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Apple Still Says No To Aqua-Like Themes
JoFo writes: "Eric Yang, creator of several Aqua-like themes and skins for GTK+, KDE, Mozilla, gkrellm, and others, was forced by Apple to take down all Aqua-related projects on his web site. It appears they went to his employer as a way to strong-arm him. He writes on his web site 'I went to Apple to test cocoa for Mac OS X 10.1, and found a drag and drop problem with NSPopUpButtonCell. They didn't even pay me for my effort, yet they try to shut down my project. Isn't that ironic?'" Apple seems at least to be consistent in objecting to nearly any non-Apple project that reminds the company of Aqua, so maybe this was just a matter of time.
Let me spell this out: Apple owns the copyright on the design. Apple has the right to enforce this. Anyone who thinks they can get away with it is kidding themselves.
Aqua is not the only thing they have going for them in Mac OS X(.1), but it's a big thing; it's what differentiaates them from MS in screenshots, etc. If any system can look like theirs, they lose out. I know it's nice, I'd like it on my Linux desktop as well, but it's Apple's property and this is their right, so let's not act too surprised that they try and stop it.
Let us, however, ignore that Be never cared, QNX doesn't care, and MS really, really doesn't care (it probably even makes them laugh when a Linux WM has a Windows theme). Apple is 'special' in that they have to keep their lawyers fed or they start to go ambulance chasing when they get bored.
This might be flame bait for some, but why are we so upset about companies wanting to keep their own image?
Of all things to fight about, it seems that the appearance of a desktop should be the least of our worries. If Apple wants to keep their Aqua desktop to themselves, fine. Let's be creative and make something better. There are many themes out there that rival Apple in functionality and appearance.
I found a bug in NSImage that makes deallocating objects across the Objc-Java bridge fail, and I doubt I'll get a t-shirt. When he filed a bug report, apple make no cliam of repaying people for their free services. I don't think Linus sends people cash or free Tux Dolls when they make fixes to the kernel.
.rsrc file and split it into two, for instance).
I am kind of peeved at apple not allowing themes. Maybe they're just holding back on their own theming system for sometime before Macrh 23rd of next year. I guess they're philosophy makes sense: they want people to look at a Mac OS X machine and know for sure that it's a Mac OS X machine. Plus, if it's a theming system not from apple, future updates could hose the system over (The move from 10.0.4 to 10.1 to one
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
The law is designed such that if companies want to stop a few people from taking advantage of their work, they have to stop everyone.
For example, if a collection of friends decide to create an Aqua-like theme and distribute it, what's that to prevent Microsoft from doing the same?
Clearly Apple is in competition with Microsoft, and it doesn't have any particular desire to permit Microsoft to make use of it's so-called user interface innovations.
Apple clearly built the Aqua theme, and spent a lot of time and money developing it into something that Apple hopes to be a brand-identifier. For a 3rd party to create a very similar branding, and then release it in such a way that Microsoft could use it flys in the face of why Apple developed the interface to begin with: To outpace Microsoft in interface design.
So although I feel for the individuals who have spent so much effort to clone the Aqua interface, it is also easy to appreciate Apple's stance on this issue.
Because theu did this retroactively. They let microsoft get away with several GUI rip offs for a couple of years, and then when apple went to the courts when they thought microsoft had gone too far, it was already too late to do anything about that. Now they're making sure they protcted their IP early and often.
Good business strategy: learn from past mistakes.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Trolltech had to recreate the Aqua look for Qt (the GUI toolkit, not QuickTime), since Qt emulates the look of the native system rather than wrapping. Like all other QStyles, there is probably close to no platform specific code in the engine. Unfortunately, only the Qt/Mac release will feature this style, as it apparently would go against "Apple rules" to distribute this into other Qt releases, like X11. So I guess it is ok to emulate the Aqua look as long as you are going to run on the Apple platform. That or Apple specifically granted Trolltech this permission, as Trolltech has mentioned they "coordinated with Apple" to make Qt/Mac.
While I have suspected Qt/Mac will not be GPL for other reasons, I believe this is a really strong reason as to why it won't be. If it were GPL, then any coder could just snag the style and compile with X11. Why mess with pixmap styles when you have close to the real-deal as a rendering engine?
How different is this from the lawsuit with Microsoft oh so many years ago over look and feel? Apple lost that battle, right? If so, then what possible claim can they have over a theme, which is essentially just look and feel?
If people are ripping off the actual icon files then that's one thing. But making something very similar, though not identical, seems like another look and feel issue.
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
then when apple went to the courts when they thought microsoft had gone too far, it was already too late to do anything about that.
Um, no.
