Apple Gets Testy About GUI 579
ShogZilla writes "Apple threatened Skinz.org (a windows "skins" site) & Stardock (makers of the win32 app "windowblinds") with legal action if a certain skin
The problem? The skin (winaqua) alters WinOS window frames to mimic the Mac OS Aqua appearance - kinda. It's very altered, the graphics are custom, & the layout is different - but that doesn't appear to matter.
After the threat, both sites initially complied, but have reconsidered & have reposted the skin; it does not use any graphics from aqua, it does not contain any mac logos etc; it's an original work - just inspired by the aqua GUI.
" I'm still waiting for an Aqua theme for E - Aqua just looks so darn /purty/.
Scary (Score:1)
So what does that mean for KDE and GNOME etc. Will themes.org be getting cease and desist letters?
-- Steve
Strange (Score:5)
Aqua theme for Sawmill (Score:3)
go to : http://sawmill.themes.org/ themes.phtml?themeid=947266463 [themes.org] .. ... to make thing really pretty use :
I'm using it quite for a while
And
http://gtk.themes.org/themes.p html?themeid=947543904 [themes.org] the matching GTK theme ! YEAH !
It's really a shame (Score:4)
Luckily for Apple, Aqua is a lot more then just a theme. It adds transparency to the entire interface and other refinements that a theme simply cannot duplicate. No one can claim that adding a Window's theme to a Mac or Mac theme to a Windows machine, in anyway duplicates the GUI of the other platform. The GUI is a lot more than a simple theme.
Apple's Reaction Is Understandable (Score:2)
Life sucks, kill a friend today.
Be careful how you respond,
A Brief History Of Time (Score:3)
Look and feel (Score:4)
Mac seems to be going nuts ... (Score:2)
should be considerd a compliment, it means a job well done.
Second of all having your gui look and feel on an other os is a sort of free publicity.
And I am realy disipointed in Mac for playing the big bully game.
"THERE ARE BETTER THINGS IN THE WORLD THAN ALCOHOL, ALBERT"-Death
E-X (Score:2)
We should protect *some* artistic creations. (Score:5)
Gross.
Re:It's really a shame (Score:2)
Pleeease, I can undestand sueing for the look of the computer and arguing with customers being misled (Is this thing an imac or not???), but suing for a desktop look is plain silly.
Or do you want anyone to own the idea of a "taskbar" or "start button"?
The copying of basic design principles happens everytime and everywhere. Remember hifi's, some time (10 years?) ago they all where silver and then someone started to make them black, the buttons changed and this was generally accepted as a more "modern" look.
Would you like the idea that the first one who changed this could have sued the others and i.e. sony still today were the only one to deliver the "modern" look?
This things happen all the time and it's called fashion...
Re:It's really a shame (Score:4)
The GUI is just an incremental upgrade over what went before, and Apple is borrowing many features from GUIs that other people and companies have made.
Copyrights already cover the blatant form of this, where a competitor tried to pass the OS/GUI off as MacOS X by preventing anyone from copying the look exactly. And trademark law further prevents this, and any other use of the apple symbol.
As to the features of the GUI, I don't see why they deserve protection. It's like saying someone should get patent rights on ideas, not just methods. This assumes that the majority of those ideas were actually even originally thought of at Apple, which I doubt. The world is large, and many companies, universities, and private projects have experimented with making GUIs more powerful and easy to use. If Apple gets protection for their GUI, they'd immediately lose it to the various sources they drew upon for ideas.
And this all assumes that people would be served by allowing companies IP protection for ideas. The whole purpose of IP laws is to help the public by giving companies a reason to release their works instead of hiding them. But if the public isn't helped by this, why should we consider strengthening these laws when it would only help the corporation with the most lawyers?
I say that Apple will get all the protection they need from copyrights, and that anyone intrigued by the look or functionality of the Aqua clones will probably try the Mac, where before they wouldn't have. Apples ideas will function as advertising, and status points, their reward for contributing to the gift culture we live in, and the gift culture that gave them the ideas they used to build upon.
Apple still doesn't get it (Score:2)
Careful (Score:4)
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
These are two strong signs that the author may be using some form of irony. Irony, for those not familiar with the concept, can be described as "when the actual opinion is the opposite of that stated". Ironys are in other words obvious lies, and are used as a way of stating the obvious in a humorous manner. (Do you understand the concept humour?)
In other words: Your post is redundant. One can then use induction, combined with the first law of moderation conclude that this post is also redundant.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:3)
The taskbar?
DirectX?
Um, Office?
Much as I hate Microsoft as much as the next corporation, some of the features in Office (particularly Excell) are gobsmacking. (Win32, on the other hand, is bollocks, but credit is due for Office). This is why they have a monopoly.
Microsoft have even been spotted posting RFC's and drafts for open standards recently. They've finally started behaving themselves (thank God).
Apple have no right to tell us what we can and cannot put on our desktop. If they can't sell products on merit of being better products then they clearly can't keep up with technology. Why doesn't MacOS have themes yet?
I actually see Apple being a great deal more of a threat to open-standards than M$ (remember the Indeo codec?).
Re:It's really a shame, nah (Score:5)
Does Apple have the right to protect a 'theme'?
No, it does not. There are countless references to this, unless the copycat _duplicates_ an art _exactly_, this is when copyrights kick in, "design" an sich, is not protected.
Relevant court material can probably be found in the Apple vs Microsoft "look and feel" case.
Is it funny that Apple can protect their hardware looks, but not their software looks?
Not really, just on the surface perhaps, but the fact is, Hardware lookalikes will directly impact Apple sales, this can be prooven.
Software lookalikes will have NO IMPACT whatsoever on Apple sales, UNLESS the COMPLETE OS will be copied. I cannot imagine an Apple Artist buying a windowz workstation, JUST because theres an aqua theme. Its therefore utterly stupid to fight themes.
It also contradicts the recent Apple "willingness and flirtations" with Open Source. It therefore is not even from a marketing viewpoint sensible. What? Open Sourcing the (parts of) OS but sueing on a theme?? Get a grip.
(This should get through the ThickBoned Head of Marketing guru Jobs.)
Greetz SlashDread
Re:Careful (Score:4)
If we are informed that a skin is an unathorized port (not the case w/ winaqua, it isn't a port; inspired by, yes; byte-for-byte copy, no) or a rip (staking a claim on someone else's work) we delete the offending skin posthaste.
