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..."

Comments

Ugly, but identical, wins the race?

[Bones3D_mac]

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.

LSongs/iTunes similarities

[NiKnight3]

• 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...

• Inconsistent interface
• Unintuitive placement of play / search controls

...makes up for it.

The iTunes interface is patented

[zsazsa]

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.

Apple vs Microsoft (Look N Feel)

[Numeric]

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.

Re:Linux apps that are hopelessly derivative?

[RevAaron]

Indeed, Apple had the first widely accessible commercial computer with a WIMP interface driven by a mouse- the Lisa. The PERC Workstation (not Unix, something weirder) had a GUI and was available commercially around the same time, but was not very available- even to those with the buttload of funds required to buy one.

AFAIK, the first X11 came out aroudn 1985. A year or so after the Lisa, around the same time that MS Windows 1.0 came out. Motif was 1987 IIRC.

And Apple certainly didn't copy Unix, that is laughable. If anything, Apple copied Smalltalk, but as you point out, they bought the engineers behind it and did so more or less with Xerox's approval.