The judge did not say to Apple "you waited too long", nor any variation on that idea. First, the judge threw out Apple's claim that Apple could own a nebulous concept called "look and feel"; the judge required Apple to list specific items where MS had infringed. Then the judge went down the list, and struck out any item that was covered by Microsoft's agreement with Apple. (You know, the one where Apple agreed not to sue MS. Of course Apple did sue MS, one of the reasons I am not a fan of Apple.) Anyway, there were only 12 items on Apple's whole list that were not covered by the agreement; the judge then went down this list of 12 items and struck down all of those that Apple didn't own, which was 12: i.e. all of them. With literally nothing of Apple's case left, the judge ruled in favor of MS.
Now, when Xerox sued Apple for stealing, the judge did indeed rule "you waited too long".
that can use the Ferrari prancing horse logo without express permission. Ferrari is even the only company, by actual court order, that can make cars that are SHAPED like Ferraris.
Ferrari is NOT the only company that can paint its cars red.
There are limits to claiming 'themes' as a trademark.
KFG
Funny, I would think that misusing the word "sociopath" would be far more serious than misusing the word "ironic".
No, Eric Yang, it is not ironic. What it is going on is very simple. You are unilaterally, and retroactively, trying to impose some sort of bargain, agreement or understanding upon Apple. One that that they had no prior notice of, much less agreed to in advance.
When you, Eric Yang, tested cocoa for Mac OS X 10.1, and found a drag and drop problem with NSPopUpButtonCell, you did so without any prior expressed or even reasonably understood conditions, understandings, agreement, or contract. You gave a gift of your own free will. Apple had absolutely NO reasonable notice that you were doing your testing pursuant to your secret, unilateral, unexpressed subjective belief that if you did such work, you could "of course" help yourself to the intellectual property embodied in Apple's themes.
The solution next time is quite simple. Be honest and up-front. Contact Apple before you do the work and offer an explicit, clearly express contract: "I will do 'X' if you let me do 'Y.'" If Apple refuses your offer, then simply do not do the work.
What you should not do is give a gift -- or what every reasonable person would construe as a gift -- of service while holding a secret, undisclosed, subjective, unilateral understanding that the "gift" is in fact conditional, and then whine and complain when your previously undisclosed condition has not been satisfied.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Nothing. Microsoft has already done this, in a way. The user interface for windows XP (called Luna) seems to take a lot of inspiration from Mac OS X without directly copying it.
And look at this shot. of Mac OS X:
Now look at these shots of the next version of windows CE (Pocket PC 2002).
Notice any similarities in the upper right of the screen?
As to whether this is legal (or would be if MS didn't happen to have billions of dollars), IANAL.
If you people had any idea what people like me go through to create successful interfaces I don't think you would take this so lightly. Just because we do our work in Illustrator instead of emacs doesn't mean we're sitting there doing a paintjob. I used to code, I once wrote a device driver for Solaris [for a Gretag SPM-50 spectrophotometer if you're interested] but real UI design is the same amount of work.
Developers in general don't have to deal with criticism from VPs or C*Os about the validity of how their stored procedures are set up. You don't have to sit behind a one-way mirror and watch a user rip the result of the last 3 months of your life to shreds.
As far as Apple and Aqua goes, you have to realize what it is that Apple really sells. They provide a whole experience that spans hardware, software and everyhting else. They invested millions upon millions of dollars in developing Aqua so I don't think it's a big suprise when they see someone mucking with their stuff. I think they are less worried about "competition" than they are about their work being "diluted" and offered on a system that doesn't work as elegantly.
What is everyone's great desire to rip off Apple's look anyway? Make something better if you're the expert.
Ok, let's see how fast I can get rid of all my karma....
I don't mean to start a holy war or anything, but after reading the majority of the posts thus far I'm confused. While I agree with most people on here, that Apple has a right to defend its design from being copied, is there a double standard here between Apple and Microsoft? I just can't understand why when Microsoft does something like this it's the "Evil Empire" but when Apple does the same it's defended by the community. Then again, I guess I shouldn't try to understand the mindset of a group of people that post goat sex links and racist jokes more than anything else.
Keep Austin Weird!
Microshaft stole thier implementation of Xerox's "desktop" operating system and ruined thier OS business.
Then a clone maker came along for IBM hardware and ruined the margin on making machines.
Apple has been screwed by others since the day computers became available to the people.
Regardless of my (or your) opinions of thier hardware, software, OSes, and so on, if you were Apple, would you not fight with every single fiber of you being to protect everything you could?
They are not going after people for money... they are simply saying "we made Aqua, at consideralbe expense (and again, I don't care what you think of it... it cost them heaps of money to develop) so please don't give it away to other platforms".
