Themes Removed At Apple's Behest 314
A couple of people wrote in noting that Themes.org has had to comply with a request from Apple that they remove the following themes: Aqua, AquaX, eMac, and eMac-GTK.
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Themes Removed At Apple's Behest
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Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing. -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president, Litton Industries
it's the logo, it's the logo, it's the logo. (Score:5)
if you build a theme with the OS X widgets or even one that looks exactly like platinum, nobody can complain, because, after all, Apple already lost that battle in the '80s. it's pixels. look and feel or not, it can be copied. bla bla woof woof. there are dozens of mac-like themes that do exactly this, a lot more than the 4 or so that were pulled.
but, once you use the apple logo, a copyrighted, trademarked, protected-by-pitbulls-and-lawyers piece of Apple, you have stepped over your 'fair use' or 'parody' (or whatever) boundary.
microsoft could do the same thing, but it seems they have bigger legal fish to fry, and couldn't care less if you copied their logo, let alone user experience (sic).
Apple is completely within their rights here, once again, and is doing what is legally required of a trademark holder in defending their trademark. considering it's one of the world's best recognized brands - in some surveys even moreso than Nike's - it only makes sense that they defend it more emphatically than most companies. granted, a little more effort than having one of their freshman lawyers send out a C&D letter could smooth things over considerably, but all those here (and on themes.org) crying foul over the Big Guy bullying the Poor Little Open Source movement could be a little more mature and sympathetic as well.
Sad, but no big surprise (Score:3)
If someone copies their design, then they really don't have a heck of a lot to sell to people. It's unfortunate that they feel a need to protect their design so rabidly, because of course a UI is more than just a color scheme, but if you live inside a company with that kind of a business scheme, your top worry is that someone eles is going to become a pretty as you, and so keeping people from using their color schemes is just one of the logical things to do, from their POV.
Typical dumbness (Score:2)
Now Apple keeps being Czar of all Czars in this area. Why the Hell they decided to go that way? Because it hits their sales? No. Because someone should be more ethic and ask Apple for permission? Neither. Because Apple wants to figth the market? Naaaaa...
Because Apple thinks always this way - it's mine! it's mine and IT'S ALL MINE!!!! I don't give it anyone. I don't even give to its own partners or brothers. I will keep it only to myself. I'll even put screws that can only be open by my screwdriver. And I will not give it to anyone. And I will sell this to anyone. Like a can of Coke. Everything inside, don't worry for nothing I didn't miss a piece. If I did miss something then it's you who are wrong, not me. And even if I'm in the damn ****, my personell is hitting the streets, and I'm losing billions, I will not give anything to anyone. I'm cute and good. And in the end people will finally find I'm right...
To old timers. Did I miss anything here? I think the main resume is here...
Steve Jobs is a hyprocrite (Score:2)
Yet, when others do the same 'borrowing', Apple/Jobs get upset.
And, at this time, Apple *CLAIMS* the themes in question are their IP. This has not been decided by a judge, so Apple *MAY* not own said IP. Take it to a judge....
Themes.org had a choice: Stand on the principal on 'this is a protected form of expression' and go bankrupt, not to mention creating a case history of an Apple win (not on merits, but because Apple's $4 billion in the bank to spend on lawyers) *OR* publically pull these themes and let a whole bunch of ppl thump their chests over the injustice, and a smaller subset to choose not to buy Apple products.
Themes.org took the route that allows them to remain, not to mention being the easist.
If you want Themes.org to fight this, give them a legal war-chest for the fight. Oh, and be sure to pay for the defense of the authors of the disputed themes.
Re:OS X (Score:2)
Re:it's the logo, it's the logo, it's the logo. (Score:2)
I'll take that as a compliment (Score:2)
Or perhaps it is because I don't use the Mac logo everywhere. I may have used it once, but I'm sure I had a legal-like disclaimer.
Oddly, at one point I did have a Mac logo, a little dark grey one and now I see it has made its way into a winamp theme.
Re:Our rights? (Score:2)
This isn't so much about copyrights as it is about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. The people making/using/hosting these themes are obviously fans of Apples Aqua look and feel. Apple should be happy about it.
There is a house (hell maybe even more than one) painted in the colors of the Denver Broncos. These people are raving fans of the team, do the Broncos shout "You can't paint your house the team colors, those are our colors!," or do they have the local news do a story about them. If I were Apple, I'd have the themes downloadable from my own website!!
Re:Well, actually yes. (Score:2)
Quick!!! (Score:3)
IBM? (Score:2)
apple paid xerox to go through the PARC and take what they felt like using, since xerox thought there was no use for the stuff. stock options on the biggest IPO up to that point. xerox made big chunks of change for what apple 'stole'
and the pirate flag was internal apple defiance - the mac group was fighting with the apple][ group. later it was used to show their defiance of the IBM dominance of the PC market.
IBM never did their own interface until OS/2, and then it was only in order to get out from under the thumb of microsoft, something they're doing again by getting in bed with Linux (via redhat, but that's another
get your facts straight before you call anyone hypocrites and pirates.
I said it on t.o, so I will say it here too (Score:2)
Double standard? (Score:2)
On the one hand, the themes in this case are used by computer savvy folks (likely Linux or BSD folks) who know the difference between a Mac and PC. They will not be confused.
