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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."
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.
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.
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 $2,000 Mac, or those that worked with way over priced versions of Unix. Unlike all that came before them, MS actually put together something that the majority of end users could actually use and afford.
Their marketing department isn't that good. There's a reason why 90% of the desktops running or doing so on Windows. You can run McDonalds analogies against this all you like, that's just the way it is.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
Man, ya gotta be kidding.
Be missed the boat. Its got nothing to do with quality (how else do you explain the very existence of M$) 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.
The long and short of litigation in the USA is the person with the most money wins.
no sig.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.)
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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
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.
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* 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
> 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
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.
I haven't seen them myself. If Apple wants to sue, that's their right. Then it's for the courts to decide if they are similar enough to infringe.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
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.
Once the art is made, it's made.
There are (and in an ip-free world there would continue to be) scarcities in other areas as you describe.
It is the EXTRA scarcity created by copy restrictions to which Gilmore was referring.
If you're good, the market will value your services even if others are allowed to copy your work.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
The reason for the heated arguments are simple. There's a loony fringe which doesn't respect other people's property and complains mightily when people try to protect what's theirs. Unfortunately, members of this loony fringe get to have their stories posted on /. with their asinine spin on them intact.
I bet that if Microsoft or Apple published a product called Linux, complete with a cute little penguin, they'd be singing a totally different tune.
-jon
Go ahead, mod me down. You're still an idiot.
Remember Amalek.
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
ahem, that subject should read copyRIGHTed .. woops .. gotta learn to preview. ;)
- j
Wouldn't it be more like if someone took a chevy and replaced the chasis with a fiberglass mockup of rolls? With chevy motors, transmission, suspension, etc... but the external appearance of a rolls? If you don't use logos, is this really illegal? And remember, this isn't Chevy doing this, this is a private person doing this in their backyard. It is not commercial. Then the "plans" for molding the fiberglass are distributed (also for free). Notice Apple didn't go after the people who created or are using these skins. They merely want to keep them from being distributed.
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
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!
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?
Aqua isn't just glowing buttons, while the glowing buttons are nice looking. Just as Apple created the first Human Interface Guidlines, they've done it again(pdf) for Aqua, with many changes. It is a good read, even if you don't plan on developing for MacOS X.
-Toad
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- It ain't easy, being green.
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 . . .
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.
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This space unintentionally left unblank.
My old monitor puts soft shadows around every large-contrast-difference area, does that count? :)
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Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
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?
I sure hope that the /. editors were not trying to spin this story their way. I like coming here because usually if the comments are biased, they at least link to good sources. I hope that doesn't change.
They did. They lost.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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?
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.
Here is a cool history of that, along with some other stuff:
l ibrary/weekly/aa080499.htm
http://www.inventors.about.com/science/inventors/
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python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
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
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)
The MS stake in Apple is something like $200M. It ain't billions of bucks.
Let me start by saying that I believe that intellectual property right are the purest form of property rights, and that property rights are inherent, natural, human rights, necessary corollaries of the rights to life and liberty. And that by comparison, the "right" to vote is not a right, but merely a useful check on the tendency of administrators to become self-serving.
Despite that, I believe Apple is in the wrong here. I believe these skins were sufficiently different from Aqua to not violate Apple's IP, whether trade dress, copyright, or design patent. And I think Apple has historically shown itself to be overzealous, targeting any design that is inspired by but less than derivative of its designs.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
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...
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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.
Simple. Let's say I like the "look and feel" of your website and decide that I'm going to use your design that you came up with on my page. Yep, that's right, I just click View Source, and copy and paste the html, changing nothing but the content.
You probably wouldn't be too happy about that, would you? That's exactly what's happening to Apple. Apple pioneered the GUI, and they deserve to have other people respect their creations. Apple's R&D team probably spent several million dollars designing the interface for OSX, and it would be wrong for some other company to snatch it up without paying Apple it's dues. That is why we have law's to prevent this.
