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LinSpire LPhoto and LSongs: bring on the lawsuits!
Sir Joltalot writes "Over at OSNews they're covering the newly-renamed LinSpire's LSongs and LPhoto apps. Take a look at those screenshots, and you'll notice a striking resemblence to Apple's iTunes and iPhoto. Take a look at this flash presentation and you'll see that LPhoto and iPhoto are almost exactly alike. They look like nifty apps, to be sure, but how long will they last? I would have thought LinSpire might have learned from the whole Lindows name fiasco..."
Look at how ugly that interface is. Apple should sue just over that!
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Say it isn't so!
Call me a cynic, but before this entire thing, I never gave Lindows/Linspire a second glance. Now, they've been in the top of the news here at Slashdot several times. Nothing like staying in the eyes of your target audience, I guess?
Found in the newsletter published by Linspire:
It also brings cross media format support to Linux by playing MP3, Ogg, Windows Media, QuickTime and Real media, ensuring that Linux users can play the most popular formats they might encounter on the Internet.
Let us wait and see.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
I am suprised, they didn't even try to be sneaky about it. I mean they could have at lest come up with sneaky names.
All though, they say any press is good press.
Evolution or ID?
LSongs has precisely 2 letters in common iTunes. Have Apple now trademarked 'n' and 's', or is this supposed to infringe their existing patent on 'bAd pUnctuation' and 'rAndom cApitalisation'?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Is the Lmusic module protected by FairLay DRM? How long before the LayFair lawsuits and LPods?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
So now after angering MS, they are waking up the undead lawyers from Apple?
I wish them the best of luck, they'll need it.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
But LTunes looks almost nothing like iTunes. Can somebody show me the similarity, other than the large song display? LPhoto does look very much like iPhoto... I just wonder if it has the same functionality.
looks good to me. They wont get sued because Linux is free and so are these apps.... :)
I thought the whole debate over "Look & Feel" was resolved. I thought you couldn't patent, trademark, or copyright "Look & Feel". It certainly can't be a trade secret. What's there left to sue over? Am I wrong?
This looks like crap compared to iTunes.
I don't know, it seems to me like these are different enough to not get hit with lawsuits. At least the music one, i don't know about the photo one. I mean the layouts are similar, but that's to be expected
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I doubt apple would care a whole lot, they would take it as a complment to their awesome design technique, but with another naming fiasco, I can't see this kind of abuse lasting long. I'm all for the linux revolution, but not if we have to trick users into using it with identical GUIs and naming systems.
SAILING MISHAP
Why does it matter what the application looks like, as long as the code is clean it doesnt matter.
Did anyone notice the font looked strangly similar to Apple's 'trademark' font?
Should change his name to Gill Bates or Job Stevens...
MR has done this before, and now everyone knows the Lindows OS (now to be referred to as LinSpire).
/.-reader now knows that he has these 2 apps out. And as soon as Steve Jobs realises it, and sues MR/LinSpire, all the WORLD will know, because the news will be covered at every Magazine/E-zine with an Internet section.
He's pulling the same stunt again.
It's an ingenious move. Look at what he has accomplished. Every
By the time he changes the layout of those apps, a lot of people will have tried it out. Voila, instant market-share, no costs but a simple layout-redesign (which is probably resting on the shelfs as we speak).
"Hey guys, look, OpenOffice.org looks almost identical to Microsoft Word! Guess they're getting a big lawsuit!"
Just because a product emulates a look and feel doesn't mean it's BAD does it? Since when was there a patent on a GUI?
Sure, I can see the system MacOS being patented (Aqua) but, not the interface for a frickin' photo management system... There's only so many ways you can make a good product!
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...
But, unlike iTunes, you don't have to get hard-to-find slower hardware that is typically double-priced, just to run it.
Lindows Inc. announced the opening of a wholly owned subsidiary, named Lapple.
Its flagship product, the iLMLaLc, will be released April 30th.
The CEO of Lapple, Lsteve Ljobs, have been quoted as saying "We really don't understand all this fuss about ripping off names! Macintosh and Apple are both names that have seen extensive use before Apple Inc, and their claims are foundless."
toresbe
Posting direct links to half a meg of images and a flash movie. Nice. As if Linspire don't have enough problems.
Sure they look very similar, but not that similar. Firefox and IE look more similar than iTunes and LSong but I don't see people saying mozilla.org will be sued. If Linspire had named them iLPhoto and iLTunes then maybe there would be an issue with the name but I kind of doubt Apple would sue them just because they look somewhat similar. There are hundreds of free and open source software products that look very similar to commercial software but that is just the nature of the game. As long as they don't copy the blatently (i.e. Lindows) then they should be in the clear.
At least they could have named them something difrent...they can look and feel similar like XMMS and winamp but calling it is that is like asking for a lawsuite.
The programs themselves. To me it seems like all OSS stuff is Dollar Store versions of commercial software.
Wow. I've heard imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, but it's hard to find anything flattering in those screenshots.
All ugliness aside, they will be lucky not to get sued by Apple. But I doubt anyone will be confusing these for their Macintosh counterparts.
Granted, Linux could certainly use more entry level apps that are attractive enough to bring in the common home users, but these apps are definitely not going to cut it.
8==8 Bones 8==8
It seems to me all of this hubbub created by Linspire is only creating a bad rap for Linux by inviting constant litigation and controversy.
Yeah, it's still publicity, but when do they cross the line to just pissing everyone off?
Or will everyone just keep agreeing with these guerilla tactics because they "hate Microsoft"? Idiots.
i'm kinda sick of hearing about Lindows/Linspire. why can't these guys come up with their own original ideas instead of stealing others'? there's way too much of this going on in the Linux community, and these guys make it look like that's all Linux is- a pale imitation of the other OSes...
... but these guys are asking for it. They should rename themselves from "Linspire" to "Linripoff". It's a sad state of affairs when one company (Apple) actually brings something innovative and functioning, and everybody else just copies it. It just sucks. Steve Jobs should sic his cannibal mutant zombie lawyers on Linspire.
Well, xPde look and feel is similar to XP, but I have not heard of Microsoft going after them...
