Boycott Apple
Some time before 1989, Apple Computer, Inc. started a lawsuit against
Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, claiming they had breeched Apple's copyright on
the look and feel of the Macintosh user interface. In December 1989, Xerox
failed to sue Apple Computer, claiming that the software for Apple's Lisa
computer and Macintosh Finder, both copyrighted in 1987, were derived from two
Xerox programs: Smalltalk, developed in the mid-1970s and Star, copyrighted in
1981.
Apple wanted to stop people from writing any program that worked even vaguely
like a Macintosh. If such look and feel lawsuits succeed they could put an end
to free software that could substitute for commercial software.
In the weeks after the suit was filed, Usenet reverberated with condemnation for
Apple. GNU supporters Richard Stallman, John Gilmore, and Paul Rubin decided to
take action against Apple. Apple's reputation as a force for progress came from
having made better computers; but The League for Programming Freedom believed
that Apple wanted to make all non-Apple computers worse. They therefore
campaigned to discourage people from using Apple products or working for Apple
or any other company threatening similar obstructionist tactics (e.g. Lotus and
Xerox).
Because of this boycott the Free Software Foundation for a long time didn't
support Macintosh Unix in their software. In 1995, the LPF and the FSF decided
to end the boycott.
[Dates? Other events? Why did Xerox's case against Apple fail?]
(1995-04-18)
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