On the other hand, there are a lot of folks who are new to computers and don't realize that a Mac is not the same as Windows is not the same as PowerPC is not the same as Linux. So Apple spends a lot of money to design a case; someone comes along and copies that case and puts them in stores. A new computer user sees lots of Apple ads, runs over to his local computer store and sees an e-machine or some other knockoff. Will he/she know the difference, or will they think it's the easy-to-use iMac?
Again, we know the difference, but many people think FreeBSD is some new Windows application to put their homepage on the Internet.
Themes are arguably different than a case design. But look at it this way: regardless of which OS you choose, the user interface is becoming similar. Someone mentioned that Windows appropriated elements of the Mac GUI. Well, enlightenment, the gnome and KDE desktops, and all manner of window managers have similar features. How does Apple differentiate itself? By its look-and-feel and themes.
I don't mean (or want) to defend Apple, but I still remember how the Linux and BSD communities reacted when MS released features in NT2000 that had long been available in Unix.
Why M$ won GUI suit (Score:2)
Many then wrongfully infer that this means you only protect from exact duplication. They forgot (or ignored until now) why Apple lost.
There may be other court decisions that allow copying look-and-feel, but not this one.Names (Score:2)
Perfectly reasonable.
Refrag
Re:Why M$ won GUI suit (Score:2)
I would recomend all to see this link
Apple vs Microsoft" [richmond.edu]
It's a study based on the court case. Too many juridical verbosity but still understandable
In resume:
Microsoft licensed Apple's interface to make Windows 1.0
Later it made Windows 2 and Apple considered it an infrigement.
Due to several issues, the court decided in favor of Microsoft. One of the main was the nebulous content of the agreement that allowed M$ to use the general design of the interface. The court decided that the agreement concerned only individual elements
And that's the reason of the "recycle bin" saga.
Re:The right decision (Score:2)
please note that it indicates that "[r]emarkably, neither the district court nor the Ninth Circuit ever resolved the ultimate question of real interest in look and feel cases. "
additionally the much-ballyhooed case was a resolution of the licensing dispute between apple and microsoft. apple didn't think that microsoft should be able to use any part of the mac desktop that they felt like. microsoft and the courts disagreed.
the most important bit of this is simply that the desktop metaphor is not defendable.
whether the overall look and feel of a product is defendable or not is not addressed by this ruling. just the desktop metaphor in the particular instanciation of windows 1.0-3.0 and the original mac desktop.
to the topic at hand, apple has dumped years of work into the widgets and engines that drive osx. they are not an open-source house. period. they don't have to be. i'm sorry if you don't agree, but there it is. they built it, somebody copied it.
open source or no, if you copied a term paper or cs class problem set from another student in college, you'd be tossed out on your ass.
how is this so different?
ha ha ha! (Score:2)
8===D
It is part of my unique user interface and cost me all sorts of time, trouble, blood, sweat, tears, and lost lives to bring it to you. You may use it if you buy my new ASCII based interface. By pressing this button, you tell my interface to be happy. If you use it in your interface for the same purpose, I'll sue you! I swear I will.
Re:Apple never threatened M$ this way... (Score:2)
Apple did invent a lot of the original GUI in the Mac and Lisa.
Microsoft happily copied Apple's genuine innovations in GUI design. And again, there was a license involved. Similar to Xerox, Apple (Scully) was stupid enough to give it all away to MS, which is why the lost the lawsuit.
Re:The right decision (Score:2)
MicroSoft did not do this (Score:2)
There are also plenty of themes that copy MicroSoft's, including the default appearance of KDE, and also the default appearance of most non-themed toolkits such as FLTK, FOX, and JX.
Yet MicroSoft did not threaten anybody over this!
We are all damn lucky the meglomaniac who is in charge is Bill Gates. Just imaging Steve Jobs in that position! (or Scott McNealy, for that matter...)
Re:it's the logo (no, it's not) (Score:2)
hell, it may be the names - Aqua is (tm) Apple, as is Mac. to avoid these themes bringing confusion in the marketplace as "the Aqua interface" and "the Mac interface" (both things Apple hopes to be very specifically theirs and nobody else's) and "the Aqua/Mac user experience" might be the whole point of this latest round of C&Ds. again, nobody but the authors (and recipients of the nasty letters) can say for certain.
the _last_ round was about the logo, at least. i had hoped the theme authors had learned their lesson last time...
Re:That's great, except... (Score:2)
Apple lost their lawsuit with Microsoft because Apple had already licensed some of their GUI and related technology to Microsoft, and the court found that, in light of the agreement, Microsoft didn't infringe on Apple's copyrights, patents, and trade dress.
These themes do, howerver, infringe on Apple's trade dress, and Apple has a legal obligation to do something about them or lose its legal protection.
Please, please, please, could someone explain to us all the differences between patents, copyright, trademarks, trade dress, and other forms of intellectual property protection. Nobody here seems to get it.
Re:Apple never threatened M$ this way... (Score:2)
They did not buy 25%. They bought $150 million worth. A big difference. (This is all well documented in news.)
What is the worth of 25% of (at the time was) a $10 billion company? Vastly bigger than any other PC maker. In about '88'ish they spun their software out into a seperate company (Claris) that was bigger than Compaq. (Imagine that.)
