true.
It isn't? You go on with lots of trivia that may all be true but doesn't prove me any wrong. Remember, I didn't criticize the Win-UI; they put *known things* into one UI which isn't necessarily bad... but my simple claim still stands: I have to this day not seen any significant innovation in the Win-UI. Nothing that hasn't been *on the market* already when they came out with it.
Now it might be true that Microsoft came up with nifty stuff in their secret labs, however, AFAIK, there have been two major revisions of Microsoft's UI: Win3 and Win95. When these products hit the market, they had nothing new. Zero. Nada. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.
For Aqua, while I'd hardly call it revolutionary, there are at least some new elements that I haven't seen before. For instance, you can freely transorm windows into different shapes, (used in the geenie effect), the usage of transparency, (not new, but it's used in a useful way), the new modal windows,...
Sure, these are small things and won't change the way people use their computer, but at least it's a step forward. You'll soon see transparency heavily used in a future Windows.
Read abe's post again. It mentions Apple, but is not only about Apple. Abe is indeed making a serious comparison, and IMO it's one worthy of attention.
Yeah, so Foo copies Apple's designs, and gets in trouble - no biggie, right? But if Foo came up with those designs entirely by itself, Apple can still use the law to have Foo stomped on!
Quick recap of copyright origins: In 1557, Queen Mary I gave total control of printing and book sales to the Stationers Company. This guild bought works from writers, and had sole rights to print and sell them. They also had sole rights to the works of dead writers. In return, the guild refused to print anything the Crown disapproved of. Freedom of written speech in those days was only the 'freedom' to be tossed into the royal dungeon. It took another hundred and fifty years before this changed.
There was a bloody good reason why the original US copyright act of 1790 was set at twenty-eight years maximum, just like the British statute of 1710. And I do mean bloody. Slavery isn't limited to bodies, and the Founders of the US knew that; the newly-formed United States of America had just fought the War of Independence.
IP law doesn't give a damn about independent creativity. All that matters to IP law is who shouts "dibs" first. It was a good short-term solution, as kludges go, but if you can't recognise how it extrapolates over time you're in for a nasty surprise.
take this fucking link off, man!!!!! Fucking gross!
I think you didn't read my post. I said that Apple saw industry developments and drove the good ones aggressively into the mainstream, not that they invented everything themselves.
... . Your point?
... it's a horrid experience. Automatically doing the right thing instead of torturing the user seems like a praisworthy thing, and better than anybody else's solution so far.
... . The point I was making was that Apple was the first company to make Gigabit Ethernet standard on mainstream computers.
For example, the innovation of "USB standard" wasn't in inventing USB, it was in having the guts to adopt it as _the_ way to connect to low-speed periherals. Note that no PC manufacturer did this, even though they could have; only Apple had the vision and commitment to drive the entire industry to change from proprietary/platform specific connectors to open, cross-platform standards (USB and FireWire). So while Apple didn't invent USB (no single company can claim that) they're the company that made USB relevant to the industry.
Other notes with *'s below:
I think you have your creators wrong.
> - USB standard
Intel
* Lucent, Intel, HP, Compaq,
* There's an aspect of USB that Apple did amazingly well, BTW. Plug a USB device into a Mac, and it'll download the driver, install it, and enable the device. Try simply plugging a USB device that needs a new driver that's not installed yet into a PC
> - FireWire standard
That one was Apple, True.
* and Sony, etc. The point was that Apple made it a cross-platform, open industry standard, and provided it standard on everything they sold.
> - 802.11b wireless LAN easy add-on (and first affordable base unit)
I believe that was Cisco
* and AT&T, Philips, Lucent, etc., invented 802.11. But only Apple had the vision and commitment to built it into everything they sell (ok, embedded antenna, cheap transciever), and the ability to make a hardware/software combination that makes it painless to set up an 802.11 base station. Set up the AT&T base unit, or Lucent's drivers, and you'll appreciate what Apple did.
> - UNIX-based (BSD, Mach) mainstream OS
You've got to be kidding! Apple invented UNIX?
* No, I didn't say that Apple invented UNIX. I said that Apple is the first company to ship a mainstream desktop OS based on UNIX.
> - Open Postscript imaging model everywhere
Adobe
* I am pretty sure that Adobe isn't an operating system vendor. You could have tried to bring up Sun's NEWS.
