Sheldon L. Richman
The Washington Times

November 21, 1990

An enduring controversy in the computer software industry concerns what exactly should be patentable or copyrightable. To date, the field has been dominated by the hard-liners such as Lotus Development Corp.

These are the interests who think that every aspect of a program should be protected by law, especially a program's interface, or its "look and feel." Lotus has beaten Paperback Software in court because its VP-Planner looks like and responds to the same commands as 1-2-3. Now Lotus is going after Borland International and its Quattro spreadsheet program.

This is getting ridiculous. That's an understatement, because the logic of the Lotus principle will stifle the software industry as surely as it would stifle other industries were it applied to them. More on this in a moment.

A few computer columnists (me included) and software entrepreneurs have been railing against this ominous legal philosophy for years. So it was good to read about the formation of the League for Programming Freedom.

Headed by programmer Richard Stallman, the league sees the handwriting on the wall and is worried. The precedent being set by the Lotus behemoth is scaring the the independent programmers to death. It is about time they organized to do something about it.

Some detached observers may wonder what they are complaining about. After all, why should they be free to copy the look and feel of an established program. Isn't that just a way to leech off someone else's success? And isn't their warning about the death of creativity just self-serving blather to justify what seems indistinguishable from plagiarism?

A moment's thought should dispel these doubts. In a past column I tried to imagine what would happen if the the Lotus principle were applied to the toaster industry. Most toasters look and work the same away. Should the original designer be able to ban the others?

John Dvorak, my favorite computer columnist, recently brought a fresh angle to this issue in PC Magazine (Nov. 13). He compared software publishing to book publishing: "In books, the user interface is the same. Open the cover, start flipping through pages. All that is protected is the exact wording. Even the stories aren't protected."

Mr. Dvorak points out, for example, that anyone is free to write a "boy meets girl" story. Anyone may use the same typeface and format (hardcover, paperback) as other books. Anyone may write the story in the same language (code). There is no copyright protection for these things.

What no one can do legally is copy verbatim someone else's story. One may "copy" insignificant things, such as commonplace words and phrases, but that's what it means to use the same language. You just may not lift significant chunks of text without giving credit. That would be plagiarism.

The Lotus principle is a call for special treatment that would be outrageous in book publishing. The programmers Lotus is bullying are not accused of copying one iota of 1-2-3's code. They used original code to make programs that resemble 1-2-3 and and its command set.

In 1-2-3, you call up a file by pressing the black-slash, F(ile) and R(etrieve). Should Lotus be able to bar everyone else from writing those commands into their programs? It would be equivalent to book publishers being barred from calling their table of contents "Table of Contents." Come on.

If anyone wants to contact the League for Programming Freedom, write 1 Kendall Square No. 143, P.O. Box 9171, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.

Copyright 1990