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        !             2: @unnumbered Special Report: Apple's New Look and Feel
        !             3: 
        !             4: You might have read about the new look-and-feel copyright lawsuit,
        !             5: Apple vs. Hewlett Packard and Microsoft.  Apple claims the power to
        !             6: stop people from writing any program that works even vaguely like a
        !             7: Macintosh.  If they and other look-and-feel plaintiffs triumph, they
        !             8: will use this new power over the public to put an end to free software
        !             9: that could substitute for commercial software.
        !            10: 
        !            11: In the weeks after the suit was filed, USENET reverberated with
        !            12: condemnation for Apple.  GNU supporters Richard Stallman, John Gilmore, and
        !            13: Paul Rubin decided to take action against Apple's no-longer-deserved
        !            14: reputation as a force for progress.  Apple's reputation comes from having
        !            15: made better computers; but now, Apple is working to make all non-Apple
        !            16: computers worse.  If this deprives the public of the future work of many
        !            17: companies, the harm done would be many times the good that any one company
        !            18: does.  Our hope was that if the user community realizes how destructive
        !            19: Apple's present actions are, Apple would lose customers and have more
        !            20: trouble finding employees.
        !            21: 
        !            22: Our method of action was to print 5000 buttons that say ``Keep Your Lawyers
        !            23: Off My Computer'' and hand them out at the West Coast Computer Faire.  The
        !            24: center of the button shows the rainbow-apple logo with a Gigeresque mouth
        !            25: full of ferocious teeth.  The picture was drawn by Etienne Suvasa, who also
        !            26: drew the cover for the GNU Emacs manual.  We call the picture ``Apple's New
        !            27: Look and Feel''.
        !            28: 
        !            29: We gave out nearly 4000 buttons at the show (saving the rest for
        !            30: afterwards).  The result was a great success: the extent of anger at Apple
        !            31: was apparent to everyone at the show.  Many of the invited speakers at the
        !            32: show wore our buttons, spoke about them, or even waved them from the
        !            33: podium.  The press noticed this: at least one Macintosh user's magazine
        !            34: carried a photo of the button afterwards.
        !            35: 
        !            36: Some of you may be considering using, buying, or recommending Macintoshes;
        !            37: you might even be writing programs for them or thinking about it.  Please
        !            38: think twice and look for an alternative.  Doing those things means more
        !            39: success for Apple, and this could encourage Apple to persist in its
        !            40: aggression.  It also encourages other companies to try similar
        !            41: obstructionism.
        !            42: 
        !            43: [It is because of this boycott that we don't include support for Macontosh
        !            44: Unix in GNU software.]
        !            45: 
        !            46: You might think that your current project ``needs'' a Macintosh now.  If
        !            47: you find yourself thinking this way, consider the far future.  You probably
        !            48: plan to be alive a year or two from now, and working on some other project.
        !            49: You will want to get good computers for that, too.  But an Apple monopoly
        !            50: could easily make the price of such computers at that time several times
        !            51: what it would otherwise be.  Your decision to use some other kind of
        !            52: machine, or to defer your purchases now, might make sure that the machines
        !            53: your next project needs are affordable when you need them.
        !            54: 
        !            55: Newspapers report that Macintosh clones will be available soon.  If
        !            56: you must buy a Macintosh-like machine, buy a clone.  Don't feed the
        !            57: lawyers!

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