> - Open OpenGL standard for 3D imaging
SGI
* Sigh. You're really missing my point. Adopting an open industry standard, rather than a platform-specific proprietary standard, was innovative. Or do you prefer DirectX?
> - Promoted (BTO and standard) DVD-RAM and DVD-R
Sony
* Sony doesn't ship them standard on their machines that I've ever seen. I know they don't ship DVD-R.
> - Digital Video monitor support standard
True -- they created two of their own properiatary interfaces. But ignoring the other standards out there to create something that accomplishes the same purpose and improves upon nothing (except forcing people to buy Apple hardware with their Macs) is not innovative, except perhaps in a marketing sense.
* Wrong-o. Apple made DVI (from the Digital Display Working Group), which is an open standard, the standard monitor connector for their flat panel displays. Now that a year has passed, PC manufacturers are starting to ship DVI on some models. Apple's newer connector, ADC, is DVI plus USB and power, with cheap adaptors.
> - Gigabit Ethernet standard
I believe that was Cisco also.
* Where did you get the idea that single companies make modern standards? There were a huge number of companies involved in this, including Cisco, Compaq, Bay Networks, IBM,
> - SMP standard (on high-end)
That's been around since the '60s
* Not as a standard feature of mainstream desktop computers.
> - Darwin open source
You mean the Darwin name, or the open-source concept? Darwin is an Apple API... of course they invented it. That's like praising Microsoft for inventing Win32. What ABOUT Darwin is so innovative?
* Making the core of their OS open source is pretty innovative. No other mainstream OS vendor has done so.
> - QuickTime Streaming open source (server)
They own the QuickTime trademark, true. But RealNetworks was the first with streaming video servers.
* You're really working hard to miss the point. Apple made QTS server open source, which was an innovative move. There were streaming video servers long before Real, BTW. Remember HP and Oracle? N-Cube? My point was Apple was the first one to implement streaming video on open standards (RTSP, etc.) and open source it.
> - World-class industrial design (Cinema Display, G4 Cube, Pro Mouse, Titanium G4 PowerBook, etc.)
See the above message... this is just design. Nice design, but that was his point.
* Industrial design isn't "just appearances" -- you don't pack the functionality of a desktop computer into a 1" slab with paint. It's a real achievement to get a G4 into an 8" cube with no fan. It's a real achievement to make a plastic case that looks good transparent.
> - Real Java in mainstream OS (in MacOS X)
Sun
* Solaris isn't a mainstream OS. It's a server OS. It's a good one, but not a consumer OS.
> - First mass-market, consumer-friendly application for video editing (iMovie), audion (iTunes), DVD production (iDVD).
These have been on the shelves at software stores for 10 years. iDVD has some nice features, but is most innovative in that it brings the ease-of-use of Toast to the DVD.
* I think you're confusing power computer users with the mass market. Normal, non-technical people can't use Toast, or Premier, or Director. They can burn CD's with iTunes, edit view with iMovie, and (soon) produce interactive DVD's using iDVD. For what it's worth, iDVD and Toast don't do the same thing -- iDVD is a DVD authoring tool. Perhaps you meant to compare Toast with iTunes? Either way, my point was that Apple created a significant advantage in the industry by creating tools that make capabilities that were reserved to power users accessible to the mass market.
> - Integrated remote storage (iTools)
XDrive, idrive, driveway, freedrive.
> - Objective C, Interface Builder, etc., in mainstream OS.
Next.
* You don't like the word "mainstream," do you? NeXT was a cool company, and I really liked working on a NeXT Cube myself, but I don't think a total of 60,000 units sold makes it mainstream.
Apple's done some cool stuff, but don't believe their marketing lies... they're about style, not technology. Of all the ones you named up there, the only innovation was FireWire. The rest were either someone else's innovation, or something that i would never consider an innovation (like a trademarked name, rather than an idea).
* I'm confused. Do you consider innovative only things that a company invents by itself, rather than creating or adopting a standard before anyone else? Apple used to get beat up because it innovated so much that everything about the platform was proprietary. Now they've shifted hard towards open standards, and the complaint is that they don't innovate. Well, once you're playing in a mature industry where multi-vendor standards are the rule, the innovations are more subtle, but that doesn't mean that they're not there.