Windows XP, Linux, or whatever does not DESERVE a GUI as nice as Mac OS X. My mom can buy a crappy box with Win XP and be frustraed by it. Having an OS X look alike theme could amke her biased agiant Macs. My mom would have no f*ing clue how to use Linux, so if see ever had to use a machine with Linux installed, and it had an Aqua theme, she might think that So X was hard to use. I *did* buy my mom an iMac, and installed OS X on it. She damn well humps the machine she loves it so much.
So porting one is not only an infrigement of copyright, but just plain wrong as well.
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001
Translation:
"...however, I am a card-carrying tool..."
Christ, I hate MENSA. There's nothing quite like a Smarter Than Everybody Else Club.
Apple is always on the brink of disaster.
:) I'm always surprised to hear people really do believe people buy Macs just because they look cool. That's just icing. And the bit about a "dream to work with," you sure make that sound easy to implement. It's not a one time thing. It's a design philoshopy, one that costs substantial time and money to develop, maintain and enforce. Apple spends a considerable amount on continually evolving the concept of a personal computer. Those 30% margins? A lot of it goes right back into the products.
Apple's the one with $4.2 billion in the bank, who has laid off a total of 50 people since the PC industry downturn, and (with one exception) has profitable every quarter since Q1 1998. Contrast this to all the mass layoffs throughout the industry. There is tremendous value in the company.
PC makers, along with motherboard designers integrate more cutting edge features that ever, and do so with great stability and success
Stability? Which industry are you talking about? Certainly not the one with Gateway, Compaq, VA and HP in it.
Apple has some of the best hardware overall in the industry. The were the first to ship DVD-R, first with built-in wireless antennas, first (and only, as far as I can tell) with gigabit ethernet standard on desktop hardware, and the legacy-free aspect of the iMac certainly drove USB acceptance. Their machines are quite energy efficient, and in some cases, fanless. Their towers are the easiest to manipulate of any manufacturer I've seen. There are weak spots, like the bus speed, but there is plenty to appreciate as well.
Software makers, especially Microsoft, cater to both the newbie while still offering powerful professional features (much like FontSync and ColorSync) all while maintaining tight integration with said PC makers
Tight intergration with PC makers? Is that intergration as in "include Netscape and we'll revoke your license" or as in "this driver keeps giving me error messages?"
Build some cool enclosures that both look nice and are a dream to work with. Boom. No more need for Apple.
It's just that simple, eh?
It should be no surprise that Apple wants to defend one of the very things that differentiates itself from the commodity Wintel PC market.
You're right, it's not. The legal system says Apple has to virgiously defend its ideas at every point along the way, or loses the right to do so later. I don't think Apple's really all that concerned about people buying a machine to run Linux instead of a Mac just because E has an Aqua theme.
But here's something else I'm wondering about -- why are people still creating Aqua themes? Apple has asked repeatedly for people to stop. Why does this continue? Surely theme creators can come up with something new. Why not just respect Apple's wishes? It's not like OpenSSH, where you need replication for compatibility reasons.
You don't even have to look at it from a legal perspective since they haven't actually sued anyone. What if somebody asked you to remove a desktop picture they created from your theme package? Wouldn't you do it? Is this all that different?
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Several reasons for not using OS-native widgets:
* HTML4 requires that you be able to make listboxes with a tree image in the background. How would you do that on Windows, where you don't have access to the widget code? Mozilla would be forced to use the common subset of what each OS's listbox provides, which would be a very limited listbox.
* Native widgets sometimes have subtle restrictions. For example, Windows 98 will become unstable if you create several hundred native listboxes. (It usually doesn't crash, but toolbars will stop appearing in new windows; I consider that to be instability.) Internet Explorer suffers from this problem every time I get mod points on Slashdot, but open several top-level stories in different windows before I notice.
* Native widgets may have less subtle restrictions, such as limits on the amount of text a textbox can contain.
The shareholder is always right.
If you look on TV, you'll notice that everything about an Apple computer is easily recognizable. Apple's computer designs are one big marketing ploy, turning the owner him/herself into an advertisement. Much like Abercrombie&Fitch t-shirts.
If you see a PC across the room, you barely notice it. If you see a Mac across a room, you notice. Nothing else looks like an iMac, a G3/G4 tower, an iBook, etc. Apple wants to be visible, and that makes sense.
The same goes for Aqua. Aqua looks like nothing else - and Apple wants to keep it that way. If Aqua themes became popular, then screenshots from Apple computers would not stand out as much - and therefore, Apple would not burn itself into peoples heads nearly as clearly.
Is he suprised he didn't get paid?