BTW, MS did make a very tidy profit on their investment. Apple stock was way down at the time, and two years later was 10 times as high. ($12 to $120)
Also FWIW, a rumor, the reason MS bought $150m of Apple stock? They finally got caught with their hand in the till stealing secrets from Apple's R&D. Just a rumor at the time it all happened.
Re:_Had_ to? (Score:2)
"I meant to do that" - Pee Wee
Re:/. using a trademarked logo?? (Score:2)
after all, i can't talk about a company (good or bad) without using their name, which is a trademark itself. and the press has certain leeway in these matters.
note the tiny R-in-a-circle. that's permission enough for most folks.
Re:Apple's war on the power user continues... (Score:2)
Yes, the reason it was a such a great machine, was that a person could comprehend the WHOLE machine. From the "funky" bitmap graphics addresses (was linear from left to right, but not sequential from top to bottom), right down to the disk drive controller, and using tricks to read "illegal" byte containing 2 consequitive zeros. D5 AA 96 is forever burned into my memory.
ApplePC - one of the best emulators around. Even has mockingboard support !
Long live Aquatron, Lode Runner, and Rescue Raiders
Do we NEED themes like Aqua? (Score:2)
Ok, here's another stupid question...
Does putting the Aqua theme on KDE make it easier to use?
As I learned it back in '84 (Apple Human Interface Guidelines -- which Apple seems to pay less and less attention to everyday.) the good of a human interface goes way deeper than the pretty icons attached to the widgets.
What is Apple doing? (Score:4)
Then I realized that OSX2, another Aqua-like theme, wasn't listed in the removed themes.
Go to the global theme search page [themes.org] and look for "Aqua". There are a heck of a lot of Aqua themes for various window/desktop managers.
So was it the names of the themes Apple objected to? Why is Apple being selective with their removal requests? Are they just not aware of the other Aqua-like themes still available, or is it something else? And I ask again; why isn't Apple trying to contact the theme creators?
What Apple copied vs what the Aqua theme copies (Score:2)
Now look at what the Aqua theme copies from Apple. To use a musical analogy, this is a different performance of the same musical work. If Aqua were music, then Apple would be owed royalties for the Aqua theme, fair and square.
Well, actually yes. (Score:4)
Well, if he pattented his lemonade, actually yes. That's called reverse engineering. If he can prove that you performed tests on his lemonade prior to your procuring "Secret Recipe #2", he can and should sue you. If he doesn't have a pattent, and it is a trade secret, then you have decided that your lemonade is so superior to anyone else that even after your pattent runs out no one will successfully duplicate a glass of lemonade equal in quality that pattenting it will only hurt you. If someone develops the same "lemonade technology" then, unfortunately for you, more power to them.
Jim Bob comes over to my stand one day and starts talking with my customers, trying to get them to come over to his stand and try his own Secret Recipe. Should I have the right to sue him for manipulating my customers?
Well, if you own the property you have the right to have him removed for trespassing, soliciting your customers (as long as it is posted), and potential harrassment if he fails to leave when you ask him. Immediately off of your property, he can do whatever he wants. This is why there are so many people standing on the other side of the street from an abortion clinic protesting abortion normally, and not in the front lobby.
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Re:The right decision (Score:2)
Re:Xerox invents overlapping windows (gif) (Score:3)
"Smalltalk had a three-button mouse and pop-up menus, in contrast to the Mac's menu bar and one-button mouse. Smalltalk didn't even have self-repairing windows - you had to click in them to get them to repaint, and programs couldn't draw into partially obscured windows. Bill Atkinson did not know this, so he invented regions as the basis of QuickDraw and the Window Manager so that he could quickly draw in covered windows and repaint portions of windows brought to the front. "
(This was written by Bruce Horn, who worked at PARC and Apple at the time)
Granted, my memory was faulty (it was Atkinson, not Hertzfeld), but if you had overlapping windows that didn't redraw, it would be pretty crappy. The Star implementation sounds like a prototype. What Apple did is a finished product.
-jon
Copyright Infringement (Score:3)
Also, note the wording on the Themes.org site: they say that they "decided to accommodate Apple's request," not that Apple had sent them a cease and decist and would have sued their asses off if they had left them up. There's a big difference, but even at that point, Apple would have every right and legal responsibility to order the removal of their logo and trademarked/copyrighted names such as "Aqua" and "Mac".
This is a very reasonable request. Note also that Apple did not order the complete removal of all Mac OS themes, just the ones that contain their copyrighted and trademark logos and names.
I think Apple is being very reasonable, and should be applauded for not taking the makers of the themes in question, to court. As much as that may piss of open source advocates, protecting and defending your copyrighted and trademarked materials is imperative in modern business.
Macintosh Themes found elsewhere...... (Score:2)
Re:The right decision (Score:2)
This is why MacOS 10 users have to hack their system to restore the look-and-feel they had in version 9 of their OS? Doesn't seem too consistent to me.
Re:This is not the correct analysis. (Score:3)
Apple originally made dozens (maybe even over a hundred) claims against Microsoft.
Because, previously, Apple had stupidly licensed Microsoft, most of their claims were thrown out by the judge. Only 4 claims remained. (Don't remember what they were. Go read InfoWorld about 1987.)