So it isn't an admission of guilt; it's compliance with policy.
Of course, IANAL, so we may be doing this bass-ackwords.
Scary for people creating themes. (Score:3)
Those of you who are running themeable window managers such as enlightenment windowmaker etc. are probably aware of the existence of themes that mimic various OSes' appearance.
Please check out www.themes.org to get an idea of what I am talking about.
Do the theme authors risk a similar lawsuit threat? Is themes.org heading for trouble?
I hope some kind soul on slashdot can enlighten us about these questions.
Re:A Brief History Of Time (Score:2)
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:3)
Possibly some professor had done the same in a lab 5 years earlier, but that hardly counts, any more than saying the internal combustion engine is just a copy of the steam engine because they both use the compressed-gas-cylinder-camshaft technology.
Anywa, here are some more, these are all just IMHO, so please correct me if I'm wrong:
docking toolbars and menus
DHCP (and very good it is too)
realtime spell checking (wiggly red lines in word)
ODBC
A comprehensive approach to disabled users
Comprehensive (if occasionally random) support for non-roman charactersets and languages
And finally, MS get big bonus points for ditching ASCII and shifting to unicode everywhere WAY before anyone else.
Flames to me personally if you must, please...
Hard Drive Space (Score:2)
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
Now you name one from apple (not any of the Xerox stuff please)
Re:We should protect *some* artistic creations. (Score:3)
Should we pursue all the Andy Warhol knock-offs with four faces in coloured squares?
Should we sue Oasis because they sound so much like the Beatles?
Do you think they should have arrested Roy Lichenstein for infringment on DC comics' look and feel?
Sorry to all the artists but it's the world we live in. Unless you can patent your technique, it's pretty hard to stop people copying your work. Overall, I think that results in better work out there.
Re:We should protect *some* artistic creations. (Score:2)
True artists dont care of course, people buy a CHANEL dress, not a copy, and the true artist knows, his NEXT design will be even better.
Hugs SlashDread
"Look and Feel" (Score:2)
Apple and MS backed off, and there (to my knowledge) hasn't been a similar lawsuit in ages. Until now. You'd think that Jobs'd learn from his mistakes. You just can't sue over look and feel.
What's next? (Score:4)
I normally tend to support Apple, but this one is rediculous.
Re:Strange (Score:2)
*cough*Fvwm95*cough*
WARNING - Re:A Brief History Of Time (Score:2)
Re:A Brief History Of Time (Score:2)
No. It is not the case that Apple 'got away with' stealing from Xerox or that MS got away with stealing from Apple. In each case the courts decided that what they did _was not wrong_.
Precedence is very important in American and to a slightly lesser extent English law. When something is ruled to be legal or illegal, then it takes a significant legislative chance to reverse the outcome in future significant cases.
This is not a bad thing. Consistancy is very important - it is important that acts do not effectively waver in and out of criminality simply according to one judge's beliefs or the views of the day as expressed ad hoc by a particular jury.
So, if someone thinks this kind of UI copying _is_ wrong after all, they should lobby for a change in the law, not simply keep on suing until the find a sympathetic judge or jury.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
The taskbar - Hewlett Packard developed this neat little taskbar program called Dashboard later bought by Starfish Software. [computercurrents.com]
These other "inventions" I have seen the likes waaaay before Microsoft implimented them. I used the VMS desktop and seen office apps years before "Microsoft Office" came out.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
--
Re:Aqua (Score:2)
The only difference is that with a small icon, most of the block is wasted, while with a larger icon, less of the block is wasted.
Try it yourself, check how much free space you have, create a small file, and check how much free space you have again. free_space_before > free_space_after + filesize
Re: DHCP is by Bucknell Uni. (Score:2)
FWIW, MS's DHCP is a steaming pile of krud which ignores basic stuff like the hostname.
--
Good Grief (Score:2)
Then there's the Case of the Transplanted Programmers. Early on in the article, we are told that "Apple had hired some people from Xerox (like Jef Raskin, Bruce Horn) who believed in concepts of a Graphical User Interface." and "by no stretch of the imagination could this be called 'ripping-off'." But later, we find out that "Microsoft took [Apple's] best Mac Programmer, and had him making almost every design decision for early windows." This, of course, proves that "Microsoft on the other hand did rip-off Apple." Wow.
As the other poster mentioned, MacKido generally makes Linux zealots look wishy-washy. But this one goes beyond that into some creepy cultish nether realm. Mr. David K. Every seriously needs a quick course in critical thinking skills, perhaps some elementary logic, or, failing that, a job in marketing. Seriously, read the article, people. It's just bizarre.
"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:3)
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Ownership of the 'look-and-feel'? (Score:5)
In my opinion, the real situation would be different if the themes in question were able to provide functionality that could emulate the MacOS, but they cannot. They neither acheive this nor reproduce copyrighted material of Apple.
What would follow next if Apple succeeded in their petty argument, would web designers be able to sue other sites for coding, from scratch, a site that has the same look and feel as their own?
Perhaps Apple should be quiet and accept the fact that if people are going to the trouble of creating look-alike themes from scratch, then they are both advertising Apple's original OS existance and advertising how cool it is (Aqua, cool
I neither use nor endorse Apple products, I find a bitter aftertaste from using previous products of theirs. But like many others, I find the existance of themes representing (read: merely looking-alike) the MacOS system making me more and more curious as to how 'cool' the original platform is.
Perhaps because of these theme's creations, I may even purchase a new Mac since I have almost tried before I've buyed...
Re:What's next? (Score:2)
"uh huh huh, the teacher said like 'Mac Oh Sex'"
"uh huh huh thats kewl"
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
Re:Careful (Score:3)
If we are informed that a skin is an unathorized port (not the case w/ winaqua, it isn't a port; inspired by, yes; byte-for-byte copy, no) or a rip (staking a claim on someone else's work) we delete the offending skin posthaste.
So it isn't an admission of guilt; it's compliance with policy.
Of course, IANAL, so we may be doing this bass-ackwords.
According to the lawyer I just spoke with as long as you say you took it down to review it, found it to be completely free of any infringement and so put it back, You're ok.
Kintanon
Re:Copyright on widget appearance? (Score:2)
If I (painstakingly) create a look-a-like font for Times, and call it 'Jimes', then I haven't broken any law unless I actually, physically, bit-for-bit copied the Times font and renamed it.