As I understood his comments, he was only pointing it out that Apple is all to happy to take input from the community, but doesn't allow the same community the freedom of artistic expression.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
If not for BSD, then Apple would probably have purchased a proprietary Unix as its core OS. It would not be as compatible with BSD as Mac OS X is, though, and all those BSD coders wouldn't be as overjoyed with their new iBooks or whatever. (The Mac is now an even better second computer to go with a BSD or other Unix desktop or network.)
... is it really too much for Apple to ask theme designers not to rip off their stuff for a little while? Microsoft is going around cutting off air supplies and promising a complete IIS "re-write" by a year from now (yeah, right), and Apple is asking people to give them a break on Aqua while they try to lift a few more of us out of this Microsoft Morass(TM) 2001 that we're all in, with Code Red and Windows Media and C fucking backslash all over the place. Can't we give Apple a break and let them be the first one to introduce Aqua to Windows users?
... damn! Mac OS 10.1 is really good. Check it out! Everybody can find at least one feature in there that will make their jaw drop when they try it. For me, it was burning data DVD-R's like they were floppy disks (4.7GB floppies that cost $6 each and take 20 minutes to burn in the background). QuickTime performance is also really something, and DVD playback looks so real that you want to touch it. A sad note is that the rubber ducky icon from Mac OS 9's multiple login panel which somehow appeared in Windows XP's new multiple login feature is not in Mac OS X's multiple login ... it has pictures of big cats such as pumas and cheetahs instead (Mac OS X internal code names). Sad to see the duck go from Mac OS 9 to Windows XP instead of to Mac OS X.
Sharing digital stuff is not a zero-sum game. BSD is the Compatibility Fairy, spreading compatibility around by providing core stuff that you can build anything around and it will still be able to talk to other stuff. BSD licensed stuff is meant to be used by everyone, that's the point.
The most compatible part of Windows is its BSD TCP/IP stack. Is it good that Microsoft "stole" that code? Imagine how much better the Web would be if IE for Windows used Gecko. Then we would really have a compatible Web, and the Internet Appliance market would probably have a chance because they could put Gecko on top of a BSD TCP/IP stack and the Web would still "look like the Web" to a Windows user, with the same rendering that they see on Windows. You'd be able to run a Gecko-based browser on BSD and a page would look the same as on Windows. In these kinds of common areas, code that everyone can share without restriction really benefits everybody.
Now, when it comes to the distinctive graphical look of a software product that is the only competitor to Microsoft Windows in many, many markets and is just about to have its mainstream coming-out
I'm not defending lawyers or anything, and I know the guy in this article is skinning X-Windows, not Windows, but a guy who skins Windows XP to look like Mac OS X is not helping the free software community. Compare the proprietary components in Windows XP to their open Mac OS X counterparts and tell me which one you want your local artists and musicians running, which one you want your Grandma running. Even the BIOS-equivalent on the Mac is an IEEE standard, called OpenFirmware, which is also used by Sun and which has the cutest little Penguin icon that it uses to show bootable Linux volumes.
By the way
And this is why he was shutdown. Just read the FAQ on that page and you will see that he had a blue apple in his theme. I don't think this is look and feel at all. It's because he used the freakin LOGO is why he had his themes shutdown. In fact, I believe you can still get the Aqua like look in enlightenment and the like from Themes.org, just not the Apple logos.
Look and feel is ok, just don't use the TRADEMARKED logo.
Gorkman
Want some cheese to go with that whine? Didn't this guy steal all the widgets from Omniweb?
How much helping of writing a library did you do? Bug-fixes shouldn't count. I think Apple is great with developers in OS X, short of bringing out Steve Ballmer to chant it. I wouldn't expect Apple to lend a hand with Mozilla, they have not a lot of interest in it.
As for Mozilla with an Aqua UI - it's a great idea - check out http://sourceforge.net/projects/qbati2/
Until Linux folks understand basic principles of GUI design and are willing to accept widget layouts based on principles of cognitive psychology and not on "because it looks cool" or "Windows does it", we are all far better off with linux looking plain butt ugly. I have gotten really, really sick of many developers in both KDE and GNOME being only concerned with aesthetics and making the ultimate critera for good GUI design being "it looks perty". If I had a dollar for every absolutely beautiful set of themed widget laid out in the most confusing and usuable manner possible, I could hire both desktop environments teams of competant HCI professionals. It might be far better that potential linux converts won't have aesthetically pleasing themes that might suck them into a world software with even less usability than Windows. Maybe a lack of attractive themes would force the linux desktop environments to focus on areas of the GUI that really count in a user getting their work done. A macintosh from 10 years ago is still more usable than tonights build of GNOME or KDE. And it's far, far less pretty. Themes? Prettiness? A really GUI programmer craves these things not.