They lost those four claims. And, although I would have loved to see MS have to pay big bucks, I'm very glad that Apple lost on these particular claims. (I wish they could have won some of the other claims though, but that's just their own stupidity.)
In fact, Apple has done so many stupid things that it is just amazing that they are still in business. Of course, Spindler, and his wonderful Inventory Control almost managed to kill Apple without any help from MS. The only reason Apple survived so many of their stupid mistakes is simple. Buckets of cash to pour onto it. For a long, long time, Apple always kept about $1 billion in cash on hand, and only a tiny amount of long term debt -- enough so that they could operate for an entire year without selling anything. A very envious balance sheet.
Back to the topic... Lotus also lost a lawsuit against Borland involving Borland's Quattro spreadsheet (vs. Lotus 123) over the fact that Quattro had a macro system that enabled you to load in and make Quattro exactly emulate 123's keystroke sequences -- which require quite an investment of learning on the part of users. This was much more a functional issue than a look & feel issue and was widely regarded at the time to be bad news in Apple's suit against MS -- and it was.
Part of the reason is... (Score:2)
And what the hell is the big deal anyway. The interface of the Mac OS is property of Apple, and if someone tries to copy it, bad luck to them. It's Apple's property and they can do as they like: it's called capitalism people, and you all wouldn't be so well off without it.
Cheers,
Daniel.
--
Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511
The right decision (Score:3)
VA Linux made the correct decision here in complying with Apple's very reasonable request to remove these themes from their website. As well as avoiding potential legal trouble, the fact is that it would have been unethical for them to allow people to download these themes.
Why? Well companies like Apple spent a lot of time and money doing UI research and making their products look and feel as nice and consistant as possible. To then have someone spend half an hour knocking up a copy for another operating system simply means that their intellectual property has been appropriated and that their time and effort in making their product has been wasted.
The "big two" GUIs for Linux really need to move away from being copyware and start to develop their own "look and feel". At the moment they're playing catchup with Apple and Microsoft, and it's no wonder that people want themes that echo these GUIs on their Linux boxes. Like them or loathe them, nobody can deny that OSX and Windows have slick, professional desktops that show a consistancy and elegance still lacking in KDE or Gnome.
Perhaps as these projects mature more emphasis will be placed on the look and feel rather than functionality. Until then it's not suprising that people are jealous of more mature desktops and want to have them on their machines.
Re:Excessive corporate flex. (Score:2)
How to make a sig
without having an idea
Aqua theme == complete rip-off (Score:2)
Not to mention the fact that the casual onlooker might see a computer running this theme and think it is actuall running Mac OS X (not so far fetched since it has the official Apple logo on it and everything). That user will also see the crappy icons at the bottom that don't look half as cool as the real OS X dock, the non-translucent menus/windows, and the windows that don't "slurp" into the dock when iconized and will come away thinking that Aqua sucks when of course they were never looking at the real Aqua in the first place.
Apple clearly doesn't want people mistaking these half-assed themes with the real Aqua which took a lot of effort, design and engineering to build (unlike these cheap rip-offs).
This shouldn't surprise anyone (Score:5)
Apple has always been protective of what they deem to be their designs, their 'look and feel'. Remember the long running lawsuit against MS for Windows being derived from Mac OS? They've brought litigation against groups that sought to use a logo like their multi-colored apple, iMac-styled cases, etc...
What I find interesting is that, to my recollection, there were never any such issues with NeXT, given how it is often Jobs who drives the designs. There were a number of 'NeXT-like' themes back when NeXT existed, and nary a peep from NeXT about them.
Re:The right decision (Score:2)
And it seems that under your argument that Andy Warhol would not have been able to exist. Though you could argue that he changed the "look and feel" of the original subject.
Also, alot of music these days is sampled, could we say that the sample has changed the look and feel of the subject at hand (or the sound and feel). Those artists spent many hours recording and mixing their songs so that the particular sound they were looking for was found. Then Puff Daddy comes along, samples their work and I don't think the original artists get anything from it (though I could be wrong).
Re:The Apple apologist phenomenon (Score:2)
There are plenty of things I'm unhappy at Apple about. Apple has made so many bad business decisions that it is amazing they survived some of them.
I don't mind seeing Apple being bashed over stuff they deserve to be bashed over. (Like this.) I just hate to see Apple blasted over untruths and distortions of truth. Just look at some of the outright untruths that are in this thread about Apple. Sometimes people say things that are just so factually wrong, or unfair.
Maybe it's just because of fond memories of a time when Apple really was amazing. And their product was amazing. They captured people's imaginations -- including developers. Bicycles for the mind, and all that.
It probbably is something like this. I certianly wouldn't speak up if someone said something unfair about MS.
Now, there's nothing particularly compelling about Apple.
(I wish I knew the answer to this question: what make one an apologist for something anyway?)
Genius! (not a flame) (Score:2)
Wow. That's hitting the nail right on the head, as to the issues surrounding IP. You have taken an ideal statment, and pointed out the real dillema facing current Intellectual Property law.
The company that I work for designs many pattentable proccesses and devices. Sometimes we pattent a process, sometimes we pattent a device - these are very distinct differences. When you pattent a device, you are the only one who can make a device which performs the funcionality described under the pattent. When you pattent a process, anybody can produce the product, but you are the only one allowed to produce the product in your pattented manner.
