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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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