I though M$ and Apple already showed that Look+Feel protection means very little in the world of computer software. It isn't surprising Apple always acts like they want to control everything. I'm surprised they don't sell electricity.
-Moondog
if OS X was skinable, that would solve it.
ender-iii
This is ridiculous.... sue for a GUI? I Mean, if their GUI is the only thing that would make people go to OS-X, I'm sorry but, GUI might be a part of the OS but in my case, certainly not the MAIN part. If they plan on losing sells because something like OS-x, probably they are not that confident about what's under the hood.
:) ), like a GOOD and STABLE OS, with unique features, instead of running after ghosts that use a skin on another "inferior" OS.
Anyways we've all seen: companies that launches lawsuits for stupidities are normally showing earning weaknesses, non-competitive technologies, or soon are to be out of the game. It's the Kamikaze of the modern industry...
Go apple, sue the people that give a tribute to one part of your OS, waste all that money and energy for running after ghosts... heck most of the stuff out there about it is freeware...And when you'll have wasted enough time, effort and money, instead of investing it in better products and/or ways to market it and/or improvement, don't cry to your shareholders that competition stole your ideas, you're shooting yourself in the foot.
Face it, you *WON'T* get rid of skin programs and eventually another person is gonna make/distribute the "Aqua" "skins" or look-alike, this is a lost case like DeCSS, if people want it, they'll get it or do it themselves. Do something that can't be easily copied (well intellectually property speaking
Sorry if you've seen this twice, my network was blocking cookies and it got posted under anonymous coward.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
First of all, this is old news, but ignoring that, I actually think Apple's perfectly justified to do this. It's not exactly like they're suing any random GUI. On the contrary, they're going after designs that are clearly Aqua rip-offs to the point where at first glance they appear to be the same thing, and I don't find that unreasonable in the least. Would you expect Chevrolet to sit by idly while Ford created a line that looked almost exactly like a particular Chevy, or for a major fashion designer to watch quietly while a competitor starting making the exact same design himself? Whether or not you like Aqua, Apple put a lot of effort into its design, making it very different (even if it's not exactly evolutionary as Jobs claimed). When people see Aqua, they think Apple; just as Coke would get very irritated if a bottle manufacturer started making bottles that proudly had Coka-Cola written on it, Apple is justifyably irriated at GUIs that do the roughly the same thing. I don't think Apple's wrong to say that you cannot blatantly steal what they've put tremendous time and effort into. And, if you don't think the GUI is worthy of the unique status that Apple's giving it, then ask yourself something: why didn't anyone else think of it first? Did you ever see an Aqua-like GUI before Aqua came out? Just some food for thought.
The fact the apple does dumb stuff like this is probably not the deciding factor for not using the OS, but you have to admit that it just stacks one more reason onto the pile of blinding idoicy that convinces people not to use the Mac OS.
Be it the original Mac OS or the new OS X it'll be a cold day in hell for me before i own a Mac running anything other than Linux PPC. 8)
Even the George Foreman bun warmers mimic the imac designs . Although I may take issue with Apple's legal actions, the aesthete in me rejoices.
Jesus saves....And takes 1/2 damage.
No. They sued Digital Research over GEM and DR caved and changed their look and feel. It never went to court.
The G4 powerbook looks completely unique, in it's own class
Ever got your paws on one of these? That curved handle along the top is also made of the same plastic, with no where near the kind of strength it should have for a machine of it's weight.
you stupid shite.
1) the original poster was talking about the G4 PowerBook, not the iBook. what? you don't know anything about the G4 PowerBook? i'd suggest this informative website.
2) that "curved handle" on the iBook has a steel core, which in fact has more than "the kind of strength it should have for a machine of it's[sic] weight". in fact, Apple recommends looping your laptop antitheft cable through the iBook handle to secure it.
apparently, when you say that "form should follow function", you mean that "form should look exactly like every single other desktop computer built during the past ten years".
it's your loss.
-steve
--- "We also were guided by the unlikelihood that anyone would face supernatural evil armed only with technology."
That WIPO Troll guy sure is funny... He likes to take dumps every couple days on my baby, Slashdot... I'll show him... *changes WIPO Troll's password and giggles maniacally* That'll show him!!!