With software, you produce a finished product - a device,or tool. But you really take and construct it through a carefully developed process. If noone has come up with this way, or this product before, then you have truly created something new. The problem with software, however, is that the instruction set is small enough that it is intuitively easy to see how someone created "one click shopping" or, in this case "a really bitchin' GUI." Thousands of people have done it, a portion of it, or can see how to do exactly what you did. There is a necessity to prevent copycat coders to instantaneously produce an identical product, claiming it as their own. Face it, Amazon (in an old case) beat everybody to the punch - albeit a stupid punch. Obviously, amazon couldn't pattent selling books, obviously amazon couldn't pattent a quality of care, but they had obviously produced something which when examined, everyone would want. They had designed something really cool. Anyways, yes...
I now don't like what amazon has done, but I can't fault them for it.
You have given me new insight into many things about pattent law, IP, and whether Amazon.com is truly evil...
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Re:The right decision (Score:2)
Hmmm, what do you think a trademark is? It's the mark by with one identifies one's goods for trade. If someone else marks their goods with your mark of trade, for whatever reason, they're not just exercising their own right of free expression. They're confusing consumers as to which entity is actually standing behind which products.
Look at the names of the removed themes: Aqua, AquaX, eMac and eMac-GTK. Not "Aqua-clone", or "eMac-Lookalike", names which would clearly distinguish themselves from the names of Apple's own trade goods. Do you understand that these are not official products of Apple, just because they imitate Apple's official products and may use Apple's exact names for those official products? Yes, of course you do -- but you and I are not all consumers, are we?
Tell me how happy you'd be if Bill Gates named some part of the next release of Windows "Linux". And all the customers who have vaguely heard that this "Linux" thing is a good thing say, "Oh! I really should upgrade to Windows X-TreeME! It's got that 'Linux' thing, which means it must be good! ... it says here it's some sort of screensaver, but it must be a really good screensaver; everyone's talking about it."
Tell me how happy you are when companies call themselves "open source" because that's a popular label and then continue the exact same closed-source practices as before. Now you'll understand how Apple feels about people taking an OS other than their own, building a "theme" to make the very outer layer of this OS imitate the look of the one they're standing behind, and calling it "Aqua".
Apple never threatened M$ this way... (Score:2)
Just putting in my 2 cents....
Re:The right decision (Score:2)
As a trivial example, I could replace the scroll bar control in a way that both arrows are at one end. Or both arrows at both ends, etc.
If I came up with an ingenious new type of interface for a scroll bar widget, I would replace it in KDE and have it be used system wide. Although I suppose this is not truly an innovation, as this has theoretically been possible on Mac, although seldom done in practice.
Is something only an innovation if you spend millions of dollars on research and user testing and then base your work on the results?
What about simple but nice touches, such as how KDE's panel can roll out of the way to either side giving you more pixels to use for other things. (I know some would argue that this has some resemblance to Win 95's ability to auto-hide the taskbar.)
Re:The right decision (Score:2)
I'm glad someone finally said that.
Re:Well, actually yes. (Score:2)
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that the AC was on the board of directors for Apple.
Ok, sorry that was rude. But I do have a point. For starters, it is Apple's obligation to its board of directors to make money. The board of directors has the right to make money any way they can legally see how. The problems stem, when a company's board of directors forget to consider the full legal implications of their actions (a-la the aggressive monopolistic behaviors associated with Microsoft). In the case of Apple - clearly this is something which is associated with their company. And clearly they were being ripped off - albeit a small amount of praise/fan worship coming from linux users.
The lemonade analogy completely fell apart where I noted, and therefore I commented.
Now, if you have a problem with the actions the board of directors have allowed their company to take, I suggest you chastize them as to your ethics. Please recognize though, that if they are within their legal bounds, and obvious harm can be seen from allowing other use (and I can elaborate what the obvious harm is), then ethically they are in the right.
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Disingenious, but... (Score:4)
I can understand that its annoying to have ideas that you've payed for (i.e. paying for interface designers, ergonomic engineers and so on) and having people steal them. It seems that there will be more harm than good to come out of this though. Apple doesn't need any more animosity than it already has.
On the other hand notice that themes.org hasn't bothered to respond to requests for information on why the themes needed to be removed. Were there some simple demands (Don't use the Apple logo, its a trademark, don't use the term Mac in your themes, its a trademark as well) that they refused to comply with?
Unfortunately Apple generates its own FUD. Since themes.org won't elaborate I would reason that either a) there was a stipulation that they couldn't post the text of the letter b) themes.org is trying to hide something. By not having an official press release from Apple they've allowed the apple bashers to generate all the propoganda.
For the last time... (Score:2)
For the eighteen-bazillionth time, Apple didn't just come in and start stealing ideas from clueless Xerox, as "Pirates of Silicon Valley" depicts. Jobs gave Xerox a whole bunch of Apple stock, and more importantly, Xerox understood Apple's intent. They may have not known how popular this stuff would be, but they knew the deal. I believe Woz talks about this on his site [woz.org].
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
That's great, except... (Score:4)
How do I know? I'm using one of them right now, and I have the other installed.