Looks like Linspire forgot to change most of thier site from Lindows, which is in clear violation of the lawsuit agreement which means that Microsoft can now sue their asses even more.Bring it on MS, shut these lame asses down. If you want to see a part of why there in violation check out (http://www.linspire.com/lindows_products_screensh ots_beginning.php) and if you look at that can you explain the terrible english being used.
ROTFLMAO
Linspire, I'd like you to meet Lawyer, Lawsuit, Layoffs, and finally Languish.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Apple learned (hopefully) a long time ago that Look and Feel are fair play. Of course, if I wanted to buck legal precedent, I'd choose to sink my fangs into the green flesh of OSS. And in so doing, alienate most of my fan base. (Yes, it is a fan base with Apple.)
The only news in this story is the insinuation of lawsuit. What is this, wonkette?
Man, I've got to hand it to the guys running this company! I haven't used the product, haven't even read the article this time, but from Lindows to this -- these guys have serious balls!
But re-implementing Cocoa apps in whatever retarded toolkit they are using is a rather wasteful and round about way of demonstrating it.
that Linspire gives linux and the whole open source idea/community a bad name...
Think of all the people shopping at Walmart seeing this as 'linux'...
It's amazing how similar the apps are, and yet LTunes still manages to look pants in comparison to iTunes. All this despite having almost exactly the same set of controls on the screen. There's more to this design business than you think.
50 comments and nobody is bitchgriping about Macromedia Flash, the state-of-the-art Internet multimedia platform.
There should have been at least one thread about "why can't we just go back to gopher and list elements again?" or "what's wrong with 8-bit GIFs?"
Amazing.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
This seems like a business method worth patenting. For a few hundred thousand in legal fees, which might not even need to be paid out.... How much free, world wide advertising during prime time news hours, and lets not leave out financial and technology segments in cable news networks. This is genious. Hey, our product is so similar to Microsofts Windows, and Apple's apps, but we're newer, cheaper and they're afraid, check us out? Screw slashdot. Small potatoes. They might get a front page spot on the Wall Street Journal and decent placement in every major news outlet depending on how helpful Apple aims to be.
These might be Apple iApps ripoffs, but looking at those screenshots, I don't think Apple has anything to worry about. Not only do those screenshots look pretty lame, do they have Rendezvous sharing, a music store, book creation on demand, export to movie, etc?
Show me your Garageband or iMovie clone and I'll start paying attention.
Apple's legal team might sue, but almost certainly send a letter of cease-and-desist of look-and-feel of the product.
Why would Apple care, especially since these apps work only on Linux boxes? (Assuming that this stuff compiles only for x86 and not PPC Linux distros...)
Because Apple must always show aggressive protection of their products' trade and servicemarks as well as their look and feel. While the resemblance to iPhoto and iTunes is mostly there, it's not something that Apple would win, IMO.
A suit or intimidating letter only creates history that courts can use (through Apple's attorneys) to keep Apple's products defined as a specific item or service, and reduce the chance of genericization.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Not to take sides, but this is just stupid. That, and it shows a lack of creativity on their side. I guess some people see constant litigation as cheap advertisement....
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Could could say that LTunes looks like WinAmps Music Library as well.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I Lthink that they Lwent a Llittle Loverboard.
If you took a look at the screenshots, you'd see they don't really look much like iTunes and iPhoto. If you think they do, you might want to get your eyes checked. The functionality may be similar but the styling and quality of the ui between the apps is worlds apart. The L-apps look like crap, IMHO.
- File/Edit/Controls/Visualizer/Advanced menu system
- "Source" title on playlist/library listing on left
- Expandable browsing area
- Column view of browsing
- Checkboxes on playlist
- Play icon in playlist in same position
- "Selected song" caption for album art and same positioning
- Add/shuffle/repeat/album art toggle buttons in same location
- Equalizer/visualizer/eject buttons in same location
- Play controls / now playing / search / browse in same position, only at bottom of screen
- Exact same play position marker
Nope, no similiarities here. Of course, I wonder if...They couldn't buy the kind of publicity they've been getting. Gradually caving to the big guys, changing their name and in the news *every* time the situation changes even a little bit. All for the cost of a few defensive lawyers.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
They really don't try to hide it. The linspire site looks a lot like the apple site.
Evolution or ID?
On Userability studies if your goals are the same as those of the Apple Corporation. If of course these are similar to the interfaces of the equivalent Apple Corporation applications.
If they are saving money, good for them.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Just because a product emulates a look and feel doesn't mean it's BAD does it? Since when was there a patent on a GUI?
Ever since Apple got US patent number 2002089529 , titled Media Player Interface. Look at the drawings -- that's iTunes. That probably also explains why LSongs has the player controlls at the bottom of the screen.
Yes, just like no-one uses PCs anymore (most machines are Apple Macintosh now). And have you looked at the roads lately? Everyone is driving Isuzu (no more Big 3, Honda, or Toyota). Dr Pepper? That is now outselling Coke 5 to 1. I'm sure glad that Sony Betamax has finally wiped VHS out as well.
I thought iTunes was not available at all for the PC. My mistake. Apple can truly surprise sometimes when it turns its focus "to the rest of us" instead of for the tiny niche market that prefers teh Mac.
I was expecting a straight copy, but, yeah, this looks an eyesore in that delicious way only replicas can. Already XMMS is several steps ahead, why not just extend the functionality of that instead of making Yet Another MP3 Player?
Want to win? Come up with something new or work from an already successful idea on your own platform. the iTunes interface is OK, and it works in the context of Aqua, but I'm sure, SURE there's a better way to do it.
-- The unsig...
Linspire Loffice?
or for the hard core gamer
Lake 2
Where is LGarageBand? Garageband is a "killer app" on the Macs until the next software development cycle brings it to Windows XP and some free OS distributions. Here is an excellent review of GarageBand.
Have you Meta Moderated t
I am an happy Mac and Linux user.
This doesn't look like the supposedly equivalent Apple iApps.
Maybe does the functionality but that's all.
I think this was not newsworthy.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Just take a look at OpenOffice...look familiar to anyone? Down to the toolbars and icons, it is a clone of Word. By design, to make the transition between the two apps easier.