-- CmdrTaco
> You can't really go around sueing everyone that
> appears to be using your work.
Actually, I believe that is EXACTLY what you have to do. If your opponent can prove in court that there were cases you knew about and let slide, even as few as one, then that can be used to crack your trademark or copyright.
That's why properties like Star Trek and Star Wars are so overbearing in their approaches. It isn't "being mean", the common-sense view of what's going on. It's not letting any potential cracks into their valuable intellectual property.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Quattro Pro had this Lotus mode, that used Lotus menus, keystrokes, etc. Lotus sued Borland (Quattro Pro). Lotus lost, I believe.
Does any one have more that vague memories of this case?
there are so many mistakes in this post its laughable
Both Xerox AND Apple can reasonably be said to have pioneered the GUI. There was a collection of people with interesting ideas who were hired by Xerox PARC, worked there for a while, then moved to Apple and continued to have good ideas. The idea of a GUI predates the work done at Xerox PARC. Xerox did a lot of good work but they didn't produce anything polished enough to be marketable to end-users. Apple did a lot of good work, some before and some after visiting Xerox, that eventually produced a marketable product.
Yes, Apple paid Xerox for access to their research. But that doesn't mean Apple did nothing new of their own. The work that led up to the Lisa and the Macintosh was extremely impressive and went quite a ways past what Xerox had done at the time of the Apple visit.
There's a fair bit of good info at MacKiDo on this subject.
I play Nerd-Folk!
the PC industry. You're comparing Apple with PC makers, the PC industry is more than that. There is no single manufacturer setting standards, and as a result much is left to the user to decide what goes into his PC. To me that's the PC's strength, CHOICE. I don't need a company deciding what goes into my computer.
Now while it may be true that Apple incorporated many of the technologies you mention into their product line before PC makers. The fact remains that most of those technologies had been available to PC users long before that. You seem to believe that because Apple, for example, incorporates gigabyte ethernet that that's somehow innovative. From an Apple point of view it maybe, but from a PC point of view it isn't. PC's are inherently expandable and customizable, if I want GB ethernet, I'd just buy the equipment and install it. I don't need Dell's blessing (for example) to do it.
A Mac is a Mac is a Mac. A PC is anything I want it to be.
i don't think apple are that worried about linux l33t d00ds having desktops that look like OSX i think they are scared of M$ copying OSX just like they copied classic OS. if apple lets some little guys get away with copying aqua then how can they protect their GUI against copying from M$ or any other big company. that is the point.
They also sued DR around the same time over GEM on the PC (anyone remember that?) and won. It's just a matter of making the right choice in who to sue.
I've been waiting for Apple to sue George for the new iMac color-esque grills. I say put steve and george in a ring and let them fight it out.
Did they sue Fiona Apple yet? Or did they buy her out?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
And now this. Anyone think that this latest action is payback for when Apple lost the lost "look and feel" lawsuit to Microsoft?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
It seems to me that it's usually the dying companies, or the ones in imminent danger of death (Rambus, GeoWorks, Apple) who turn to the lawyers instead of R&D.
It's a myth that Apple invented the GUI. They just stole it from Xerox before Microsoft did. I do not and will never want my GNOME desktop to look like the Mac, I've never liked Apple's GUI anyway.
As much as I hate Microsoft, I have to admit, had Apple won the war with IBM/Intel/MS, things would be SO much worse. Imagine only having ONE PC vendor...
Apple needs to realize that computers are not cars. They are never going to be able to caputure enough marketshare just by trying to make computers that looks "cute" like the VW Beetle.
Maybe they should be spending more time trying to get a processor that will hit 700 Mhz than on silly lawsuits and tacky plastic cases.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
The real question is, how long until Apple sues over the look of the new George Forman grills?
Fixed. :P
they licensed it up to windows 1.0
I know that someone has patented the XOR algorithm, that is used in every CPU I know of and therefore in most electronic devices. Do you think that that is OK as well?
We must bring an end to this legal mumbo jumbo that makes people laugh at the computer industry.
In court, you would have to prove beyond a balence of probability that everyone knows it's not osx.
Is this right?
No. In court Apple would have to prove that, on
the balance of probabilities, people would be confused into thinking that it was OSX.