I can even legally scan in some printed output of the font, and trace over it in a font creation tool...
Similarly with any kind of graphical work - like a painting. If I simply produce a work 'inspired by' or 'based on' an existing work - without actually using any genuine copying technology like a scanner or a camera - then I haven't infringed anyone's copyright.
All of which is Right, IMO.
Jules
Re:Strange (Score:2)
Re:It's really a shame (Score:2)
Nope. The purpose of IP laws is to protect the owner of the IP. The US founders knew that making the information public would help spur innovation and industry. They also knew that people would not innovate if there was no reasonable chance of profit.
The US IP system, particularly the Patent System, acts as a compromise between these positions. It allows the owner to profit from their work via a time-limited monopoly. It spurs innovation by turning "trade secrets" into publically available information. Licensing is the mechanism that others can use during the protected period to gain access to the technology.
With respect to Apple, they are just using the system to protect their ability to sell technology in which they have invested.
My question is: does an interface theme mimicing a true interface constitute copying (and potential violation of) patents, trademarks, copyrights, or some combination of all three? This is the kind of question that SHOULD have been clearly answered during the Apple v. Microsoft "look and feel" law suits in the 80's.
It wasn't, so now we have confusion and bullying. If it was, then either Apple wouldn't have a case or they would be able to use the courts to force a "cease and desist" order. Either way everyone would know who was right and who was wrong. Instead we have confusion and bad feelings.
Is Apple right? Are they wrong? I don't know. All I know is that given the current state of IP law and precident, what Apple is doing is legal.
I say that Apple will get all the protection they need from copyrights, and that anyone intrigued by the look or functionality of the Aqua clones will probably try the Mac, where before they wouldn't have. Apples ideas will function as advertising, and status points, their reward for contributing to the gift culture we live in, and the gift culture that gave them the ideas they used to build upon.
More likely they will stay with what they have. This was what happened with Windows. It was "good enough". To the casual observer, there was no substantial difference.
Except for Darwin, Apple doesn't participate in the so called "gift culture". I would note that the "gift culture" has gained far more from proprietary culture than vice versa. That Apple, or any successful tech company, derives and builds upon the common meme-pool is certain. However, they spend considerable time, money, and resources to modify, enhance, improve, and outright invent technologies. They deserve the right to protect their innovations as they see fit, just like any other company. Whether their business practices help or harm them only time will tell.
They are after two things: money and mind-share. Just because you are focused on "status points" as the measure of how to "win" doesn't mean that they are as well.
They are a business, not a movement.
IV
Ripping off themes (Score:2)
That's not the case here! Nobody's selling anything, and just because I can make my Linux or Windows box look sorta like Mac OS X, that's not going to make me any less interested in buying a G4 running Mac OS X later this year. No way in hell a mere theme is going to have the fluid animation, awesome-looking drop shadows, and other GUI elements that Mac OS X uses (it sounds like DisplayPDF rocks).
Also, we mustn't forget the "feel" half of "look and feel". I tried a Mac OS Platinum theme on KDE for awhile, then took it off. It looked like the Mac OS, but the feel was closer to Win95 than it was to a Mac. The inconsistency bugged the hell out of me so I got rid of it. The appearance of Aqua without the feel isn't anything special.
GUI (Score:3)
You're missing the point... (Score:3)
2. Being able to emulate MacOsX's precise look on Win32 and X machines will harm Apple's campaign to market Macs as a trendy alternative - which is why they spent so much time and money developing it. Of course, you are are perfectly entitled to develop a similar look using their ideas. You shouldn't be able to just copy it directly.
3. This isn't about the right to emulate. That was settled in Apple's case versus Microsoft. This is about the right to copy.
As an analogy, think of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Originally a masterpiece. However, any half-decent artist can paint a very good copy of it. The true artist, though, takes the eyes, the smile and the use of color and paints his own masterpiece.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
DHCP is an extension of the bootp protocol, which is older than you.
Realtime spell checking was available as a shareware app for OS/2 2.0 well before Office implemented it. It's called Spellguard, and it dates back to before Win95 was released, let alone the versions of Office that implement it. see HERE [netusa.net] if you don't believe me. A friend of mine wrote it.
ODBC - don't be silly, it's one more protocol for a concept older than you are.
MacOS and OS/2 both had extensive support for disabled people as far back as 1993.
Microsoft's foreign language support used to be pretty impressive, they've cut back quite a bit lately. I couldn't tell you if other OSs did a better job, I don't really know, but it's hardly an innovation - their implementation has generally be exceedingly buggy. Inbetween jobs i Y2K tested Win95 in several foreign languages, so i know first hand.
And their Unicode support is less than acceptable. I have a friend who speaks japanese and wanted to read a
As for docking menus and toolbars, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. Didn't the edit window of SimCity have a docking toolbar? That was out before *Windows* man.
'Just' Inspired !? (Score:3)
To say that the skin is an original work is like saying a forgery of the Mona Lisa is an original work. Looking at the skin indicates to everyone that the source of the images used for the buttons, window controls, etc is MacOS X. If a user interface can be considered a work of art then it deserves the same protection as any other art form.
I have often seen unauthorized copies of Enlightenment windows on the Skinz site. The least these guys could do is ask the original author for permission to 'port' these window designs and accept it when the author says 'NO'.
Copying with permission is fine, copying without is theft!
M.T.
New Apple Slogan.. (Score:5)
Re:Apple == Evil (Score:2)
Idiot.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
Actually, the word you are looking for is "sarcasm." You're not alone, though. Alanis Morrisette doesn't know what Irony is either: "Rain on your wedding day" is not ironic. A sword-swallower choking on a toothpick is ironic.
Great, now I'm the irony police...
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
(from wintop.exe -- a great program, part of MS Kernel Toys)
Word: 5192K Allocated / 3016K In Memory / 1868K In Use
Excel: 2556K Allocated / 1256K In Memory / 828K In Use
Outlook: 9836K Allocated / 2732K In Memory / 1460K In Use
Both Word & Excel have average-sized documents loaded.
(and for comparison, cause we all love Netscape to death
Netscape: 11104K Allocated / 8992K In Memory/ 8132K In Use
One browser running, this page as I'm typing up this message.