So it's OK for "our" apps to copy the look and feel of a competitor we don't like, yet not OK for an "outsider" to copy the look and feel of a competitor palatable to many of us?
Give me a break...
I can understand if Apple wants to defend their investments into UI research, since someone directly copying their GUI layouts is copying a lot of work on Apple's part. But I think the whole debate is copying nonfunctional decorative elements: like the "shiny plastic" motif which Apple seems to mesmerize its users with. I believe there was some ruling regarding just what can be considered copyrightable regarding an interface. Does anyone know what those boundaries are?
I think that a direct interface clone would be pretty clear-cut, but if it just 'looks similar,' I think that's less definite.
Coke has had a trademark on the "look" and "feel" of it's bottle for over 40 years. This type of stuff is much older than the computer industry. http://www.coca-cola.com.au/about_contour.asp
Here's some interesting background into Look and Feel lawsuits. I remember in college having long debates that Windows 95 was a ripoff of Apple's System 7. Apple has "Trash" and MSFT has "Recycle Bin". Apple list their icons on the right and MSFT list them on left...so on and so on.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
The best feature of iPhoto and iTunes is that they integrate completely with the rest of iLife from Apple. Without this integration there wouldnt be any thing special about neither of them.
As long as the new Lindows apps doesnt integrate together, they wont last because other standalone applications exists that are better at what they do.
Ever wonder why Linux vendors copy Windows/Mac designs, and not the other way around? I mean, you don't see Steve Jobs holding a press conference to announce iPine, do you?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Apple CEO Steve Jobs today announced that the company has launched a lawsuit claiming German firm SuSE LINUX AG are in breach of the company's patent on random capitalisation in product names. "Random capitalisation is an exciting and innovative use of letters pioneered by NeXT and the rights to this technology are now owned by Apple Inc" said Jobs as he promised to vigorously pursue this action.
First off, these apps look like they'll make a nice addition to the Linux desktop. I doubt I'll use them much, but I'll be sure to install them on mom's machine when they're ready.
Secondly, to everybody whining about these being "rip-offs" ...I say screw 'em. After all, they stole X
;-P
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
Get with the program; it's Lsuits.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/040420/tech_lindows_ipo_1. html
Reuters
Software maker Lindows files to go public
Tuesday April 20, 8:47 am ET
WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - Software maker Lindows Inc. on Tuesday filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (News - Websites) for an initial public offering of as much as $57.5 million in common stock.
The San Diego, California-based company, which said it was changing the name of its Linux-based operating system after a trademark dispute with Microsoft Corp.(NasdaqNM:MSFT - News), did not provide details as to the size and price of the proposed IPO.
Here are the tarball links for those who want 'em :-)
LSongs
LPhoto
If it's striking resemblence you're after, I invite you to compare screenshots of Rhythmbox to screenshots of iTunes. Not that Rhythmbox isn't a great music management program for GNOME in it's own right, but I think you'll agree it looks a hell of a lot more similar to iTunes than LSongs...
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/040420/tech_lindows_ipo_1. html
Reuters
Software maker Lindows files to go public
Tuesday April 20, 8:47 am ET
WASHINGTON, April 20 (Reuters) - Software maker Lindows Inc. on Tuesday filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (News - Websites) for an initial public offering of as much as $57.5 million in common stock.
The San Diego, California-based company, which said it was changing the name of its Linux-based operating system after a trademark dispute with Microsoft Corp.(NasdaqNM:MSFT - News), did not provide details as to the size and price of the proposed IPO.
Didn't Lotus sue Borland for using a clone of their interface from Lotus 1-2-3 and lose their case?
I hate grammar Nazi's.
This entire thread feels like it was started by a troll.
How many photo mgmt apps were out there before iPhoto that looked similar, and did more or less the same thing? It is not like Apple originated this stuff... IIRC they bought out two little companies, re-skinned the apps, built in better quicktime support, and voila!
Originality is dead, long live the clones!
Apple have already tried to sue somone over the 'look and feel' of a product, and it was a Microsoft Win.
Basicly, no-one is goind to spend money going after someone for cloning software any more: it's too easy to change how it looks.
Yes, cry me a river.
When apps _don't_ copy the look'and'feel we get all this whining about how the interface is "weird". See also: GIMP, Blender
So basically linux application GUIs are only allowed to exist in the interval marked "very very familiar -- not too different -- but different enough for my taste."
Anything else, queue the whining.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
The entire point of his trademark antagonism is to generate publicity through lawsuits. At this point, though, I'm not entirely sure that torquing off industry giants isn't the entire motivation of having created the company thanks to this sort of thing.
Tell you what -- if I had that much money to blow, I might be tempted to troll at the corporate level as well.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
LSongs and LPhoto are both as close to iTunes and iPhoto as clones can get.
w ai t_no__iTunes_yeah.jpg
I'm disappointed to see Linux and OSS be use for little more than taking peoples hard work and trying to screw them over for it. If Richard Stallman's fantasy ever comes true it will be a dark day for originality in computer systems. (Maybe great for programers tho unless you like VS.NET) (And BTW RMS was blatantly lying when he said good UIs are easy to design. It'l be a long time before the tools, training and or inspiration are widely available for OSS to design original, good UIs)
If only more OSS wanted to break new ground, as Gnome 2.6 is doing. Sure, it's a lot harder and success is not guaranteed. But at least is worthwhile exploration rather than following.
But then, no one expects more than following out of Linux.
There's a lot of subtly in this interface. I wonder how much LSongs got right. Probably quite a bit.
http://www.angelfire.com/in3/hanofdeath/LSongs_
Linux needs to start to come up with it's own products, not lower quality knockoff versions of Apple or M$ apps. Open source really leads in some areas - I am really inpressed with some of the open source file systems, and obviously server apps are on open source first and foremost. Open source needs to figure out how to attract the greet minds - the people that can figure out what the masses want before the masses do.
I am sure those programs are just some regular KDE apps that Lindows modified to look like Apple's. For example, Juk is a sure candidate for the music player. But, hey, people, I really don't see this as a bad thing. We want world domination, right? :-) So it's only natural to give the users the look & feel of an application that they use and love. Open source does not necesary have to mean innovation. Just what it says: open source, so people can contribute. I don't see any people contributing to iTunes, and that's only because they can't.
