A couple of weeks ago, I sent an email to law professor Lawrence Lessig, co-founder of the Creative Commons project, and intellectual "property law gadfly" concerning the Newton. Some excepts follow (complete text is reproduced at end):
> However, there are plenty of things that we would like to be able to
> do, and indeed, *had* been done by inside Apple engineers when the
> Newton was still alive [..] The Java implementation's drawing code is
> horribly inefficient because there is no graphics access directly from
> the C++ layer. [..]
>
> All this needless effort and impossibility would be eliminated if
> Apple could be persuaded to release to the community certain parts of
> the Newton development effort, including header files [..] compiler and communication tool source[..] as well "pre-alpha" source code that inside engineers wrote such as Fractor. [..]
> I believe that most if not all of the above could be released without compromising Apples "intellectual property value" at all, subject to very little licensing entanglements with other companies [..] Other parts of such a release could be negotiated between the necessary corporate partners and knowledgeable members of the community under NDA.
(What can I say, I'm an idealist - and probably crazy ;-) But today I got this email back (produced verbatim):
> Thanks for the note, and I apologize for the delay in responding. This is a
> great idea, and indeed, something that's being pursued on a number of
> fronts. I'll let you know if we get some movement on it soon. It does make a
> great deal of sense for Apple, and I am pushing them on this in a number of
> areas.
Hmm, *something that's being pursued on a number of fronts* ??! What does *that* mean? is someone else trying to find back-channels as well?
Jim
-- complete text of email to L.L. -- (apologies to Paul G. if I put you in too bright a spotlight ;-)
> I am a 24-year old undergraduate computer science student at Indiana
> University Bloomington, and I learned about you mainly through
> references from Slashdot, from which I have acquired a bad sense of
> foreboding about the future of innovation, copyright, and corporate
> control in the world today. I know you must be a very busy person, so
> I'll get to my point.
>
> For the past several years I have been a user of the Apple Newton
> MessagePad PDA, which they oh-so-lovingly discontinued in 1998 after
> only 5 years of production and evolution. I am an active participant in
> the Newtontalk community, still 1000+ strong 5 years after the
> cancellation, and I am not alone in thinking that the Newton is still
> better than any other PDA on the market. Despite the Newton's
> cancellation, some rather amazing things have been written for the
> platform, including an ATA Flash driver (envisioned by Apple but never
> completed), an 802.11 wireless card driver, a Java implementation, and
> an MP3 player. One person is even designing a replacement touchscreen.
> All the software projects involved extensive use of the Newton C++
> tools, released in mid-1997, and in some case of the ATA driver, heavy
> reverse-engineering of the low levels of the Newton OS.
>
> However, there are plenty of things that we would like to be able to
> do, and indeed, *had* been done by inside Apple engineers when the
> Newton was still alive, with the C++ tools which we cannot because of
> insufficient documentation. The Java implementation's drawing code is
> horribly inefficient because there is no graphics access directly from
> the C++ layer, only from NewtonScript. This despite the fact that an
> Apple engineer at the time (Jason Rukman) wrote a program (Fractor)
> which does directly access the QuickDraw drawing routines from C++.
> Direct access to the touchpad (the inker) from C++ could also yield
> benefits to the virtual machine, as well as a VNC package which has been
> written. MP3 playback is likewise inefficient and choppy because of the
> lack of direct sound access from C++. There are members of the
> Newtontalk list (particularly Paul Guyot, author of the ATA driver;
> pguyot_at_kallisys.net) who are much more knowledgeable of low-level Newton
> programming than I and could provide other examples.
>
> There is still no good way to transfer information into and out of a
> Newton. The Newton Connection Utilities, which Apple out-sourced to
> Puma Technologies (but to which Apple holds all the rights), never
> worked particularly efficiently, and is not nearly as slick as
> applications such as Palm Desktop. The internal "Dock" application uses
> a cryptographic challenge, making it impossible to interface with from
> new applications, which has only recently been broken by Paul Guyot,
> also the author of the ATA driver.
>
> Worse yet, NCU is written for the older MacOS and uses the now
> obsolete Appletalk protocol, and thus cannot be run on MacOS X natively,
> only in the "Classic" emulator. Likewise, the Newton Toolkit
> programming environment (NTK) cannot be run except in Classic and I have
> found that the workaround we use to allow it to run (PortShare Pro
> Demo, which emulates a serial port, without which NTK refuses to run)
> does not work with the current pre-release version of Jaguar, the next
> major revision of MacOS X. When I contacted the developers of this
> workaround (Stalker Software) concerning the possibility of releasing
> the portion of the code which creates the virtual port, they responded
> that they were discontinuing work on that piece of software, and said
> nothing to my plea for source code. I wrote a lengthy bug report to
> Apple about this incompatibility, which included a similar plea for the
> source code to NTK, and have received no response.
>
> One of the best email packages for the Newton, Eudora for Newton, was
> written by Quallcomm which also has not released the source code. I
> have not written to ask them to if they would consider doing so, but I
> doubt I will get a more favorable reply than from Stalker or Apple, for
> the simple reason that I represent the interest of a community of less
> than 2000 individuals using a computer that has absolutely no chance of
> increased market share, and it isn't worth their time to bother with me.