For MS Office's full suite on a typical install (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access & Outlook), the total disk space including shared files hovers around the 200 meg mark. That's around 100 less than Office 97 took up, I believe. That's actually VERY impressive, if those numbers don't lie.
These are just the facts on my machine -- take them with a grain of salt, if you will. However O2K hasn't crashed on me ONCE, and to MS's credit, Outlook 2K does a great job as a personal information manager. It's years above what Office 97 was. Plus, PGP integrates itself seemelssly into it. Before Outlook 2k, whenever I was in Windows I was using PC-Pine, so that should tell you something
And YES, the Office Helper can be turned off, hell it even asks you "Do you want to turn me off permanently?" if you hide it a bunch of times (and turning it off is only a matter of right clicking, choosing options, and clicking the box that says "turn off the office helper").
It's monolithic, yes, but it's an Office Suite, they're not ment to be under 100k in disk size. If you find one that is, let me know, better yet, if you create one and decide to sell it, rather then GPL it, let me in on your IPO
Re:James Gosling has patented this. (Score:2)
Absolutely.
Putting a patent on "translucent" dialog boxes is right up there with putting a patent on "one-click" purchasing.
Smack 'em hard.
cheers,
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
The earliest Acorn GUI was the 'Welcome' or 'Desktop' program that came with the Master Compact (which was a cut-down Master 128, which was a beefed-up BBC Micro). This was a simple toy desktop environment, with a calculator, calendar, that sort of thing. IIRC it had a bar at the bottom with icons for the different 'applications', although you couldn't add new apps. This was in 1986.
The Desktop in Arthur (the OS for the Archimedes when launched in 1987) was rather like this; it was implemented as a BASIC program which called the OS's windowing routines (making it very fast as the windowing routines were written in assembler). It featured icons on the left for drives and networks, and icons on the right for calculator, 'palette' and other junk.
RISC OS 2.0 (the first version, replacing Arthur 1.2) was released in 1988. Its desktop was part of the OS proper, and featured nonpreemptive multitasking. For the first time (I think) you could write your own apps which used the GUI, making it a useful environment rather than a toy. It also included drag-and-drop and all the nice things which have been discussed previously on Slashdot [slashdot.org].
I have no idea how much of this was copied from NeXT; what year did the NeXT Cube come out? I thought it was 1987.
Where's Apple's official Response (Score:3)
When I finally found the official objection, it turned out to be a rant (more or less) against Apple. What I want to see is: The official letter from some official Apple representative stating the official objections Apple had. Until I see it, I reserve judgement.
Why? Here are some possibilities that "clear Apple's name":
Post the official objection. The wording will be more telling of Apple's position than the hearsay we've seen so far.
Re:We should protect *some* artistic creations. (Score:2)
You can possibly patent the method you use - there was a case in the UK over patents on use of airbrushes, I think. The patent holder won despite evidence from several artists that they had been using the technique long before the patent was filed. Anyone have more coherent details?
Fair Use in Copyright Law (Score:2)
Perhaps this will help to clear things up:
Sec. 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works
Subject to sections 107 through 120, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:
Sec. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.
Ginko
Re:A Brief History Of Time (Score:2)
That does it. I'm going to see if I can hack E into supporting gravity, momentum, Newton's Laws and the Laws of Conservation of Energy and Momentum, with an option of windows fragmenting in high-speed collisions. :)
Re:Apple BOUGHT Xerox Interface... (Score:2)
These claims sound like serious revisionist history, if you ask me. Richard Stallman's article on the GNU boycot of Apple may not have included everything, but you can be very sure he wouldn't have simply declared such a boycot because he was bored.
Oh, and you might want to note that Apple -failed- to mention that Xerox had developed a GUI before Apple, which was part of why they lost the case against Microsoft.
(OT) Irony (Score:5)
Nah, nah, nah, you've got it all wrong, mate.
That none of the allegedly ironic examples given in the song are actually ironic is deliberate. It's ironic that the song, called Ironic, is not ironic, thus making the song ironic. Thus the non-ironic song is thus very ironic, which is itself doubly ironic, or meta-ironic... er... or something.
Therefore Alanis is not a silly moo at all, but in fact very clever. Unless she really is dumb and is just being ironic about it all.
--
This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
Re:Careful (Score:2)
How about three? (Score:2)
2) The usable footnote in Word 1.0. I know the lion's share of readers here don't go back that far, but footnotes on a micro before that were a bear--really no better than a typewriter. A method of automatically landing them on (usually) the right page was a God-send. OTOH, you sometimes ended up with bizarre gaps as it erroneously moved to the next page to get enough room. I was shocked about three months ago to find that the current versions can still do this, and there's still no fix other than to write an extra paragraph to fill space . . .
3) Bob?
Good Lord, they're about due for another one, aren't they? Oh, wait, they already did it--they invented a new way to abuse monopoly power [using it to advance a product they didn't care about just to destroy a competitor, forgoing the revenue in the process]. OK, we're safe for another ten years.
Publish/Perish in 7.0 (Score:2)
Err, publish/subscribe. Publish/Perish is academia
But on a fast machine for the time (SE/30 8mb), it was painfully slow to use and I gave up on it.
My kids did (Score:2)
At about 6, she'd ask for "daddy's game", the one with colored faling sticks (xjewel?), in preference to the games we had for the mac and the like. She also would ask me to play "the kitty" game--nethack, where the kitten follows you--while telnetted into my linux box.
I came home and panicced when I found my freebsd box off--i thought my wife had hit the power. Nope, my daughter had rebotted to play a dark-side game, and then turned it off (internet is only through freebsd).
Re:It's really a shame (Score:2)
I think we also have to take the past into consideration. Apple has been very consistant in suing people since the iMac came out and other companies have wanted to rip it off. It has not had the same consistancy on it's OS.
Back when "Copland" was announced (this was back in the MacOS 7 days) it had the new spiffy "Platinum" appearance. Everyone back then loved it, especially compared to the flat and boring System 7 GUI. Well I remember getting a program (I believe it was called "Aarron") that changed your look and feel in System 7 to look just like Copland, the look of which later turned into what we see in OS8 and OS9, and this happened way before OS8 came out. The kicker? You had to pay to use this little extension because it was shareware.