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
This is not a new music player. Just an icon set and a name. And oh, they moved the player and search bar to the bottom. Rhythmbox is I guess a knockoff of iTunes or so I hear I don't use it. But this is what Lin*whatever has been doing from the start. Re-branding OSS with Lnames.
Hmm, it makes me feel old that I can remember EA publishing a non-licensed non-sequel game (Jumpman).
Probably. Winamp has a huge install base; hardly anyone uses iTunes.
Apple lost the look-and-feel suit with Microsoft over different interpretations of a clause in one of the contracts between the companies. Microsoft argued that it allowed them to copy the GUI. They won, which I think was surprised Microsoft as much as anyone else.
I agree that software patents that protect methodologies are bad, but design is copyright law, and not patents at all. You don't see a Dodge Firebird out there, do you? Rip-offs of copyrighted designs should absolutely be stopped.
C'mon, have you been griping about DotGNU, Mono, or Gnome? At least these guys are imitating quality. That's rare in the Linux world whose dark closets are jam packed full with MS Windows worshippers. You probably don't understand what I'm saying if you think something like XMMS is ahead of anything. This isn't a troll, just some rambling by someone who is both disappointed by and disgusted with the direction the Linux desktop has been headed.
If Linspire get sued, will anyone feel sorry for them? The parade of ridiculous names continues. What's next? Lmail and a LLawsuit from Google?
That said, is there a point with UI design where the (near-enough) best has been met, and all that can be done is to replicate that with minor changes? Should the fact that one group of designers found that best first stop others from also discovering and using it?
I've looked at the screenshot of Lphoto and they are dreaming if they think that Apple will look at that and feel threatened (a couple of button similarities aside). How do these companies start so strongly (background image of title bar is nice, for example), and then finish it in such an ugly fashion. Who are they paying to design a professional product? It looks cheap and nasty.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
The themes that were pulled didn't just copy the "Aqua" UI, they used the trademarked apple logo. There are quite a few aqua-style themes out there.
0 1 - just my two bits
Are you seriously saying that a patent makes something unique and/or innovative?
Have you been reading slashdot for more than a week? Have you read the articles about how patents are actually granted?
Once you realize that a patent simply means "The governement took money from me", you realize that patents have little moral weight, and their legal weight is shaky because of the lax attitude of the patent office.
Ever notice how certain people always seem to have a cloud over them? Darl McBride of SCO infamy and Micheal Robertson of Lindows both have a record of storm clouds of litigenous conflicts surrounding them. Some might argue this is because they are hard chargers who buck the system and are victims of circumstance. However, one wonders if knowingly or unknowingly they keep putting themselves in these situations to generate the conflicts:)
The screenshots are terrible. Is linspire a professional product? With which companies/OS is it trying to compete?
I thought that Linux UI had got beyond this stage?
And the problem is barely with the fact that they've virtually screenshot-copied from iTunes, but with the fact that the rest of the simple presentation elements (lists, titles, etc) are really poorly displayed. There's no alignment for example (something that would give it a lot of clarity), or spacing (visual simplicity, eases the user). It's the UI equivalent of a ransom note -- bits and pieces cut from elsewhere.
I understand that this is a commercially sold operating system. If they want to improve the UI of these products, I believe that I could do a better job!
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
This is true for the coffee chain called "secondcup" and Starbucks. Second cup is home grown and wildly successful, starbucks just comes in and parks next to them. Stabucks has better coffee though, so I don't really care.
To summarize:
It looks almost exactly the same, but its really ugly and bad at the same time because they lack that famous apple magic.
Buddy, if apple put that out, you'd be pissing your pants over how great it is.
Look at iTunes. Horrible interface, dumb architecture...it actually insists you store you songs on both the iPod and your hard drive, so if you have a 40G iPod, you can't just rip a CD direct to your ipod...nooooo, you have to rip it to your HD, and then copy it over to your ipod. And then if you want to save some space and delete those songs, next time you sync your ipod, those songs are gone too!
Its an architecture designed by hard drive makers, because it guarantees you'll run out of disk space.
And as for the interface, if you put in a CD, it makes those tunes available in iTunes. Take out the CD, and they're still in iTunes. Only its not very obvious they're not on the HD, oh no, you click on a tune, and it just tells you the CD isn't inserted.
Its dizzying how bad the interface is. Thank heavens for XPlay.
Now what was this about Apple's fine UI?
IBM and Microsoft co-invented the PC. Apple and Commodore had microcomputers before the PC existed.
philcrissman.com.
Taco want's us to buy Linspire stock.
GodDAMN, but that's uglier than an ass-pimple on a rhinocerous' hemherrhoidal anal pipe! I may be an Apple fanboy, but if this is the best the Linspire project has to offer, I pity anyone using it for more than a minute. I certainly hope that's a custom widget set--I would go blind!
Its sad that with anything we do the first thought is either, 'we might get sued' or 'lets sue someone'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
yes faggots die, just like everyone eles.
When I read this in the original post:
;-)
I would have thought LinSpire might have learned from the whole Lindows name fiasco
I thought to myself, "They did!"
Clearly they have learned from the lindows/windows fiasco. Thousands of people had never heard of them before that. Now thousands more will hear about them through this. I wonder who's next after Microsoft and Apple. Maybe they should go after one of SCO's trademarks instead?
Did anyone else notice that the button icons are poor rip offs of Apple's buttons? Shit, a couple of them are even Apple desktop patterns.
Then again, he could be breaking new ground.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Unless you hear this at Gateway right now: "Hey Louie! We're going up against Apple now! Get rid of the 2nd mouse button on those mice! Put in slower 2002-era chips, alter the OS so it only runs 4% of the software it runs now. And double the price! Paint em in really pretty colors. We'll make a killing!"
Part of me agrees with you. It's nice to see innovation and progress come from OSS projects like Gnome. On the other hand, if we're going to convince the masses to make the switch, we have to give them something their already familiar with. This is the strategy Lindows... er, um, Linspire, is using in their attempts to get Joe user to try their product.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
The naming. This whole iWhatever thing already is long in the teeth, but at least has meaning and says something to and about the user.
... say that ten times, real fast...