In a civil suit the plaintif has to prove his case on the balance of probabilities, just as in a criminal case the prosecution has to prove their case beyond resasonable doubt. It is never the defendant's job to prove his case, just to establish that the prosecution/plaintif has failed to prove theirs.
Well, considering apple's core users are much more prone to run Photoshop than they are to say, compile programs, develop databases, or even deal much with spreadsheets, it's nice that they picked a processor that excels at what they need it to do...
And, for reference, where are these benchmarks of 500 MHz G4's vs. 500 MHz Athlons which show the G4 to be lacking, anyhow? I've never seen it and am therefor quite curious...
SGI, Solaris and Next have about 0% user marketshare.
Hell you can't multi-task while doing a CD-Copy
The latest Toast version allows MT while burning.
And what am i supposed to do with a one button mouse? If the interface is supposed to be easy how come I can't seem to handle it?
I don't think that a Linux geek will find ANY ui usable. If you never used a mouse, one button is more than enough.
Geez even UNIX command-line is more user friendly than that piece of crap.
Then take your mom, put her to a command line and teach her how to use vi. Then teach her how to use SimpleText on a Mac. I think you get the idea.
Apple deserves every bit of the pain it is going to get. Microsoft seldom goes after the "little guy" like this, Apple only goes after them after having been beat up by Microsoft in its look-and-feel suit.
as far as I recall (and it's all documented in Jim Carlton's book on Apple), Apple sued Microsoft for exploiting an error Apple had made in the license terms. this was after Jobs left Apple. Apple licensed its look-and-feel to Microsoft to ensure that Microsoft would develop applications that Macintosh users would feel at home in. it may have been a good idea at the time. Apple never had a chance because the contract spelled out in sufficient detail that Microsoft had an unlimited license to use Apples look-and-feel.
-- Rolf Lindgren, cand.psychol
- It's open source and used for a commercial product
- IOKit, a framework for easy hardware driver implementation with great support for hotplugging (loading and unloading).
- It's GPL-free (not innovative, but an important point)
- Full support for HFS+ (Linux doesn't even do HFS well)
- WebDAV built-in as another file system (at least the MacOS X-version has it, mount_webdav)
That's the things I know of, maybe there's more.Well Apple is at it again, but this time not over their 'apple' logo but over the "look and feel" of their desktop interface. Does this sound asanine to anyone else out there?
So how exactly does one determine when someone has violated this patent for their look and feel? And how can it be patent infringement to use the custom setting of Software you already have? What about Prior art? If they are patenting "look and feel" it better not be a "look and feel" that (concievably) thousands of people have already made. And isn't another stipulation for patents that the "innovation" be non obvious? if it's something asthetic, it should be obvious to many artists, graphics designers etc.
It's a huge load of BS,
The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random
Comments should be like skirts. Short enough to keep your attention, but long enough to cover the subject
I'll then start coding "Java Ts"... better change my taste in fruits..
Get real, do they really thing someone isn't going to buy their overpriced proprietary hardware & software because you can download a THEME that almost looks like Aqua?
before everyone dives into the argument that Apple lost its look-and-feel lawsuit against Microsoft, let's stop to be clear about what the court's decision actually said.
c ro scope.htm
there's a very good analysis of the decision at:
http://www.fenwick.com/pub/apple_v_microsoft_mi
and the gist of it boils down like so:
the court decided that intellectual property regarding user interfaces falls into two broad categories: 'protected' elements, and 'non-protected' elements. the term 'non-protected' is a bit misleading, because it doesn't mean 'up for grabs', it just means that elements in that category don't enjoy the *full* protection of copyright.
the court also held that GUIs have to be examined in two contexts: as a collection of widgets, and as an 'assembled' whole.
the conditions for infringement are different for 'protected' and 'non-protected' elements:
- copies of 'protected' elements are illegal if they are 'substantially similar' to the original.
