Scientists Protest Rash of Computer Software Suits

Some of the nation’s top computer scientists, angry over a wave of lawsuits seeking to copyright basic computer software, picketed Wednesday outside the headquarters of Lotus Development Corp.

The scientists said Lotus and a handful of other computer companies are trying to lock up rights to software that is as fundamental to computers as a steering wheel and pedals are to a car.

“If there were copyrights like this on cars, then every manufacturer would have to give you a different way to steer,” said Richard Stallman, a programmer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “If you learned to drive a Ford, you wouldn’t know how to drive Chevrolets.”

Illegal Copying Claimed

Chanting slogans through a bullhorn, Stallman led about 150 MIT professors, graduate students and programmers from Boston-area computer firms in a march from Cambridge’s Technology Square to Lotus’s headquarters.

Under gray skies and intermittent rain, they picketed for about an hour, carrying signs saying “Innovation Not Litigation,” “Don’t Ruin Our Industry” and “No Writs for Bits.”

The rash of lawsuits includes complaints filed by Apple Computer against competitors Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, and by Ashton-Tate against Fox Software.

Lotus, which makes the best-selling computer accounting program Lotus 1-2-3, is suing competitors Paperback Software International and Mosaic Marketing Inc.

All of the suits allege illegal copying of a “user interface,” technical jargon for what is often called the “look and feel” of a computer program, including its basic commands, menus and displays.

Lotus and many other software companies contend that unless their products enjoy strong copyright protection, they will not have an economic incentive to develop new programs.

“Our argument is that out-and-out copying of other people’s work stifles creativity and innovation,” said Lotus spokeswoman Betsy Kosheff. “Copyright law allows you to take other people’s work and build on it, but not to steal it.”

The protest grew out of an advertisement placed in an MIT student newspaper last month by Stallman; Gerald J. Sussman, a professor of electrical engineering, and Marvin Minsky, founder of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

They warned that the lawsuits could freeze out new companies, make computers more difficult to use and, ultimately, retard the industry.

“Until quite recently, people invented things, everybody gave each other all their software, we had fun and people made money anyway,” Sussman said Wednesday. “I’d like to see that come back.”