Later on Aarron turned into Kaliedoscope for the Mac, which mimics all sorts of stuff. Did Apple ever sue the makers of Aarron when they were basically charging people for use of Apple's new OS Scheme a year before it was introduced? No! Because of this, I can only imagine that Apple is doing this because it's Windows. It's all about the treat Windows is to the MacOS. If an Aqua theme for Kaliedoscope were made, do you think they'd react the same way? I don't think they would.
Nah, just two. (Score:3)
As for "Bob", the less said the better
Re:Shhhh don't tell anyone... (Score:2)
What a minute! I thought that was the strong point of Windows. It runs on all hardware. It Linux that no need to pay attention to the hardware with, because there are "no drivers".
If I have to pay attention to a "supported products" list, then what's the advantage to paying attention to the Windows list, over the Linux list?
-BrentRe:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
That logic requires believing that if it weren't for Microsoft no one else would have brought computers to the masses. I won't believe it. If Microsoft wouldn't have been there, some one else would have. Therefore, we can't attribute mass computing to a sole Microsoft feat, even though they were the ones who did it.
If it wasn't Microsoft it would have been someone else. Please remember that.
-BrentRe:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
Bzzt!! See this [vcnet.com].
-Brenta clone customer speaks (Score:2)
I bought this particular machine because it was cheaper/faster than what Apple had at the time. My Micropolis HD died after 3 months, and I got it replaced. You'll notice Micropolis is no longer in business. The replacement Seagate is a trooper and a half!
How many of you have 3 1/2 year old "PC's" that work well for what you want to do these days?
The PPC 603-based clones were the most problematic, and unfortunately, those were the ones aimed at the Consumer market. Jeez, I'd take an iMac over a Starmax anyday.
I am a loyal MacOS user, because I hate Windows, and the Mac lets me get my work done the way I want to with the least amount of hassle! I was happier than hell to get rid of my 386 (and Windows) and get a 68040 Mac, and I've never looked back. Now I'm saving for a G4.
I'm not a hard-core gamer who thinks that 48fps is much better than 44fps and is worth spending hours to configure my hardware and software to make it happen, and I'm not a programmer.
I mean, jeez, can your OS/WM do this?? [interlog.com]
Yep, I create and organize my work flow my COLOUR. Sorting by Name, Date or Kind won't work, because I work with other people and need to keep their work separate from mine, but together in the hierarchy of the web server. For other work, I label by colour to indicate new or old versions. Until there's another OS that can do this, I'll stick with my Mac, thank you very much!
PS. Futurama fans might like this 800x600 desktop [interlog.com] I made.
Pope
Re:A Brief History Of Time (Score:2)
Do we need to go through this again? I can excuse this to an extent because it's common knowledge, but I always see a knee-jerk reaction whenever Apple does something not-so-nice: "They stole their GUI from Xerox PARC."
No, they didn't.
From http://www.woz.org/woz/presponses/ commets24.html And The Woz Spaketh: [woz.org]
Usually when attempting to steal something, one neither enters negotions nor pays for it with stock that went through the roof shortly after the deal was completed.
----
Ain't happenin' (Score:2)
Apple persecuted this vigorously, too, and there was much discussion and ranting and noise about the matter, but the end result was the removal of HiTech themes 'from the wild'. If you wanted a high tech theme, you had to *gasp* make one up. Seeing as on the kaleidoscope scheme archive there are 127 different schemes from authors with names beginning with 'A' alone, there are a lot of alternatives to using a clone of HiTech- or Aqua.
Plain and simple- don't blatantly rip Apple's expensive and fancy interface designs until _after_ they are released. They are less pissy when their product is actually shipping. When it's a nebulous project (HiTech, which got 'steved') or the next big thing that's being built as a replacement to Apple Platinum (Aqua), they get real pissy about someone heisting a facade of what they're building and offering it around.
Think Go Computing and Pen Windows. In what way is making a thin facade of Aqua with only the look of certain elements, little of the behavior or animation, and little debugging, NOT like the classic vaporware tactic? I'm sure it's less prone to dry up investor support in Apple ;) but it's the same thing, releasing a facade of the new Apple interface to confuse, lessen the impact, and raise questions as to whether it's just the look of a window or a whole system involved.
Oh no, the dreaded Apple is stealing its, uh, its own graphical user interface. It's ruthlessly denying people free immediate hacking to largely arbitrary and artistic interface details that... geee, that _it_ paid handsomely for. Funny how that works, isn't it? Hire yer own damn graphic designers ;) or just keep on keeping on. I've been playing with Afterstep a bit. I may like to make it look like classic NeXT (ahhhh) but I feel no need to make it look like Aqua.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:4)
And as for other technologies, they seem to be leading the way in hardware products (or is that just me being ignorant about hardware trends?). If I recall, they were the first with the ergonomic keyboard, the wheel doohicky, the intelliEye (didn't someone tell the marketing people not to put so many vowels together? oh well) optical system, that bad-ass phone that you could hook up to your PC, the Timex watch data synchronization thing...
And the paper clip guy is pretty cool too, from a technical standpoint (if not from an actual usefulness standpoint). It's a Bayes (belief) network- you can find out how it works by rooting around for that topic on the MS research site.
Re:"Look and Feel" (Score:2)
There were no regions (irregular areas of halfconcealed windows) on the Xerox product. It used tiling windows. Apple people _thought_ they saw windows overlap, and later learned they'd invented what they thought they were reverse engineering :)
The Xerox system used popup menus on all screen objects, being heavily Smalltalk influenced. Have you seen Smalltalk, or at least pictures of it back then?
The Xerox system had _no_ direct manipulation, as in dragging around icons like they were objects and dropping them random places where they'd stay, much less dropping icons on other icons to accomplish tasks like opening a document with a particular app. In Smalltalk and in the Xerox system, you'd pop open a popup menu (like rightclicking, in fact I think it _was_ rightclicking) on the object in question, which would supply a list of the apps the document could be opened with or whatever else was needed.
Calling early Smalltalk a clone of MacOS system 1 cheapens Smalltalk. Calling MacOS system 1 a rip from Xerox PARC cheapens _it_. Both have exceptional virtues that resonated throughout the computer industry ever after (where do you think Windows got rightclicking and contextual menus- Apple?). Both are utterly different in significant ways.
