MIT Software Developers Field 'Freedom' Campaign

Apple, Lotus 'Look-and-Feel' Suits Targeted In Ad

Jane Fitz Simon, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe

April 24, 1989

If you oppose copyright protection for the appearance and functionality of software, do not buy Lotus 1-2-3, do not develop software for the Apple Macintosh, and do not seek employment at either firm.

That is the implied message being broadcast to hundreds of students in the Cambridge community by three highly respected computer scientists, including Marvin Minsky of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, considered the father of artificial intelligence.

Their goal? To pressure Lotus and Apple into dropping multimillion-dollar lawsuits filed against competitors they charge illegally copied the "look and feel" of Lotus' 1-2-3 spreadsheet and Apple's graphics-based Macintosh user interface.

Minsky, who built MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, edited, signed and helped pay for a half-page advertisement that appeared in the April 14 issue of "The Tech," MIT's student newspaper.

The ad blasted Lotus and Apple for "trying to create a new form of legal monopoly . . . that would cause serious problems for users and developers of computer software and systems.

"If Lotus and Apple are permitted to make law through the courts," the ad said, "the precedent will hobble the software industry."

Labeled "a paid political advertisement," the ad featured bold headlines: "Computer Scientists, Watch Out!" and "Keep Their Lawyers Off Our Computers."

Co-sponsors of the ad along with Minsky were legendary computer hacker Richard Stallman, who, while working for Minsky's AI Lab, developed EMACS, one of the most commonly used computer programming editors; and Gerald J. Sussman, a popular professor of electrical engineering at MIT who wrote "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs," a widely used textbook for beginning computer science majors.

Minsky is the most famous of the group, but the chief instigator was Stallman, whose deep belief in the sanctity of free software led him three years ago to found the Free Software Foundation Inc., a Cambridge-based nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying and redistribution of software.

Usually the FSF pursues its mandate by promoting the development and use of free software, but Stallman lately has flirted with grass-roots activism.

He is angry that Lotus and Apple are seeking to control user interfaces, a precedent that he, Minsky and Sussman agree would burden users in the same way drivers would be burdened if car manufacturers were forced to arrange pedals in different ways.

"They're trying to bluff us into giving them a monopoly that will cost the rest of us dearly," Stallman says.

Lotus disagrees. "The copyright law we believe is absolutely essential to the health of this entire industry," said Tom Lemberg, vice president and general counsel at Lotus. "It is the means for several centuries now to reward creations."

Apple declined to comment.

If Lotus and Apple win their suits, the scientists say, competition will be stifled and the cost of software will remain artificially high. Improvements to user interfaces will be slower, because "creative imitation" will be illegal.

"Even Apple and Lotus will find it harder to make improvements if they can no longer adapt the good ideas that others introduce," the group wrote, adding a dig: "Some users suggest that this stagnation may already have started."

Perched in front of a workstation in his cramped office at the AI Lab, Stallman says his goal in taking out the ad is to help stimulate public opinion against "look and feel" copyright protection. "Perhaps it will influence which way the law goes," he says.

Stallman makes no secret of the fact that he stands to lose personally if Lotus and Apple win their suits. For months he has been working to develop GNU, a new operating system that, like EMACS, will be freely distributed.

GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix," which Stallman describes as an improved and "not slavish" imitation of AT&T's Unix operating system. He is two-thirds finished. "You can see I'd be extremely alarmed to see anyone propose to make it illegal," he says.

So Stallman is dabbling in PR. He did not attempt to contact Lotus or Apple directly, he says, because he "didn't think that would be useful."

Stallman's initial act was to arrange for 4,000 buttons to be distributed last year at a computer show in San Francisco. The buttons featured a picture of Apple's rainbow-colored apple logo, with a serpent's fangs in the bite. "Keep your lawyers off my computer," the buttons said.

He is working with a group to file a friend-of-the-court brief against Apple in support of defendants Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.

The idea of placing an ad in the 9,000-circulation Tech was a whim. "It seemed like it could be a way to do something that I hadn't tried yet," Stallman said. The three sponsors split the $130 bill "with help from a couple of friends."

Over the weekend Stallman struck again. He paid $20 to have a slide projected during film showings by the MIT movie society: "Fight 'Look and Feel' Copyright," the slide said. "Boycott Lotus and Apple."

"I don't know what happens next," said Stallman.

Caption: PHOTO

Globe staff photo/Tom Herde / Programmer Stallman says he fears a Lotus and Apple monopoly.

Copyright 1989