The same scenerio occured several years ago when eMachines copied Apple's design for the iMac in their eOne computer. The courts ruled that Apple owned the design of the iMac and eMachines was forced to stop production of the eOne. You open-source zealots can be raving lunatics sometimes. Not everything is free for the taking.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
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.
----
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
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)
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...
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.
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*
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:[.]
"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...
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
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.
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.
--
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
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.
That's not "look and feel"; that's copyright because you have actually used his HTML. The case with Apple would be more like you borrowing his color scheme.
Apple pioneered the GUI
No, they didn't. The good folks at XEROX PARC pioneered the GUI.
That is why we have law's to prevent this.
We don't have any laws concerning "look and feel." We have laws for Copyright, Patent, and Trademark protection. "Look and feel" doesn't fall under any of these unless you trademark every element of the way a GUI looks (colors, arrangement of pixels, etc).
You open-source zealots can be raving lunatics sometimes. Not everything is free for the taking.
You mean like color schemes?
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.
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.
And the look and feel case (brought by Apple not by Microsoft) was settled by Apple losing almost every one of the points they sued over. And it was settled almost a decade before the $200M investment. (Gee, seems like the original poster got about none of it right)
There are plenty of skinz who look like Windows but MS aren't a bunch of morons to sue.
That would take some serious balls. So much of the Windows 95-2000 UI (for example, the window control widgets) is taken directly from Apple/NeXT, that if Microsoft went after anybody, the rewards would actually belong to Apple. PARC looks practically nothing like Mac OS 9, but Windows 9x looks a hell of a lot like a NeXT/Mac hyrbrid.
Apple on the other hand just seem to look for an excuse to sue anyone.
Umm, Apple hasn't sued practically anyone in recent history. It sued eMachines and Daewoo because they were clearly trying to play off of the iMac's success by copying the industrial design. Microsoft doesn't really have any equivalent to the iMac fiasco. And furthermore, Microsoft doesn't need to sue anyone, it already owns everything, and it knows people will have to buy their products regardless.
Bottom line: if there's room for a consumer to be confused (remember, some think the CD drive is a coffee cup holder), then Apple has a case. This probably goes for Aqua as well.
- Scott
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
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'.
Excellent example. I believe Coke actually won that one for trade dress. There was room for the consumer to be confused as to the maker of the product.
- Scott
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
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.
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.
Innovate don't legislate
It seems to me that it is crystal clear that Apple is doing the innovating here.
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
No. They sued Digital Research over GEM and DR caved and changed their look and feel. It never went to court.
It is color on an EGA system (and B&W on a CGA system). It has tiled windows. They'd only be quarters if you had four programs running. It has icons, fucking or otherwise.
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
Do they actually think their financial security as a corporation is threatened?
In this case the answer is YES. Apple's main distinguishing market advantage is the DESIGN of it's computers - the distinctive cases, the UI, etc.
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.
We don't have any laws concerning "look and feel."
l /d esign.htm
WRONG. Ever hear of a design patent?
Take a look at:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/genera
They're pursuing it becaue they have no choice. Since Job's return Apple competes on a design rather than technological basis. Look and feel is all they have left. Apple is no longer a computer company it's a desk accessory manufacturer.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Millions of users are familar with the "look and feel" of MacOS and as a result, that "look and feel" is an incentive for consumers to purchase Apple products.
If their super innovative "Look&Feel"TM can be replicated with a desktop theme, paint me unimpressed. Furthermore, not one ounce of sympathy for a product that empty.
The line must be drawn here. This far. No further.
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.
At the time, Apple was on the brink of becoming a footnote in computer history, and had Apple won, presumably in the form of a group of copyright lawyers owning the rights, Microsoft would have had to pay damages for lost royalties on 10 years worth of sales of the worlds best selling operating system, so it was a good deal for both parties at the time.
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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.