And on top of all this, it's a matter of public record that Apple paid off Xerox in stock for the opportunity to go in with a crew of techs, walk around looking at all the stuff that Xerox wasn't doing squat with, and then (handing Xerox the payment) go off and freely come up with their own twist on the concepts they were paying for access to, be it closely related or wildly divergent. It ended up _fairly_ divergent. It took over ten years for some concepts like the contextual menus to make it to the MacOS, but then Xerox _never_ had direct icon manipulation, _only_ popups, so it balances.
I ask only for personal interest and indeed morbid fascination- where do you get your ideas?
Re:Aqua for Kaleidoscope? (Score:2)
Actually someone did already, though I don't believe it's been added to the scheme archive. How do I know this? I created a set of icons (JPEG [thefyi.com] | Mac format [thefyi.com]) for my Mac and the author used them without asking. Of course I can't complain as I did the same to Apple.
I'm going to go out on a limb, here, and state that this is a different situation than a theme for a competing OS. Frankly, I don't see why Apple should care if users of the current MacOS want to make their machines look like the next generation OS. Greg Landwebber also authored Aaron which gave your Mac the Platinum appearance several years before MacOS 8.0 was released. (Aaron is a play on Aaron Copland, who was the name-sake of Apple's ill-fated Copland OS.)
----
Say what? (Score:2)
I hardly know where to begin. Back in the days of the very first commercial home computer game ('Mystery House' by On-Line systems, later known as Sierra On-Line- 'Mystery House' was sold as a disk and a photocopied sheet in a baggie :) ), the game was shopped to Apple for possible distribution. It took Apple a _year_ to get back to the Williamses, because by that time Apple was _already_ a multimillion-dollar business, wealthy and kind of sluggish and dim. By the time it got back to the Williamses, they were already doing a roaring business as On-Line Systems...
Honestly, those who make accusations of revisionist history should either learn genuine history of some sort (even a small effort would do!) or should be old enough to have seen some of this happen. Just because you don't like the truth doesn't mean it's impossible. Apple was a huge business at the time, seller of Apple IIs to the exploding home market in its first big boom and to schools in their original marketing campaigns that got them so established in education back then. They were the Microsoft of that era. Microsoft was still coding Typing Tutor in Bellevue, Washington at the time. They not only had that much stock, it was worth a lot, and they did indeed pay Xerox for the right to go in, gawk like mad at everything and take notes and then go home and use whatever they saw or thought they saw.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
And check out this freaky shit: here [chucko.com], and here [ballyhooyou.com]. With Kaleidoscope, you can even use Enlightenment Themes! [ballyhooyou.com]
That's the attitude free software is fighting (Score:2)
As RMS puts it, an idea or design is not spaghetti that only one person can eat; it can be enjoyed by everyone, therefore it should be owned by everyone. Artists don't have the right to punish _the whole world_ because they came up with an idea first.
A good example is the case of the bzip compression format; from what I've heard, it's much better than the LZW compression format (.zip,
This is exactly the same; if Apple has an intrinsic right to their GUI, that means that none of their innovations can be used by anyone else, thus disadvantage everyone. Imagine if the author of the first text editor with scrolling believed he had an intrinsic right to the technique, and sued everyone else who used it; millions would still be suffering with 'ed'-like editors
Broccolist
so called "innovation" in the software world (Score:3)
The biggest "innovation" of the community for which Linux is currently the poster child (Open Source, Free Software,
I put "innovation" in quotes because in the digital world it's a pretty nebulous term and hard to define. Ideas and code and software are extremely promiscuous and incestuous. Pick any "innovation" of the last 5 years and you will find antecedants from the 80s and 70s and 60s.
Linux is a hotbed of "innovation" because it lives in an environment stripped of the rules and taboos forbidding sex. Anybody can screw anybody else, mixing genes and chromosones with glee and abandon, creating offspring similar but not quite the same as anything else. Gene swapping is common in the proprietary world too, but's hampered and restricted.
It's mostly reimplementation of closed-source tools.
True, many portions are reimplementations of closed-source tools. But many closed source tools are implementations of open source academic research products.
Re:Say what? (Score:3)
I've used Apple II's. I've used PETs, right back to the earliest models. I've used TRS-80's. I've used ZX-80's. For that matter, I've used Prime 350 mainframes, when "advanced display" meant a decent teletype.
And -you- tell -me- to learn history? *COUGH!*
The "very first commercial home computer game" was not, as you claim, "Mystery House". That -may- have been the very first game with mass popularity, but "home computer" games have been traded for sums of money from the days of the Altair. It was (and is) human nature to exchange and exchange is what brought computers to the home in the first place, long before the Apple I, never mind the Apple II, was even a glimmer in it's designer's eye! I'd bet there were rogue copies of Pong being sold at schools, in clubs, and at meetings, before the Williams' even knew what a computer was.
Apple was the "first homebrew computer company to get serious venture capital funding and professional management", eh? Well, if you add enough conditions, you can turn anything into a first. Z is the first letter after Y, for that matter. Being last means you're the first to not have someone behind you, too.
Other "homebrewers" you might want to study closely are Sir Clive Sinclair, who had a booming radio, amplifier, metal detector, and other equiptment business long before the dawn of the microprocessor, let alone the dawn of home computers. The ZX80 may have come after the Apple II, in mere date, but if you want to argue firsts, it outsold the entire Apple range to that date, and had more of a homebrew design than any of the later Apple computers could even dream of. (It also worked better than the early Macs.)
Disks were a late invention, for the home computer market. Tapes were all the rage, especially in the mid 70's, and tapes were how games were distributed. Earlier generations of home computers were programmed by switch, so instructions were typed or written.
Apple were -never- the Microsoft of anything, except maybe in their dreams, and I doubt either Jobs or Waznick were that conceited. Commodore -owned- the business market (as far as personal computers went), and a fair percentage of both the educational and home markets, too. Of the remaining market, the Apples barely touched Europe, which mostly concentrated on local talent, and at least half of what was left built their own out of spare parts.
No, Apple were rich, yes, but not awe-inspiring or all-powerful. They were moderately successful, reasonably well-off, but not much beyond that.
As for their professional marketing, that nearly killed Apple stone-dead. The early Apple Macs switched themselves off when you removed the disk from the drive. It was slow, expensive, had little memory (mostly used for graphics), and was only practical with a hard drive (which was an expensive add-on). Those were amongst Apple's worst times, and spelled the start of their financial ruin. It was at this time that they shed their "homebrew" look, went corporate, forbade clones, and nearly died. Apples's market crashed through the floor. The only reason IBM and Microsoft survived the early days was that people ripped IBM off left, right and centre. =THAT= spared IBM and Microsoft for the same reason the lack of clones killed Apple. No competition, no growth, no life.