LSong? LPhoto, that's just plain LLLLLLame.
SongBox, PhotoLog or whatever, how hard is it to come up with names that mean something?
Some originality while still trying to indicate what the program does. Lsong sounds like me too much like an oriental fortune cooky quoting machine and LPhoto
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Anyway, it's probably easy for a 3 person team and 1 year of calendar time to have decent clones of each one.
Best Buy can have you arrested
Well, we're talking about look and feel, not so much the underlying code. It's the fact that Lin-WhateverItIs looks just like someone else's products that's at issue.
And I wasn't trying to be funny with that post, moderators. Open source allows the proprietary market to establish its design standards. It just makes a few tweaks and tags along.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
When iPhoto, iMovie and iTunes saw the light, there was something about those apps. They were different, not standard at all, it took some time to get used to them (about 5 minutes).
And they kicked ass, you ended up wanting to use them, finding excuses and stupid projects (let's digitise all my JJ Cale albums, yeah!) to test and try every hook and nook of your mac all over again.
That's what original and good design can do for you, dear linux crowd. I'm currently feeling my way around KDE and while very impressed (all this for FREE?) I'm constantly muttering "rip-off" under my breath.
Amazingly enough a lot of linux users are very much badmouthing a lot of products that get copied almost to the last detail.
While I'm a standards freak and know they can be more important than innovation for the sake of it, there's a time and place and above all USE for originality and style. And there are many ways to express them.
LPhoto and LSong are Lame (as said in previous post) and not because they were copied (who cares), but because they were copied without LStyle and LOriginality and as such Lack LFlavour.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Where could they possibly have gotten the Linspiration to make sure amazing apps?
- The Amazina Llama
Someone needs to buy those boys a better widget set. Or at least a theme. Damn those things are fugly. You'd think they'd pick something better to show.
The tenor of this "flame"-thread seems that providing similar apps to Linux users that the company with the original idea refuses to supply, is bad. Time to start bashing gnucash, or any of the db people. How about bashing Sun for creating Star/Open office or Mozilla for copying NCSA Mosaic.
Geez guys, Lindows is not for programmers and IT staff, it is for people who want to get away from M$ and it's strangle-hold on the home desktop. Most people can't afford the base model Mac, but, they can afford a $200 Lindows/Linspire box.
As for interface, aren't all opensource project works in progress, and getting updated all the time?
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Yeah, sure, they look similar to the Apple apps. So what? My car's controls also look similar to your car's controls. IE looked similar to Netscape. Apple Mail looks similar to KMail. Safari uses roughly the same layout as other browsers. That's what makes things usable.
Apple would be really stupid to start another look-and-feel lawsuit over this--the last one cost them a lot of good will and money.
Okay, lets just say you have a music application...it'll list all of your music on your loacl drive and let you purchase music from the Interweb.
It'll need a list of songs, and need playback controls.
Just exactly how many GUIs exist for this? If a person knows >> and , why make them learn something else?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Butt-ulgy copy of the iTunes and iPhoto layouts..
It's a bastardized version of Linux that is meant to capitalize on work others have done without even remotely contributing to OSS or the advancement of Linux itself.
Slashdot is not really their target audience. It's the walmart PC buying public who want cheaper computers and software, but with the same look and feel. This is a site for 'nerds', who can no doubt install a better engineered Linux distro, or the real Windows operating systems.
I'm not trying to be elitest, but I doubt the slashdot crowd is what Lindows/Linspire/Linpatronising is aiming at. There's nothing inspiring about a insecure rip-off OS that thinks sticking tradmarks together makes a marketing strategy.
"from the not-much-loriginatility dept."
Oh and iPhoto and iTunes are SOOOO original. right along with eMachines, eBusiness, i-(insert random thing that used to have nothing to do with the internet)
Whats the point of whining about ripping off a name when the name being ripped off wasn't original in the first place??????
Come on, some mac addict just wanted to complain about the next big thing stealing the look and feel of Apple. Though in certain fonts I(i), 1(the number), and l (L) almost look exactly the same, but not the lowercase 'i'.
Except that Apple paid/bought NeXT, and acquired rights to use NeXTStep. So it isn't a 'pale imitation' but a 'weak descendent' to be precise.
GPL Deconstructed
I'm not sure exactly what the point of these is...we've already got very nice apps that do the same thing as these (and have nicer interfaces): for music, either Rhythmbox or Muine, and for photos, GPhoto. The only purpose I can see for LinSpire to have its own photo and music apps is branding, which is pretty silly since they're already positioning themselves as the OS for "generic" PCs. I'm afraid I just don't see the point.
The scalloped tatters of the King in Yellow must cover
Yhtill forever. (R. W. Chambers, the King in Yellow
WHO FIRGGIN CARES if the applications are name LPhoto and LTunes?! What is the big deal? This is a common practice used all over the software development field: Look at the names of applications used for Gnome and KDE: G-this.. K-that..
As far as the interfaces resembling Apple stuff? Whats the big deal with that? They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.. Well heres a good example! It also makes it easier to accomodate new users, especially in the market they are aiming for! It makes it easier to switch over if the applications are similar to those you've seen other platforms.
Noone freaked out on Microsloth when they came out with the Win95 interface - although it did borrow concepts from the Mac, Amiga, and XWindows.
I thought the whole Lindows suit was totally retarded too.. Christ - if someone wanted to start a new car company tomorrow, is it expected that the cars cant look anything like existing models?! Of course not! Heck the big car manufacturers are constanty copying each other in design styles.
So why should there be anything wrong with mimic'ing the GUI for software applications?
-- NeTMoNGeR
But does it seem to anyone else like Lindows is the total opposite of SCO? SCO tried to sue when they have no chance of winning, while Lindows seems to be actively trying to be sued by people they have chance of beating...
My brain hurts.
Im just waiting for AOL to sue the XMMS mob for stealing there look and feel, plus skin format. Thats got to be some kind of how you say IP.
.. but they are, big and bad and seem to do anything to undermind the open source movement.