- copies of 'non-protected' elements are only illegal if they're 'virtually identical' to the original.
to decide whether a GUI clone in illegal, you start by breaking the original and the copy into dictionaries of widgets. if we assume that all the standard widgets are non-protected, only widgets that are 'virtually identical to' the Aqua equivalent will be infringing.
even if none of the individual widgets are found to be infringing, though, the whole GUI has to be compared to Aqua to see if the assembly is 'substantially similar' to Aqua. the importatnt point here is that the assembly as a whole can still fall in the 'protected' category, even though the elements that make it up are individually 'non-protected'.
so let's look at the Aqua clones using the test from the lawsuit Apple lost:
break out the widgets and compare them to the Aqua originals. could a normal person tell the original from the copy without resorting to special machinery, like checking the *exact* hex values of the RGB colors? any widget that fails is probably an illegal infringement.
then, even if all the widgets are sufficiently different from the originals that they're non-infringing, is the way they're assembled 'substantially similar' to Aqua? if so, the theme as a whole is still an infringing product, even if the individual widgets aren't.
face it.. the people making Aqua themes are trying to get the best copies they can. they're *trying* to make the widgets 'virtually identical' to the originals, and they're *trying* to make the overall assembly 'substantially similar' to Aqua. that's against the law, as stated by the very look-and-feel case that Apple *lost*.
The original AC Ace that the Cobra was based on, looked virtually the same as Ferraris of the early 50's, but did we see Ferrari start a law suit against AC. It even had the egg crate grill of those early Ferraris
Look at the Lexus IS200 that even has the same profile as the BMW 3 series that it competes with. Actually if you put a BMW grill on it people would think it was a BMW, complete with its high reving longitudal strait-6 of relatively low capacity. Which is a BMW signiture.
Also look at the Lexus LS400, that was more of a Merc clone than any of the IMac clones.
Look at aircraft, I don't see McDonald Douglas suing Lockheed over the Tristar because of its similaries with the DC-10 or vice-a-versa.
I could go on like this all night.
Anyway both transluzent plastic & all in one intergrated computers had been done before Apple's contributions, so they had no right to patent/trademark/copyright/whatever such ideas.
... because transparent cases and shiny interfaces' look and feel are the only innovation Apple made to the computer world in the last years.
Fact is, Apple made something really damn cool. If they aren't entitled to the benefits of their creativity, then what's the point creating anything cool?
Then there's that legal fact that they have to go after anything that might be trademark dillution...
This article is simply irresponsible.
anyone who has invested some time in developing applications that don't make the user look stupid, knows that the efforts behind this are comparable to engineering feats of any magnitude. it's OK by me if you boycott apple for protecting its design efforts. after all, serious convictions, however ill-founded, deserve to be honred. however, if you still use computers that use processors from Intel, despite the fact that Intel has patents, then you are a bigot.
-- Rolf Lindgren, cand.psychol
If you do not enforce a patent, and allow an industry to build up around it, THEN try to enforce the patent you will get laughed out of court That simply isn't the law. While the goodwill associated with a trademark can be destroyed (and thus with it the trademark) by failure to enforce, this is not true of Patent or Copyright rights. While the patent act limits damages to conduct on or for the six years prior to the filing of a lawsuit, you can always seek damages for conduct within the limitations provisions, and obtain a prospective injunction. This is not to say that non-enforcement doesn't have consequences. It may be grounds for precluding a preliminary injunction, and in some cases affrirmative conduct associated with non-enforcement can lead to defenses of implied license, estoppel or acquiescence.
These claims appear to be grounded in product configuration ("trade dress") law. To the extent that a system's overall ornamental, non-functional design is protectible (a big if, in view of recent Supreme Court law), Apple would be remiss for failing to enforce -- like trademarks, product configuration rights are linked to the association between the goodwill of the company and the product configuration.
If Apple fails to enforce rights now (presuming they do have such rights), they lose them later when Microsoft invades the product configuration.
Of course, there is no longer any possibility of arguing that a product configuration can be "inherently distinctive." Unless the design is of the kind that a reasonable customer would look at the design and say: "Oh, that's Apple's," because the product configuration is so linked with its source of origin, there can be no rights.
So, look at the art, and ask if you would associate the art with Apple. If such secondary meaning exists, Apple is in the right, and MUST enforce. If not, they're wrong, and in between, its a tough call.
Haven't we been here before? Seems Apple and a few others tried the look and feel thing before.
I seem to remember another company suing Lotus over the look and feel of a spreadsheet. Who were they and whatever happened to them?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
When /. last reported about MacOSX, linking to some screenshots, I had this strange urge to switch from One True Window Manager(TM) to Enlightenment, because (I guessed) E would have Aqua-style themes.
