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Oh for ...

Okay. First up - making exact copies of something cannot be theft. Never. It is copyright infringement.

Removal of physical property is theft. An idea is not physical property, but intellectual property, which is where copyright comes in.

Theft is a more emotive word, which is why bozos like the RIAA bandy it about as though saying it makes it true. It's not, and they only undermine their credibility by going for the soundbite rather than the actual facts.

(If it is theft, then a corollary is that the item in question is not licenced but owned by whoever paid for it, giving them the ability to do whatever the hell they like with it (within the framework of Law). The absolute last thing the entertainment industry wants is for people to believe this, because it makes the entire file-swapping thing extremely murky from an enforcement point of view.)

Copyright law is nice and clear (comparitively), so that's what we're looking at here.

I don't believe that making an identical copy of something is going to move the world forward in any way, but I see it as a relatively harmless homage, nothing more.

I'm not a copyright owner of major intellectual property however, and those who are are obligated to defend their copyright or lose it. If Apple do not push the issue when they discover copying, they will lose the ability to enforce their copyright on their own intellectual property. That's a poor move in business, but in IT and especially software, it's a remarkably bad move.

"Oh for ... "   (for what? for the sake of appearing annoyed?)

"Okay. First up - making exact copies of something cannot be theft. Never. It is copyright infringement."


Obviously, "intellectual property" Can not be stolen as a thought...
That's why a name was given to make it Tangable Property. The key word here is "Property". ANY tangable property can be stolen.
Copyright infringment IS another term for theft of tangable property. Once a copyright is filed, It is NO LONGER CONSIDERED as just intellectual property.

A copyright gives the intellectual property a NAME,DATE, and a Physical Identity. (Sound recordings,Sheet music,Blueprints,Books,Software, Etc.)

To just sluff off the unauthorized reproduction of copywriten material as a harmless action is pretty ignorant. As it is a FEDERAL OFFENCE.

And if someone thinks they are hurting no one by it....

They are taking(Without Permission) food out of the refrigerator, And a portion of the paycheck of every Family that makes their living in creative industries.

Try that in MY house and i'll mess you up. And the FBI will back me up if necessary.

Copyrights are the "Lock on the front door" to keep idiots from ripping us off.

I think this accurately portrays the difference in Hackerjax's and my views, they are completely diametrically opposed.

- HackerJax believes that people stealing ideas and calling them their own is ok, as long as the actual source is not stolen.  He believes this somehow promotes progress even though you are basically reinventing the wheel in an attempt to intimidate someone into creating a new version, and in the end removing the one thing I think creators should have: recognition of their work.

- My view is that the source should be free, but that recognition should remain.  You worked hard to do something, it should be acknowledged that you are the creator.  My releasing the source however, you directly help the community at large by allowing them to build off your ideas, not directly copy them.  Of course, if someone thinks he's clever and recompiles it and tries to sell it, no one will buy it from him since the source is, as stated above, available.  My scheme of course involves a more scientific approach to Computer Science, where researchers are paid to develop programs, increasing program quality, reducing program pollution.  (Apache is great example of this scheme, when a program is needed interested parties will come together to get it made) It's so sad that the corporations have made this the only scientific field one where researchers are too afraid to be proud of their work.

Of course the second case is hypothetical since it requries an entire paradigm change, but it is interesting to see what are society values, and what rights we believe people should have, and how we believe true progress is established, through the outright stealing of ideas (allowed by our current system), or through the general contribution (as was once allowed at the birth of the field).  My goal is not to convince anyone we should change, since I believe and always have that it is too late, but to instead look at the somewhat hypocritical nature of our corporate structure.

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I think we're actually agreeing on the big points here, but arguing over the little things. I still maintain that intellectual property is not the same as physical property, and that's why two systems of law are required to deal with unauthorised removal and/or copying, but the breaking of these laws is still wrong in any case.

What about contextual menus? Didn't windows have them first and then Apple added them later?

I say as long as the guy didn't rippoff the code, its ok. We've seen many a times someone coming out with a windows functionality hack for the mac. Why not the other way. Besides, I'm betting Apples version is more stable and eventually the windows user will want the real thing.

What about contextual menus? Didn't windows have them first and then Apple added them later?

I say as long as the guy didn't rippoff the code, its ok. We've seen many a times someone coming out with a windows functionality hack for the mac. Why not the other way. Besides, I'm betting Apples version is more stable and eventually the windows user will want the real thing.

i use objectdock on my pc, and it's okay, but the real dock kicks it's ass.

I just installed MobyDock on my Dual 700mhz PIII w/ and ATi Xpert Rage 128 16mb PCI card.  SUX.  SUX bad.  Really bad.  Wicked slow.  Pretty much useless.  Same goes for my Dual Athlon 2000+ MP w/ a Geforce 4MX 64mb AGP 4x card.  While fast and smooth.  It craps out and dies. 
So they are both useless.

I really see this being a problem when people customize there Windows OS to look and work like a Mac.  Eventhough it isn't perfect or that it always works.  I think that takes away (potentially) from Apple sales.  If you could run or have an OS that works like OS X on your PC.  Why would you buy a Mac?  Kind of like Napster and Kaaza and other file sharing apps.  If you can get it for free why pay?  Apple made the dock what it is for the most part.  It is to me a major feature of the OS.  I use it heavily and tend not to have icons on my Desktop cause they can go in the dock and be kept nice and neat.  If I saw this on a Windows PC I would think that it was a Mac OS X variant at first look.  This can go further if you have an Aqua Theme runing on that XP box too.  If you really didn't know the difference by first look you would get the wrong impression. 

I want to know how far can this go?  At what point is it theft or copyright infringment?  There is a lot of hard work that goes into making Mac OS X what it is not just how it works but how it looks.  Being able to make Windows (a competitor) look and work like Mac OS X to me is wrong.

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I think we're actually agreeing on the big points here, but arguing over the little things. I still maintain that intellectual property is not the same as physical property, and that's why two systems of law are required to deal with unauthorised removal and/or copying, but the breaking of these laws is still wrong in any case.

I agree.  The issue comes down to the "Principal"

And the only reason for arguements about it stems from a lack of enforcement of the Rules.

I'm with jax on this one.