... tho i could be wrong.. plus they release it free for the worst value for money operating system on the market Microsoft Windows
I doubt they will get sewed since some companys just don't care, I hate to get into the old big bad company microsoft thing
I don't think apple would sue, I think apples capture a different audiance and i doubt anyone will change from MacOS to linux cause a clone of there fav mp3 player exists
Managed to find this on the Lindows site: the full Python source code as released under the GPL, no less:
LSongs
LPhoto
>I would have thought LinSpire might have learned from the whole Lindows name fiasco...
They did learn -- they learned that you get a LOT of publicity when you release software that closely resembles a much better-known product. In fact, lawsuit or not, that's the intent here (I would imagine): not to say "these are the same products", but to say "our products should be considered as peers to similar apps from our competitors, not inferior apps".
I just visited http://www.linspire.com/ and it is blatantly obvious that the website design is a ripoff of the Apple web site. Just look at the Aqua-ish navigation buttons...
Sig erased via substitution of an identical one.
the original WordPerfect.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Don't these names just sound stupid? The leading 'L' just doesn't flow like the 'i' does. I think it has to do with the consonant sound.
LPhoto... ellfoto... elf oto?
LSongs... ellsongs... else ongs?
If they were going to make a cheesy ripoff of the Apple names, they could have at least thought up more pleasing sounding names.
If you have the money to muddle through the patent process in the first place; you probably have enough extra money to buy an hour or two of a copyright/contract lawyer's time, give him a copy of the GPL, and instruct him to: "write a license that functions exactly like the GPL, in every way, except that it allows me to retain full control over my patents.".
It's not like the GPL is the holy writ or anything. It's just a software license. And if it doesn't fit your needs, just use a different one.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
(Disclaimer macintosh user)
Back in the 80's there was a TV show called Newhart, from of course Bob Newhart. The Character wrote how to manuals and DIY books. Anyway 'Bob' got sued once for stealing a book on how to do plumbing. In the end it was decided there were only a few reasonable ways to describe on how to tighten a pipe.
What am i getting at? If you bother to put some thought into it, there are really a few finite good ways to say organize a set of songs or wrangle your photos. Is this 'stealing', patent violation copyright infringement? Damned if I know IANAL, but at some point there is only one way to sort things by category.
I'll leave the rants against the patent office for another time.
I just felt the need to mention this, because even as they roll out new applications and names, the "Lin*" people seem to be dropping the ball in other (traditionally strong in the Linux world) areas.
Several months ago, I purchased LindowsOS 2.0 and XandrOS 2.0 Deluxe, both of which use installers based on the old Corel Linux installer. I have several HP Omnibook 4150B (not 4150) laptops, and neither installer would work with my laptops.
The bug itself is known -- the 4150B cannot boot Linux without passing 'NOAGP' to the kernel at boot time -- but neither distribution's installer would pass the parameter correctly.
I contacted both companies with the problem, and the solution.
The Xandros people suggested a few alternative workarounds (that didn't work), then did the sensible thing: they fixed the installer so that the 'NOAGP' parameter can be passed. I use XandrOS almost daily.
The Lin* people suggested a few alternative workarounds (that didn't work), then sent me this note:
"Dear Customer,
I am sorry but with LindowsOS, you cannot change the boot parameters."
End of line. I wrote back, suggesting they change their compatibility listing for the HP Omnibook 4150B to "KNOWN TO BE INCOMPATIBLE", but here it is several months later and they still list it as "Believed to be compatible".
LindowsOS has yet to be installed on any of my computers, even the ones it is compatible with, for this reason.
Just something I thought the Linux community would like to know about.
... are these iApps rip-off Open-Source ?
:wq
In my mind, the former and latter companies are getting nothing but bad press.
We only read about M. Roberson always wining to the press. Taking the fight to Microsoft and being bullied. A simple name change would have sufficed, I think he expected the suit in the first place if only to get free press. Now, the naming schema, is too similar to Apple's.
Are we going to see plain white Linspire computers with a single button-mouse and an LSuperDrive? No matter how "good" this company gets, in my mind its becoming nothing but a rip-off of other work. I'm never going to buy anything from them. IMO, there's enough good work going on with Fedora that LinSpire doesn't deserve any press.
Is a protected fair use of the original work. I think Apple is out of luck here.
Nearly every piece of software I use looks like that. Really. There is a massive tidal wave of uncalled-for overreaction by the Mac zealots here -- all of which are rapidly being moderated up to +5, Insightful in what is fast becoming yet another infomercial for Apple on a "supposed" open-source site. I would have thought that there would be less reactionary name-calling and product-promoting, and more balanced thinking and unbiased discussion, but of course I was wrong.
What happened to "standing on the shoulders of giants?" Does Ferrari attack BMW for "stealing" their idea of having nice rounded edges, or putting their engine in the same place, or having the dashboards designed very similarly? No, because that would be moronic. Certain aesthetic designs are just naturally good. Efficient. Nice. Natural. Self-evident. And they SHOULD be copied. That's how we progress. We take the good from other designs, add more good to it, and that forces others to improve on our designs in order to compete. Not that I'm saying the Linspire apps are any good or not, I haven't used them, and I refuse to use their stuff on ethical grounds, but what's even more disgusting than Linspire still being allowed to live is the absolute selfish egotistical zealotry of the mac faithful who actually are so deluded to compare Apple's apps with these rookie Linspire apps and demand a boycott based on some bizarre notion of "cool design theft".
Look at screenshots of iTunes, iPhoto, then these Linspire apps side by side. Do you REALLY think these apps look the same? Be honest. The Linspire apps have SOME SHARED BASIC CHARACTERISTICS -- AS SHOULD ALL APPS WHICH DO THE SAME THING, but are different in other ways as well. Should Apple get in trouble for stealing their GarageBand Interface from the other music creation apps out there, such as ACID? (very old version screenshot) NO! Software is a TOOL, and every tool that is intended to do the same thing MUST share characteristics if it is to be useful.
Think about it in simpler, more universal terms: Do you think if Apple invented a tool such as the fork they'd expect everyone else to eat with their hands forever because they were the first ones to pick up a piece of wood and put food on it? No. If someone else tries to make a fork with tines, should Apple be able to prevent them from doing this, thus ensuring a monopoly? No. Society is about working TOGETHER to a degree, building off other's work; it's part of competition. Competition cannot happen if one group can demand that other groups stop advancement because their forks are too similar, WHEN THAT DESIGN IS SELF-APPARENT. And Apple WASN'T the first ones to have designs like this. They took the originals and improved on it (see my GarageBand example above). But they shouldn't be restricted from using tracks for a music sequencer just because the other guys did it first. You can't claim ownership of things at that low of a level.