Now, those themes will be ny00ked. Thank you, Apple, for helping me to resist the Temptation! God Bless You!
(This comment was supposed to be humorous, even when I probably failed. I still use wmaker, with NextStep-style GTK+ theme. Well, NextStep stuff *is* Apple's property these days, so I still use Apple's look and feel... =)
Apple sued Microsoft, unsuccessfully, in the late 1980s for Microsoft's alleged copying of its look and feel. We are lucky this lawsuit failed, otherwise the legal ground for lawsuits against KDE and GNOME for 'copying' Windows and Mac look and feel. The Apple/Microsoft lawsuit was mentioned in the GNU newsletter in 1988
Lotus did something similar, suing companies who copied the command structure of its 1-2-3 spreadsheet. Microsoft, for all its faults, has never pursued look and feel lawsuits.
The Apple and Lotus cases are summarised here - interestingly, Microsoft licensed the Macintosh user interface in 1985, and Apple still sued them.
emachines even went so far as running ads for the eOne in MacWarehouse catalogs
:) I'll grant you, they do look nice and all. Still, form should follow function when it comes to a computer case.
Really? Which month? I've got a stack of old MacWarehouse catalogs here and I don't recall seeing that.
The thing looked nearly identical to the iMac, it was almost absurd.
Sorry, the iMac still looks like a TRS-80 Model III made out of plexiglass to me. Take away the floppies on the right and add a hockey puck mouse... Shazzam!
The G4 powerbook looks completely unique, in it's own class
Ever got your paws on one of these? That curved handle along the top is also made of the same plastic, with no where near the kind of strength it should have for a machine of it's weight. I have to wonder how much Apple charges for replacements
Kind of interesting in contrast to the G3 tower, which I rather liked the look of. That thing was so over engineered that you'd expect it to survive a 2 story drop. The case alone must have been something like $200 to manufacture. You'd have to get a hard look on the inside to get what I'm talking about.
eMachines didn't do that. Nor are any of the skinmkers. They're mearly taking apples idea's and repackaging them as their own without actually adding anything to them
Ohhh, so if you ADD something to it, then you're not stealing. Gotcha. So if KDE or Gnome users manage to totally recreate the look of the MacOS using only the templating tools that's not adding anything. Ummm, so what exactly is Apple "adding" to this equation again? Wait, I know... Lawsuits!
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
I'm not the best at spelling:)
Jobs, Gates. No difference.
please, apple doesn't have the right to prevent anyone who uses any non-mac OS from giving their computer an "Aqua-like" interface. And if Apple was self-consistent, they'd admit that most of the ideas they got for their Aqua skin were previously implemented in part under the vast array of *nix GUI's.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Shoot 'em all, sez -- uh -- well, certainly *somebody* sez that...
Under the advice of my lawyer, I'd never say that, myself ;-)
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Or Lockhhed suing Antonov Or vice-a-versa
Uh, okay. Are you trying to say that Red Hat is *not* interested in making as much money as MS and Intel? That maybe Red Hat does *not* employ aggressive, money-hungry marketing directors? While this may be true, I doubt it. Maybe I need to get a clue. Maybe you need to get a clue. I use Linux. But I'm not blind because of it.
If Mac wants their product to become popular they should look at it this way. Yes, graphics design is difficult and sure, the OS LOOKS nifty. I do not however associate appearance with functionality. If it works well people will use it. That good old linux command propmt doesn't have much going for it graphics wise.... there's my proof.
So you'd rather do business with? Intel? Well, *they* certainly don't behave like that. Or maybe Microsoft? Nope, they don't don't do that either. Or maybe RedHat? Oh sure, they don't mind seeing other companies selling software with the RedHat logo on it.
C'mon guy! Your reasoning behind not doing business with Apple means you shouldn't be doing business with anyone. Maybe you should go into business for yourself. I'd like that because I'd be able to rip off all your work and sell it with my name on it. I know you wouldn't mind because you aren't like that. Right?
The new Powerbook bears just as much resemblance to theslimline Titanium Vaio, as the E-Machine did to the IMac.
The reason why the Orange was run out of business was because the company that was making them was some fly-by-night Taiwanese comapany that used the exact same motherboard and ROMs.
That's why we admire companies like Red Hat or VA Linux.