Now, it might have been in one of the E or Sawfish themes, but I can confidently say it wasn't in any of the GTK ones. In fact, I don't think anyone would have included the Apple logo after the first Aqua theme was removed for that very reason, and removed again at Apple's request even after the logo was removed.
As for the "They spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars..." argument...please. Aqua is NeXT with curvy, bubble-like widgets, at least on the surface. They certainly don't provide any functionality improvements that Aqua gives (does it give any?)
If the logo isn't in any of these themes, Apple barely has a leg to stand on, unless they want to copyright curvy, shiny widgets. I wonder if they've sent similar letters to the theme authors. Is creating a theme enough to whiff off Apple, or do you actually have to offer it for download before they'll launch attack lawyers?
OS X (Score:2)
How come Apple feel its okay to lend stuff from open source world and sell it to others, when its not okay that the open source world lend their themes and release them for free?
Don't like the signal they are sending here.
Re:Its the names (Score:2)
//rdj
Macintosh's selfishness with their design... (Score:3)
And this isn't even the first time macintosh has gotten on themes.org. Look at this older slashdot story here [slashdot.org].
Re:What Apple copied vs what the Aqua theme copies (Score:4)
This is actually untrue. The Xerox Star didn't have overlapping windows; they couldn't figure out how. When Andy Hertzfeld took the tour of PARC, he assumed that they _did_ have overlapping windows, wondered how they did it, and created QuickDraw (and got Apple quite a few patents).
When he told the PARC people that he figured out how to do overlapping windows, they were stunned, since they thought it impossible on the hardware available at the time.
-jon
Re:Excessive corporate flex. (Score:3)
Besides, I think that Aqua is has a very nice look and feel. If everyone used Aqua look-alikes, then I would get sick of it pretty fast.
Re:The right decision (Score:2)
You're very wrong. In the early 90's, Biz Markee had an album recalled from the stores because he didn't get permission for some of the samples on his album. Whether or not removing his albums from the store was a public service is left for the reader to decide.
And, in a case which is far closer in spirit than sampling, take a look at the Led Zepplin/Robert Johnson lawsuit from the 70's. A lot of Zepplin's songs were "inspired" by old blues standards. Well one song, (I forget which) was just too close to one of Robert Johnson's songs, and him (or his estate; my memory of the details of the case is getting fuzzy) sued Led Zepplin AND WON, despite the fact that bluesmen had been "borrowing" each other's songs for forever, tweaking them along the way.
-jon
Make it look like anything you want to (Score:4)
Why should look and feel of software be any different?
Re:The right decision (Score:3)
Under trademark law, Apple is required to go after anyone infringing on its trade dress, or risk losing legal protection. Some of those theme developers might have been able to get Apple to license Aqua to them for free, but I can see why Apple would be reluctant to do so, considering how it got burned last time (with Microsoft)...
Please don't confuse trademark/trade dress with patents or copyrights. IANAL, so YMMV.
Apple's war on the power user continues... (Score:3)
I used to love them.
The Apple ][ was an amazing machine - it inspired a generation of hackers. (I still have one.) You can take a reasonably gifted kid, hand them an apple ][ and 30 minutes later, they'll be coding. It is so friendly. If you want to get more in depth, you can build your own hardware - it's that open.
Then Steve Jobs became the driving force behind apple's design decisions. Therein lies the problem. Woz was a toolmaker, his designs were like duct tape and bailing wire - you could use them for anything. Jobs is an artist, he wants to make something you look at, not something you interact with. Using a macintosh is like visiting an art museum, you can look, but there's a plexiglass wall keeping you from really looking closely. Using my apple ][ was (and is) like fingerpainting - you were only limited by your own creativity.
That's why I hate apple - they used to make the best computers, and now they tell us to be like everybody else and "think different."
Well I think differently - and I hate what apple has become.
--Shoeboy
Just in time! (Score:2)
Thanks for helping me with the decision, Mr. Jobs.
Re:No copyright for UI (Score:2)
^.
( @ )
Soylent Foods, Inc.
Should be a boost for Apple sales (Score:2)
--
Its the names (Score:2)
Apple has usage guidelines for there trademark on their website [apple.com]. A relavent section might be:
1. Company, Product, or Service Name: No third party can use or register, in whole or in part, Apple, Macintosh, iMac, or any other Apple trademark, including Apple-owned graphic symbols, logos, icons, or an alteration thereof, as or as part of a company name, trade name, product name, or service name.
It should be noted that inoder to be able to inforce these rules against someone creating a competing product with Apple, they have to be inforced against places like themes.orgAlso tried to patent (Score:2)
Ridiculous (Score:2)
I use Secret Recipe #1 for my lemonade. Jim Bob analyzes the chemical structure, duplicates it, calls it Secret Recipe #2, and starts marketing it under that name. Should I have the right to sue him for stealing my intellectual property?
Jim Bob decides to advertise his lemonade stand just 10 feet away from my own stand, by hanging a custom Print Shop sign on a public telephone pole. Should I have the right to sue him for advertising within my territory?
Jim Bob comes over to my stand one day and starts talking with my customers, trying to get them to come over to his stand and try his own Secret Recipe. Should I have the right to sue him for manipulating my customers?
Obviously these are blatantly stupid examples, but that's the point I'm trying to make. Intellectual property is blatantly stupid, and immoral as well.