If Apple were as successful as you say, and had learned the same lesson IBM did in the early days, I'd be typing this on a Mac-lookalike. I'm not, and the responsibility for that lies at the door of the people you worship.
Re:MacOS themes (Score:2)
As mentioned, MacOS has had themes capability for a few years, and before that you could use Kaleidascope (ugly!). The reason MacOS only comes with one theme, Platinum, is because Jobs supposedly didn't like visual inconsistancies with apps that weren't theme-ready, so the other themes (which, by the way, have awesome 3d sound effects) were cut. By inconsistancies, I mean things like funky menus that assume silver-gray is the background color and hard-code it in or whatever, so the edges are all messed up. You can find the other themes like Gizmo on the internet or from people who have the dev versions of MacOS.
Re:Apple == Evil (Score:2)
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
1. There is an "icon" even if the window is open. This idea seems to have eluded all the X and Mac (and the older Windoze) designers for years. Everybody else was convinced that the window icon should only be visible if the window was "iconized".
2. They finally realized that the TEXT is important, far more important than some image "icon". Though they did not get rid of the image, which might have been far too daring, they did shrink it down a lot, so that it is almost invisible. (now if only they would do that for their "desktop icons".
MicroSoft also made a major innovation in making a desktop design that got rid of a divider line between the "window border" and the window contents. I actually did this many years earlier with some work I did on the NeXT machine, and I'm sure others did, but it was never seen in a real product until Windows 95.
I would not call Plug&Play an innovation, the idea is rather obvious and apparently the implementation is bogus, seeing as to how much trouble they are having. Working around bad original machine design, no matter how difficult, is really not innovative since it is obvious it needs to be done.
DirectX is also pretty obvious. Apparently there are no real clever ideas in the enormous amount of interface that DirectX defines. For instance it is rather uniformly believed that OpenGL provides a superior 3-D interface, it would seem MicroSoft could have "innovated" something better, seeing as they had all of OpenGL already existing to refer to!
I believe Office contains many innovations in GUI. MicroSoft did invent the Shift+navigation to extend text selections. Also the use of squiggly lines to indicate spelling errors and many other little things that have greatly expanded the common knowledge database of graphical icons, making it easier for programs to present information without lots of "help" info.
I'm not SAYING get rid of the Mac... (Score:2)
What I'm saying is that if it would be possible to acquire them, you could leverage their technology to shore up several key Linux weaknesses (Most notably, streaming video) while continuing to let the company do its own thing with only a few changes to make its business model conform to one that has been PROVEN to be successful, namely the one used by the X86 world. Since Jobs would never accept any of that, he'd obviously have to go.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
Apple's Agreement with Xerox PARC (Score:2)
Exactly none of that is true.
Apple hired engineers from Xerox PARC.
Apple's design team visited PARC and PARC's team showed them what they were doing. PARC was a research lab, and Steve Jobs pitched them the idea that Apple was the perfect company to implement their ideas and take them to the public. There was no misunderstanding on either side about this.
Apple signed an agreement with Xerox, giving them stock worth millions of dollars, to be able to use some ideas from PARC.
And Apple extended the desktop metaphor way beyond what Xerox had done. The PARC had some innovative ideas but the Macintosh was much more usable and brought the whole concept together.
If you'd like to learn more about this myth you're propagating, read MacKiDo [mackido.com] or SteveWozniak [woz.org] on the subject. Or just read some thoughts of Jef Raskin [mackido.com]:
Jamie McCarthy
Re:Good Point -- Can Open Source deliver new desig (Score:2)
So yeah, maybe the Open Source community has brought forth a "rediscovery" of quality software design. But where are the innovations? And by "innovation" I mean something new. Something that changes the way you use your computer. Linux hasn't changed the way I use my computer, it's just made it a little easier in some places. Don't let the wild world of the Open Source Extravaganza blind you to what it's really worth.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Apple doesn't get it (Score:2)
Re:Careful (Score:2)
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:It's really a shame (Score:2)
Actually, no.
The purpose of IP laws *is* to help the public.
If the whole idea of patents were to help companies there wouldn't be this pesky disclosure thing, a company would simply have legal rights to an idea while keepingit a trade secret. Best of both worlds as far as a company is concerned.
But laws are a contract between the people, via the government, and others, be they inividuals or companies.
The law was enacted to help people by giving companies a way to release ideas and stimulate development, and in trade for this concession, the company was granted a privellage it wouldn't have otherwise, a legally enforcable monopoly on that idea.
Patents do help companies, but (with the exception of bribes) companies don't make laws. Thus laws get passed to help/protect the people. If a law helps a company then it either is a failed law, which makes it unlikely it'll be a nearly-global law, or it helps both companies and people, as is the case with IP laws. Ditto with copyrights, etc.
You must understand that there was a time before IP laws, that IP is fundamentally different from property and needs different protection.
Imagine a hungry hunter with a club, he sees a hunter with a spear and thinks "Wow, that'll let me kill wild pigs, which are plentiful". Is he going to try to offer this other hunter something in trade for the right to use the idea, or will he simply sharpen a long stick and make himself a spear? At some point after this it was decided that it helped society to making IP laws, in the same way it helped to make traffic laws, but that doesn't mean that either are an inalienable right, or that they have always existed.
That said, IP laws are good only as long as they stimulate growth. When they retard progress, they are no longer in society's best interest and should be phased out or changed. And as IP laws aren't an inherent right, companies don't have the right, or ability, to protect any idea, just certain small classes of ideas.
Letting Apple protect the desktop would be like letting FedEx protect the idea of next-day parcel delivery by preventing anyone from doing so for a certain number of years. Judging by the low costs and large number of courier companies, it appears to me that letting it evolve naturally worked better than by granting exclusive rights to one company.
If the desktop theme is patentable, or copyrightable.
Copyright are only on the representation, so the fact the the themes are merely similar, not exact, should mean they can't use a copyright.
Patents protect whole ideas, but (with a sane PTO) are only applicable on a novell implementation of the idea, not on the overall idea.
I don't really think Apple can protect their GUI, or should be able to.