How about this? It's an ancient Windows program. It seems to have all the same features that make a photo program useful, but it's laid out in reverse (less logical order for Western society, where we tend to read from left to right).
Left side = main category, right side = subcategory, etc. Other MP3 software looks like that, the Agent Newsreader I use every day is even MORE similar, popular
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the other Lin[dows|spire] news. They are apparently one step closer to a public stock offering after filing some paperwork with the SEC.
It looks a lot like a beach in Bermuda. If its not a Bermudian beach and just made up to look similar hope they are ready for a lawsuit!
Apple puts millions of dollars into UI research and design, why not copy their work?
Uh, because it's their intellectual property? Because Linux isn't supposed to be just a derivative? Because we can do better and make our own?
Doesn't surprise me coming from the "let's pirate everything" crowd.
Read the articles in the secular (non-PC, non-Mac) business press about Mac's dwindling desktop share. What you have are more and more "I Love the Mac! I'm a bigot! but I had to ditch it and get a PC because it couldn't do much"
"Apple makes plenty of Personal Computers, as opposed to mainframes and servers"
They do not make a PC, however. If you believe this, get a MacMall catalog, and a PC Mall catalog. Now, go and find Mac software (what little there is) in the PC mall catalog.
"Apple sold their first PCs in 1976"
You are creating alternatve history. The first PC did not exist until the early 1980s when IBM came out with it.
" My mistake was using the term "PC" later to refer to the x86 architecture. I apologize"
That is not a mistake. Even Apple recognizes it. They had ads comparing Macs to "PCs". Not to "other PCs"
With a Mac, it is quicker to get a set amount of work done.
Only if the Mac has a faster processor.
"Nowadays, the bottleneck is often the human performing the commands while the processor is idle"
That sounds like a variation on "the computers are fast enough already!". If you believe that, then Bill Gates has a "640K is enough" line to sell you.
"This is making the assumption that more packages means more innovation."
No, it is just recognition of the fact that the PC software base is much larger and much more diverse than the Mac base. If you want to do something unusual, chances are that the PC will help you and the Mac will not.
"....alternative to x86/Wintel innovation..."
Wintel? Half of PCs run AMD. Why even mention Wintel? The agreed-upon term is PC.
"The millions of people who take trains to work every day wouldn't think so."
That's not the best analogy to use there, buddy. The train hardly goes anywhere, it is smelly, and subject to breakdowns in the entire system (strikes, etc).
"What bleeding edge piece of technology has been absent from my restricted Macintosh existance lo these past seven years? It must be pretty subtle that I haven't noticed it."
Probably nothing you aren't missing. You are likely in that tiny niche for which the Mac works. Myself, I don't want limits like this. I want something that comes close to "doing it all."
http://www.lifescapeinc.com/picasa/ These guys are not only ripping off the interface of iPhoto but charging money for it.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
You bring up GIMP and Blender, two apps known for their bad interfaces. That's why they're known as being "weird." Not because they're different, but because they're just plain bad.
Linux can easily come up with its own GUI design. We've got thousands of world volunteers at our disposal. As someone important recently quipped, "We have the power of millions of volunteers and what do we do? We make a UNIX clone. Then we make a Windows clone on top of it."
He is allowed to hate Apple. There are plenty of good reasons to.
The Opera "innovation" has come with sloppy programming which has meant that way too many web pages come up looking scrambled. At that point, there is only one gesture Opera deserves (the one favored by the NYC cab driver). I uninstalled the piece of crap and went Mozilla.
Mozilla had a better attitude: "let's make it work, instead of concertrating on useless new features"
OOo Writer doesn't look like WinWord at all. Yes, it has a menu bar and a work area, but then so does every other windows (MS, X, Mac, etc...) application out there. And yes, with some apps there are only so many ways to get the job done, which is why all spreadsheet apps have rows and collumns) but this is too much. Look at WinAmp 5. It has many of the same features that iTunes has, but it doesn't look a thing like iTunes.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Search for posts with people trying to skin KDE to look like OS X Aqua. Everything I've seen is a cheap rip off.
Skinners make their Aqua theme approximations look cheap on purpose because Apple cease-and-desists anybody whose Aqua theme knockoff actually looks good.
Look at photoshop and the layers (an innovation, not a usability feature), I'm fairly sure they were the first company to start using layers.
There were layers in HyperCard's paint program (1991 or so) long before there were layers in Adobe's image editor. In HyperCard, each card had a monochrome image with a monochrome alpha channel, and sets of cards in a stack could share a back layer called the "background."
the gimp does none of those things, it just has a different interface model than photoshop and all people do is bitch about how its slightly different than photoshop.
"El Photo" is OK but it should be "Los Songs." ;-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The work is copyrighted regardless of who has read the work.
In most cases, copyrights do not have the broad scope of patents. To prove copying in a court of law, a copyright owner needs to prove both the alleged infringer's access to the work and substantial similarity between the works in question. Access is trivial to prove for a musical work, as it can be assumed that all major label songs have been played on commercial radio (Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music), but it's a bit harder to prove for a computer program. And as cloning involves non-literal copying, the copyright owner also finds it more difficult to prove substantial similarity.
wouldn't it make sense for apple to port iTunes to *nix, it wouldn't exactly be hard considering osX is based off of bsd, and it would be a nice gesture to give back to the *nix community for giving apple their osX kernel.
Once you realize that a patent simply means "The governement took money from me"
It also means "I can take money from you unless you have even more money to hire a lawyer."
do they have Rendezvous sharing, a music store, book creation on demand, export to movie, etc?
At least this music "store" runs on Linspire. If the company gets enough requests from CNR customers, it'll probably add support for Rendezvous. Other CNR apps probably have book creation and slideshow generation.
The shell in Digital's VMS had history and completion. David Cutler was a lead developer of both VMS and the Windows NT kernel.
there's no LSongs Music Store (yet).