And you thought the US is built on a free market.
Our rights? (Score:4)
First of all, what rights are you refering to? The right to use copyrighted material for your own cause, without permission from the owner of the copyright? Oh yeah, I forgot about that right. Regardless of the money factor, Apple does have a right to things that originated from them. I don't care if it aligns them with open source or not - the fact remains, you don't (nor does anyone else) have a RIGHT to their material. If they decide to let you use it/have it, that is ther prerogative, but for the time being, they are not letting that happen.
You also have to understand this fact: Apple is a BUSINESS. Last time I checked, businesses were in the business (ha ha, pun!) of making money. Sure, a side effect of that may be that the consumer is elated, but it is by no means a requirement of the company to please every person on the earth - or give away their material. Sure, it would be nice, but they don't have to, and you (or anyone else) certianly do not have a RIGHT to anything of that nature.
Silent encroachments of those in power and sudden usurpations? What a joke. They just don't want people to steal their thunder, and rightly so. Most people don't.
Tetris and Dr. Mario (Score:2)
Lotus also lost a lawsuit against Borland involving Borland's Quattro spreadsheet (vs. Lotus 123) over the fact that Quattro had a macro system that enabled you to load in and make Quattro exactly emulate 123's keystroke sequences
Does this remind you in any way of the Tetris Company cases [slashdot.org]? Copyright on a general look and feel copyright is dead. But doesn't the Aqua theme remind you a bit of Dr. Mario [8m.com]?
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo [pineight.com].
Stupid Marketing Decision (Score:2)
Now, if themes.org or someone else where charging for the Apple-like theme, there would be a very legitimate complaint -- but nobody is profiting directly off of the theme.
---
seumas.com
So i guess (Score:2)
please...the entire concept of "look and feel" is so overblown. a good part of all GUIs borrow from each other in that dept. hell, we'd be using command lines for life if they didn't.
You're forgetting about Apple vs. eMachines (Score:2)
Last year, Apple Computer [apple.com] sued eMachines, Inc. [e4me.com] over the similarity of an eMachines wintel computer to the iMac [apple.com].
The basis for the suit came from law governing the apparel industry, called "trade dress." The law is intended to protect Designer clothing from cheap look-alike knockoffs.
Apple won the suit, and eMachines had to withdraw that product.
The applicability of this to the themes is left as an exercise to the reader.
But not all! (Score:2)
Did they just miss this one? It has been there a long time ("Updated 4th February 2000"). So, I wonder how Apple's lawyers decide which ones to go after and which ones to ignore.
steveha
Apple is going downhill (Score:2)
They do not learn from these mistakes and will again pay for it in earning reports and declining stock once people wise up and see that the shine on that machine is not helping them get any useful software to run on the thing.
A Mac to PC convert.
Re:The right decision (Score:2)
Xerox invents overlapping windows (gif) (Score:2)
Here is a paper describing Smalltalk 76 [ipa.net], and here is what Jobs and Hertzfeld likely saw [ipa.net].
Re:Our rights? (Score:2)
Re:The right decision (Score:2)
But, from the Linux point of view, copyware is significant because it can serve to ease the transition from one OS to another. I bet most UNIX hackers, forced to use NT, end up installing a Bash clone and Xemacs. Otherwise, using the computer feels like you're wearing boxing gloves.
As far as 'a slick elegant consistency' I totally agree with you; the best thing we could do is feed the Penguin to the KDE dragon and then send St George in. I personally find the cartoons would be better in a Pokemon cartoon.
_Had_ to? (Score:5)
On themes.org "We have reviewed the letter and decided to accommodate Apple's request"
Subtle difference.....
Why the overly negative title. (Score:4)
No court decisions, nothing like that. They simply chose to honor Apple's request, which may seem somewhat valid, though we all would probably say 'it's a theme! it's like, parody, or homage, to apple, not 'stealing''. Still....
Re:Apple is a look-and-feel company (Score:2)
I keep seeing this assertion repeated by Mac critics. Have you ever owned, or even used an iMac?
I actually liked the "hockey puck" mouse. Its main defect was that it didn't have an optical sensor like many newer mice.
The keyboard was OK, my only complaint was that some useful keys had been deleted.
Apple is a look-and-feel company (Score:2)
OS X is a good example of this problem: A lot of flashy stuff designed to demo well, very little attention paid to actual usability. To quote Bruce Tognazzini: "The purpose of the icons, the purpose of the entire OS X look and feel, is to keep the customer happy during that critical period between the time of sale and the time the check clears."
It puts Apple in a situation of being overly dependent on look-and-feel, so they feel they have to go after themes.org. They're probably nervous that if people see you can get those pretty pictures on another OS, they'll start wondering what exactly it is that makes a Mac a Mac. Of course, true innovation in OS design is more than a matter of hiring a few great graphic designers. But then, Apple hasn't been an innovative company for quite some time.
Maybe this is a good thing... (Score:2)
Sean
They are at least being consistent... (Score:2)
Apple lost the suit, but there is one remaining artifact from the whole legal battle... look on your windows desktop and notice that you have no "trash can". It's a recycle bin instead. I recall the presence or absence of a trash can being a big deal during the trial.