But, throw enough lawyers at it...
Not at all. The specific gift culture we call Open Source, maybe. But Apple has thousands of years of discoveries, much research into usability, the networking knowledge of the people who developed the internet, etc. You couldn't write an exhaustive list of what Apple got for free from the world at large.
They deserve the same things any other company does, the right to use the laws as appropriate. *If* any laws help them in this case, they deserve to be allowed to use them. But, I doubt there are, because the GUI isn't easily patentable, copyrightable, or trademarkable, except as a whole unmodified unit, or only in small pieces, not as a cohesive idea in any form.
Sure, money means more to them than status. Does to me too. I'd rather be as rich as Gates than as famous as ESR.
But, you can't make money off of everything. They don't have the right to profit from something just because they're a company. If they're can't make a profit, they can't make a profit. They could kick and scream, like babies, and get everyone to hate them again... not long ago if you said "Apple" around 98% of hackers, they'd spit. They could bring that image back, or they could realize that a look-alike design garners mind-share, if nothing else, and share gracefully, thus not pissing everyone off.
And this just means they're a movement concerned with getting money. But there is such a thing as delayed gratification... doing something for mind-share now, to get market-share later.
Re:It's really a shame (Score:2)
The law, as passed by the people (via government) is designed to help the people, and it does so by offering a compromise to corporations such that in most cases, both benefit.
Re:It's really a shame (Score:2)
Copying Aqua's look won't give you a computer or OS capable of doing the task management, and copying the look won't give you a bugfree GUI. Those are both part of Apple's implementation, and the protected code that Aqua's look is part of.
The best innovations are the ones that customers think they need, hence bench-marketing. The problem is that these innovations are just ideas, the customers don't care about the tech behind them. Apple has to come up with great tech that they can copyright (or, ick, patent) underneath Aqua if they want it to be protectable. As it is now, it's just a copy of other GUIs with a slightly nicer polish.
And then why should they have protection other companies don't? That task bar at the bottom... That's derivative. I mean, they're stealing from whoever MS stole from. etc. The whole thing is pieces from someone else's GUIs.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
Re:We should protect *some* artistic creations. (Score:2)
Re:Careful (Score:2)
That way, if things got ugly, you can state "We removed the file for a review, based on which we reinstated it", rather than their legal team saying "They knew it wasn't meant to be there, yanked it, and then, when they thought we weren't looking, put it back up".
Re:It's really a shame (Score:2)
The problem is that we disagree about where rights come in. I can't see how some basic layout in a GUI is something you should have a right to.
But it isn't GUIs to Jello, it's GUI to GUI, and Aqua from what I've seen doesn't have any groundbreaking new innovation, it's tweaked to offer features that show off the G4 (moving windows while displaying movies in them, etc), to show that Apple is a 'hip' company, with the weird colors and lack of straight lines (Apealing to the iMac type), and to differentiate it from the prior versions.
Nothing there is original. I've seen replacement window managers for Win9x where the design is similar (organic shapes, pastels, etc), you can do the same sort of things, draging a window, or it's outline, by a config option, in most OSes, etc.
I can't think of a single thing about Aqua that is original enough that they should be able to protect it.
People are copying it to give Aqua users a more comfortable time on other machines, to put menus in familiar places, an such. That it's so easy to copy the look of should mean that it's not a terribly complex or original idea.
I think IP laws are a good thing in general, but I don't see why they should be strict enough to grant protection to this. It's like letting a home owner sue someone for Look and Feel because he used an interesting combo of colors painting his house.
Sure they do. They'd patent dirt if you let them. It's not unreasonable that they think of using the laws for their gain.
We need to decide though, if we think this is a valid use of the IP laws, or if it's just posturing and legal threats. Apple *is* known for attacking other companies with (imho) spurious lawsuits.
I beg to differ. In the Apple 2 days, Apple had a very large market share, and they made open, expandable computers, and shared information with customers. Then they made the Mac, killed the Apple
They're starting to win fans again, with their more standardized designs, where you can use the same cards as PCs, with PCI and AGP, with IDE HDs as an option, for the non-rich, with OpenGL support, and so much effort put towards supporting an open platform.
But if they pull stupid lawyer tricks, they'll lose this generation of users just like they lost people 10-15 years ago.
I watched it happen before, and I recognize a lot of their moves.
Here's my take on it... (Score:2)
2) Frankly, I'm torn. I do think that it's in extremely poor taste to copy a GUI on a system that hasn't even been released yet, even more so than copying one that's already been released. This said, however, Apple shouldn't be threatening legal action. One, they have no legal grounds for it. Perhaps they could try and nail you on copyright violations (since, at least for now, the only way to get the images used in these themes is to swipe them from Apple's own screenshots). But that's taking things just a bit too far.
3) I don't think OS-based themes should be on the public sites anyway. The major sites like Themes.org are supposed to be for original works. At least, that was my undrstanding. The Aqua-based themes (and the Win9X-based things, and the Amiga-based themes, and the NeXT-based themes, and so on) are not original work by a long shot. Even the AquaOS line for Sawmill (which makes a few trivial changes to the button layout) couldn't be considered truly original. I suppose the Win9X GUI can't either (perhaps it's not really a MacOS ripoff, but the buttons are copied pixel-for-pixel from NeXTStep, not to mention most of the test of the GUI).
4) The Linux community doesn't need an Aqua theme. We've always striven to be original, and succeeded. Witness the BlueSteel theme for E; there's proof right there that the Linux community can turn out a GUI that's even cooler than Aqua. Even those of you who don't like BlueSteel probably have your own favorites, and in most cases I'll bet it bears little resemblance to any existing GUI. Aqua's original. So were NeXTStep and BeOS. The Linux community can make and has made original GUI's in the past. Part of the appeal of Linux is that it isn't Windows or MacOS or BeOS or anything else. Why make it something it's not?
Scrollites, you mean? (Score:2)
And none of them looked anything like Aqua. I suppose you could make a very big stretch and show a small bit of similarity in the scroll bars. The two both use "glassies" but that's not what's being talked about here. The themes in question are pixel-for-pixel copies of Aqua. I don't know if that's "right" or "wrong" but it is in poor taste.
Re:Name *ONE* technology Microsoft's developed (Score:2)
Maybe I'm just one of those hopeless "function" over "form" people...
--