>
> Then there is also the issue of parts and repairs. Apple has just
> recently (or will very soon, we're not sure) ended it's repair program
> for the Newtons. There will soon be no way to repair broken screens,
> cases, etc. (though I am considering the possibility of starting a
> plastics fabrication shop, from which my first products will be Newton
> accessories and parts, and am investigating the possibility of a
> replacement LCD screen, though I have no clout with Sharp either, which
> manufactured the display and presumably has the interface specifications
> somewhere)
>
> All this needless effort and impossibility would be eliminated if
> Apple could be persuaded to release to the community certain parts of
> the Newton development effort, including header files detailing function
> calls, compiler and communication tool source, case mold CAD files and
> molds if they still exist, and electrical schematics, as well
> "pre-alpha" source code that inside engineers wrote such as Fractor, or
> releasing Newton engineers from NDA concerning such code they may own
> themselves. I believe that most if not all of the above could be
> released without compromising Apples "intellectual property value" at
> all, subject to very little licensing entanglements with other companies
> (NTK includes some native ARM processor compilation code, which I
> presume includes code for the ARM standard libraries, which are subject
> to license from ARM Ltd.) Other parts of such a release could be
> negotiated between the necessary corporate partners and knowledgeable
> members of the community under NDA.
>
> I believe that this is not just a problem of the Newton community.
> More and more, there are stories of such "abandonware" - software
> programs or entire computing platforms that are abandoned by their
> corporate parent, leaving no recourse of maintenance or enhancement left
> for their frustrated users. Apple's Quickdraw 3D is another perfect
> example, although it was a mature product and was therefore fully
> documented, and has such been replaced by the open-source LGPL project
> Quesa. Still, there is code for interface widgets planned (in 1995 if I
> remember correctly) for "Quickdraw 3D 2.0" which were never released,
> and is (presumably) still in Apple's vault.
>
> Palm Computing recently bought the rights to the BeOS, which was and
> is a fully functioning, mature desktop operating system. They have
> stated they have no plans to develop the BeOS as a desktop operating
> system, a circumstance which I think should not have been lost on the
> Department of Justice when considering the Microsoft antitrust case,
> which unfortunately for consumers and competition in my opinion, has for
> all intents and purposes been finished. Hewlett-Packard/Compaq recently
> announced that the HP Jornada handheld would get the ax, to the
> consternation of many on Slashdot, who saw the Jornada as a superior
> product to the iPaq, the Compaq handheld which will be kept. The RCA
> Rocket E-book is yet another example: it used to have the capability for
> users to make their own e-books and download them to the device.
> However, when the product was recently bought by Gemstar, the feature
> for self-authorship was *removed* from the device via a firmware upgrade
> (sic) As one member of Newtontalk put it, "they are doing their best to
> kill it." Gemstar expects to generate a "stable revenue stream" (as I
> expect they would put it) from selling e-book novels, and "expects to
> allow users to create their own content later in the future", to which I
> would say, "Why not now? You could before." In my view, Gemstar gains
> nothing by not allowing people to make there own books, other than that
> people will not be able to make their own versions of Pride and
> Prejudice (and other works securely in the public domain) and forego
> reading a purchased book entirely. Sony attempted to crack down on the
> creation of software for their very-high-priced Aibo robotic dog under
> the pretense of the DMCA, that such software could be used to copy their
> software. Nintendo did the same concerning a cable used for Gameboy
> Advanced programming. Stretching father back in computer history, the
> Apple II, Comodore 64, and Amiga could be added to the list of
> abandonware.
>
> Not only are companies like Apple and Palm unlikely to respond to
> pleas to free technologies they have no intention of developing, there
> is no mechanism in place for such entreaties to be made: public
> companies have designed themselves to turn a profit, not to satisfy
> small armies of developers, and shareholders may be able to sue if said
> companies do things perceived as wasting money or reducing their
> "intellectual property portfolios." (although I am not a lawyer, so the
> scope of this particular point may be wrong) I, as a two-bit developer
> representing other two-bit developers, contemplating starting a (very)
> small business producing parts for a shrinking market, have no clout
> with Apple or Sharp or Quallcomm, and consequently get proverbially
> "laughed off the stage" when I make a request such as I have outlined
> above.
>
> Moreover, I see no large-scale movement developing to specifically
> counteract this abandonware trend. The Creative Commons hopes to stem
> the tide of increasing corporate and copyright control of artistic and
> other works. The Free Software Foundation hopes to stem the tide of
> proprietary software which cannot be changed or modified or studied
> openly (which will prevent abandonware, but does nothing for the
> abandonware already out there and produced more and more each year).
> The general Open Source movement has goals similar to the FSF but
> without some of the moralistic overtones of the FSF, I believe; but I
> do not see it addressing the problem either (although I have not looked
> *too* hard). I believe the reason there is no movement is that it
> requires a degree of cooperation with corporate interests, as well as
> knowledgeable professionals such as yourself, to get anything done. I
> see the FSF, and the entire open-source movement today, as evolving from
> the preceding hacker culture at MIT and other universities in the 60s,
> and as seeing themselves as "new-age pioneers" who will not accept too
> much help from "traditionalists", and having too much disdain for
> corporate practices and politics anyway to "stoop" to the level of
> cooperation that would be needed.
>
> Now that I have explicated for probably a page, I ask you if you can
> recommend any way to start such a movement, or others who could be of
> help with such a cause, beginning with reference to my particular
> situation concerning the Newton and Apple. I figure that there must be
> those few people who are high-enough in the open source movement
> (perhaps even connected with Apple's own Darwin project) who would have
> the clout to move this idea forward.
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