Bill
So lets build a MAC theme that looks like windows (Score:2)
MacWorld Expo's here and Apple wants to announce.. (Score:2)
Cut the guys a little slack. You'd be pissed as [expletive deleted] if somebody rained on your parade before it even starts. Give Apple the courtesy of letting them hold their dog&pony show bask in the expected earnings and then rip off their GUI.
wow... (Score:3)
Now, I am a Mac user and have been for more than 10 years. I began learning Linux and WinNT/9x about 4 years ago, and even though I've prefered Linux, I always liked the way the Mac looked more than anything windows or X had to offer. Sure, I liked to hack the way that my mac interface looked and felt (woohoo, RedEdit!), but for the most part I've ended up going back to the classic Apple Platinum since the very first Kaleidoscope [kaleidoscope.net] theme and beta releases of MacOS 8. And now my Macs running Linux PPC all have the Aqua theme with Helix Gnome running on them.
Now... Apple... Steve, baby, talk to me. Why is this wrong? Why can't I and all the other people out there who like both their Macs and their Linux actually have them both? For that matter, why support MKLinux [mklinux.org] and then not let those of us who use it or another distro make it look and feel as Mac like as we want? We are running it on your machines.
*shrug*
No copyright for UI (Score:4)
What comes to user perspective, at least most of legal literature from law&economics tend to think, that the benefits from not to give protection to UI clearly overrides the negative impact in UI-investments. So, you can make money with good UI but you are not going to get a monopoly from the government to support it...
Ville
My DeCSS archive:
more... (Score:2)
read it up and let me know if i need to check [my] facts about this....
i particularly like this quote from the article attributing creations to Bob Taylor: Now retired, Taylor says there isn't anything on today's PC that isn't a legacy of the Alto project, from the display to the software to the GUI.
oh, but i think he's suing for "look and feel."
once again, whatever.
Re:The right decision (Score:4)
For years and years the FSF (GNU) boycotted Apple (note they never boycotted Microsoft) exactly because of this despicable claim that they own the look and feel of a GUI. You can say much about Microsoft, but they never did anything like that.
Apple, who copied the GUI themselves, for years sued others e.g. for using a trashcan, or even for using a WIMP GUI at all!
Now it seems to start all over again.
Time for a new GNU boycott? That might hit Darwin hard, and thus indirectly Apple and their OS-X. Would be well deserved.
whatever.... (Score:2)
BTW - i assume that post is factual enough for you...it had the info i remembered except for the stock payment part....
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4)
One thing FOR Apple (Score:2)
It is difficult for many open source advocates to understand a decision like this from a company who seems to be moving in the right direction, but you have to remember that Apple, as a company, has to follow a different set of rules. Investors in Apple did not jump in because Apple is a "bleeding edge, open source, Linux, dot-com" machine, they did so for the same reasons someone would invest in Oracle, Sun, IBM, etc. Apple did not do Public Source to contribute to the "movement", they did it to contribute to their bottom line. Although Apple may be a better company than they were, the are still Apple and they are still looking out for themselves.
Re:So lets build a MAC theme that looks like windo (Score:2)
Now there's a well reasoned argument. (Score:2)
They're going to announce new cool hardware and a real OS that they want people to use. How could they resent having you rain on their parade... You who make such a big impact on their bottom line.
It must suck being you. Everything looks so brown. Or is that 'cause you have your head up your ass?
Re:$ cat lawyers /dev/null (Score:2)
If themes.org refused to remove themes with the Apple look-and-feel (and remember, look-and-feel ain't copyrightable; you can patent certain ideas, but nifty pixmaps doesn't a new invention make), they'd send a cadre of lawyers upon them. And not necessarily to fight it out with t.o -- the case law (as cited in other comments) is pretty clear, particularly the Apple v Microsoft case -- but to bully them into submission with the threat of long, expensive legal battles. Here is where the US citizens are losing many, many, many of their rights, and this is what the government absolutely needs to address. Being a capitalist, I do not believe the government should enforce egalitarianism within society or the marketplace; being rational and fair-minded, I cannot excuse this country from not strictly enforcing egalitarian views upon the judicial process. The court should err on the side of the preservation of the rights of people.
This does not mean the deconstruction of Big Business (though, I admit, I would like that as well): it means levelling the playing field between all people before the court. Justice is blind, you say. Indeed, justice is blind -- so blind, in fact, that it cannot see that it is judging David v Goliath. David might win eventually, he probably would in this case, but does he have the means and resources to last it out? In most cases, no.
This is not the correct analysis. (Score:4)
However, the similarity of Aqua themes to Aqua is MUCH greater than the similarity of Mac OS to Windows.
Do your homework. You are looking for case law dealing with trade dress infringement.
Re:Our rights? (Score:2)
Based on these cases, according to a computer law professor I had this semester, you do have the right to create a desktop environment that looks and feels like theirs, but you do not have the right to create one that looks and feels exactly like theirs. In the case of the Aqua themes, I'd say that the look and feel is virtually identical to that of Aqua in Mac OS X--I think that's the point of the themes. Thus, Apple can indeed ask themes.org [themes.org] to remove the offending themes expecting to see some action take place.
(For more information about Apple v. Microsoft, see Apple v. Microsoft Under a Microscope [fenwick.com].)