Have you ever used iRATE? It's cheaper than iTMS.
Is everything from this company a direct rip-off of an Apple product?
Take a look at the Lindows/Linspire homepage:
http://www.linspire.com/
How creative!
second society
These software packages may look like duds due to their preliminary user-interfaces, but imagine if down the line they connect to the services available from their big business partner, Wal-Mart.
Imagine if users of Ltunes can buy their songs from Wal-Mart for $0.89c apiece, and users of Lphoto can get their pictures printed/duplicated/etc at Wal-Mart Photo for $0.75c apiece.
The shoddiness of the software won't matter so much to its users because it could just be a gateway to real-world services they are accustomed to using: the music store, the one-hour photo.
First, what's the deal with these apps, are they proprietary or open source? Are they only available through the Lindows/Linspire Click-n-Run thing? If they're open source, where can I download them?
/.?
Honestly, I don't give a rat's ass about the look-n-feel. As others have pointed out, there are a lot of open source apps that emulate the L&F of other commercial apps even closer (OpenOffice.org, XMMS, etc). The repeated copycat naming is not smart, I think that's the only reason anyone is even paying attention to this post. If they hadn't named it LPhoto, do you really think anyone would have spent the time to get in an uproar about it long enough to draft a post on
Seriously, iPhoto is one of the best apps on Mac OS X. It took some real genius to make an application that easy to use. I want it on my Linux box, and I don't care if you copy it pixel-for-pixel like the xPDe guys have copied the XP interface. That application (iPhoto) kicks ass. Where can we get this clone short of buying Linspire?
Anybody who mods this funny is missing the point. This is exactly the kind of application that Linux needs to have in order to make any headway on the home desktop of your average person.
No, they're all written in Python and make use of various libraries and their python extensions to implement the functionality, as well as PyQt.
The font on the front splash screen even looks like Apple's font.
Those Linspire people are either crazy or genius... at least it seems they ride the thin line in-between the two.
So now you're saying that it's OK to copyright look & feel of applications like iPhoto? It's amazing just how your opinions change when it suits you. If Linspire can add this by doing their own development good for them. iPhoto is a trivial applications and people should be allowed to implement features like this as they see fit.
Copyright protects expression, not function. Trying to stretch it to protect functional aspects of a GUI should be out of bounds. Imagine if every brand of automobile had to have a completely different control mechanism. Only one brand could have a steering wheel; maybe the next guy would have to use something that looks like a rudder. One would have a gas pedal, another would have a hand throttle. Would this be a good thing?
I'm at the Linspire.com site. Where on the frontdoor does it even tell me what CNR is? I work with computers every day and I've never heard of it. How will every day, potential customers have a clue?
Hell, now I'm on the CNR tab and I still don't know what it means. Is it a name of a shop? Why do I want a shop with my operating system?
The quality Linux distros need to distance themselves from this amateur confusion ASAP.
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Apple might release iOser and iAme just to see what Linspire does with them.
How exactly is protecting good ideas and allowing only those whom one has little hope of collecting from to use them for free "flamebait?"
Actually, I know from personal experience that you're wrong. My computer illiterate girlfriend has an iBook (one of the all-white 2001 models with dual USB ports) and a 15 GB iPod. She routinely imports songs from CDs and then moves them into playlists that are hosted only on the iPod; once there, she deletes them from the iBook's local storage. So her iBook's precious hard drive space is conserved, and the music is put exactly where she needs it. And when she synchronizes, the songs that are only on the iPod stay on the iPod; they don't disappear, as you assert.
So if my girlfriend, who is not in any special way computer savvy, but who knows how to experiment with something until it does what she wants (and who isn't paralyzed by the fear of screwing up), can figure this out... then it can't be that non-obvious.
I have to admit, though, I was pretty surprised when I saw that she could do this. I was incredulous, in fact. But she showed me how she did it, and after she showed me, I smacked my forehead. "Damn, why didn't I think of that?" Well, it's because most people (like myself) don't bother creating iPod-only playlists inside of iTunes.
Like most Apple software, there are a lot of features in iTunes that aren't exactly hidden, but they're not in-your-face either; these little gems are often discovered by accident, or by reading a book of hints and tips. Many of these features are undocumented or poorly documented, something that is IMHO a flaw, but in keeping with Apple's philosophy that one should not need to read documentation to use a product.
(For those who are curious, I just called my SO to ask her, and she says there's a preference, either in iTunes or in iSync, that lets you turn off automatic music synchronization while separately turning on automatic synchronization of other things, such as contacts and calendars. Once you do that, you can manually copy music to your iPod and manually manage what's on your iPod, including creating iPod-only playlists that have songs not on your host computer's hard drive.)
A book has words. If I copy your words, that's a copyright violation. If I take the idea for your book i.e. "The warren commission got it wrong". I can write a book about the same idea, even citing the same sources, and its not a copyright violation.
Same here. LPhoto may be similar in some ways, but that's a pretty vague argument. Windows XP and OS X, and pretty much every computer interface is similar these days. Doesn't mean jack.
So it's OK for "our" apps to copy the look and feel of a competitor we don't like, yet not OK for an "outsider" to copy the look and feel of a competitor palatable to many of us?
People don't buy Word because of the interface.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Well, it'd be nice if you could qualify "lots" a bit better. Maybe a real quantitative figure. But then again, you can get that from the product spec sheet. Yeah, Winamp plays more formats than iTunes. But iTunes natively plays the formats I most care about (except for Ogg Vorbis, which requires a plugin).
If you want to dick around with video, there's Quicktime Player and a hundred other applications and utilities that let you view it and more. I don't understand why Nullsoft put video capabilities in Winamp. But hey, if it floats your boat, great.
Incidentally, if you want an alternative to iTunes on the Mac that supports skinning and variable opacity and other nifty eye candy, as well as native Ogg Vorbis support, I'd recommend Audion.
Other notes...
I don't consider this to be much of an advantage for Winamp. It's nifty, but the application already has a petite interface by default, so I don't understand what value you get from spreading the pieces apart.
This is factually incorrect. iTunes defaults to managing your library for you, but you can turn this off and have it simply access the files where you want to keep them.