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| From: | John Anderson |
| Subject: | Re: Does GNUstep infringe on Apple's Intellectual Property? |
| Date: | Mon, 25 Aug 2003 08:35:24 -0400 |
Robert,Thanks for your detailed response (which I have posted to the list below). You have essentially answered my question.
Here is my understanding:(1) To the extent that the OpenStep specification was an "open" specification, I am now assured that GNUstep has some kind of irrevocable license from Apple.
(2) Furthermore, to the extent that GNUstep has had been contacted by Apple legal to remove icons, Apple has, at least, indirectly given GNUstep a license by not promptly issuing a "cease & desist" notice" or otherwise attempting to enforce whatever claims of infringement that it could make against GNUstep.
That being said, I would at least study the intellectual property details of the OpenStep specification before I invested serious amount of time and money in the development of GNUstep (and I might). Moreover, I would specifically contact Apple legal and demand that they provide notice of any possible issues that they with GNUstep infringing on their property.
- John On Monday, August 25, 2003, at 5:03 AM, Robert J. Slover wrote:
John,NeXT and Sun published an open specification. Even without that, it has long been established that an API is not protected *at all*. This was established during the Apple "look and feel" lawsuit against Microsoft. Microsoft originally wrote Excel and Word for the Macintosh, gaining insight on the API's while hard at work cloning them to some degree. When Windows finally could support the applications well enough, Microsoft had ready-made applications ready to port and could then afford to begin diverging the API's again. Apple cried foul, and sued. Apple lost. Since then it has been held that an API is not protected. It is like any real-world interface. The fact that Briggs and Stratton designed a particular engine part does not keep "Blue Streak" from producing a knock-off replacement part. This is only sane.Your concerns about 'NS' names on copyright grounds is unfounded. Copyright covers specific works, not words specific to works of that class. If that were so, Heinlein could sue us all any time we grokked anything.The number of software implementations that clone other API's is fairly unbounded. GNUstep is really quite the exception in that it attempts to implement an open specification rather than follow a closed implementation through reverse engineering. The WINE project, for example, clones the Windows API's, as did several commercial software implementations. The GNumeric project clones the feature set of Excel, which is much closer to the meat-and-potatoes of Microsoft than the Excel API's. Mono clones .NET. All of these activities are presently considered fair game, mostly thanks to Microsoft's own legal success vis-à-vis Apple.Furthermore, NeXT and now Apple have been aware of the GNUStep implementation since the beginning, which, in fact, slightly preceded the release of the OpenStep specification. (See http://groups.google.com/groups? selm=9312101835.AA20844%40andromeda.rutgers.edu ) In all that time (ten years come December) the only adversarial grumble from Apple legal toward the project was to remove some NeXT icons from some web pages and applications. This is understandable since they paid Keith Ohlfs a ton of money for them in the first place, and still use many of them in Mac OS X. The release of GDL2 was delayed for a long time due to concerns that it does infringe on some Apple patents, of questionable enforceability. In the end, the decision was taken to release it anyway, and so far, Apple has said nothing. Other areas in which Apple (NeXT, actually) held patents have been worked around because it was possible to do so.Most recently, Apple has contributed the original NeXT modifications, with copyright assignment, to gdb to the FSF and has also done the same with their compiler changes. The individual at Apple in charge of this integration work has been very forthright in ensuring that his changes do not break GNUStep, and has even downloaded GNUStep so that he can run our regression tests.I think Apple probably realizes that many developers are concerned that they have a safety net should anything happen to Apple. Without GNUStep, there would be greater pressure upon Apple to implement the original proposed cross-platform Rhapsody style layers. GNUStep offers Apple's developer's the latent hope that they can one day write their code and compile it to run on OS X, Unix, GNU/Linux, and Windows. That reality is actually getting close now.Regards, --RobertOn Sunday, Aug 24, 2003, at 22:17 America/Indianapolis, John Anderson wrote:I want to clarify what I am concerned about.I am sure that GNUstep is an original implementation of the OpenStep / Cocoa interface.My concern is that the interface itself (i.e. the classes, the methods, the functions) is directly protected by Apple's copyright, as in "NS" names. More importantly, Apple's copyright also extends indirectly to specific functionality (i.e. just changing all the "NS" names to "GS" or whatever would not solve the problem).For example, let's say I wanted to rip off McDonald's, with a chain of fast-food hamburger restaurants called JackDonald's. McDonald's would have me shut down before I served my first "BigJack" (for those Europeans who do not know, McDonald's is famous for its' "BigMac"). However, I am mixing trademark and copyright law here to make this easier to understand.More clearly, GNUstep is exactly (and indeed supposed to be) a copy of the OpenStep interface. Therefore, what are the legal implications?On Sunday, August 24, 2003, at 10:34 PM, Tima Vaisburd wrote:On Sunday 24 August 2003 17:13, John Anderson wrote:I mean, it appears clear to me that GNUstep is a derivative work that must violate Apple's copyrights on OpenStep and Cocoa.I presume that GNUstep is an independent, from-scratch implementation of the OpenStep API that has been published as open API, i.e. anybody can write it's own implementation. Thus, GNUstep is not an Apple derivative work at all and violates no Apple copyright whatsoever. Is this correct? Tima. _______________________________________________ Discuss-gnustep mailing list Discuss-gnustep@gnu.org http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep_______________________________________________ Discuss-gnustep mailing list Discuss-gnustep@gnu.org http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss-gnustep
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