caseagainstfaith

Join Date 11/2003

StyleXP themes on WinCustomize?

I seem to remember a posting where it was stated that competing products to WindowsBlinds, such as LiteStep, are featured on WinCustomize because Stardock feels that supporting skinning in general is a "good thing" for everybody, or something like that. Do I recall correctly?

Okay, now, I suppose there might still be some leftover hard feelings about TGTsoft and the lawsuit, but, the suit has been settled. So, might it be possible to have SyleXP themes available on WinCustomize?

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1845

2 things.

Windowblinds is not a competitor with Litestep....one is a GUI skinner, the other is a shell replacement.

There are 'competitors' and then there are 'competitors'. TGTSoft's 'product' is of the 'very unlikely ever to be supported/hosted here' variety, as its method of function is not entirely in accordance with the Microsoft EULA [in SPITE of what some may imagine to the contrary]...

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--Gabriel

Join Date 10/2001

No such thing. StyleXP doesn not have its own format. StyleXP is nothing more than a GUI for applying microsoft themes.

.msstyles are amicrosoft format and require a questionably legal hack to your system (available for free).

Anythings possible but don't hold you're breath.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

Exactly. The issue is that there is no such thing as "Style XP themes" and the .MSStyles format is owned by Microsoft and we know from talking to them that they are not in favor of .msstyles being thrown around the net (especially since they are all patched derivatives of luna.msstyles).

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kona0197

Join Date 02/2003

+86

Converting msstyles to windowblinds can be fun.

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Snowman

Join Date 03/2001

+343

Converting msstyles to windowblinds can be fun.

But will in some/most cases lead to some 'less than good' WBs

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kona0197

Join Date 02/2003

+86

Yes this is true..sadly

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So, might it be possible to have SyleXP themes available on WinCustomize?

Well, actually there are some. They've just been converted to WindowBlinds format.

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Well, actually there are some. They've just been converted to WindowBlinds format.

Exactly. But, what would happen if Microsoft actually went after TGT Soft legally for copyright violations and hacking its operating system to use and sell the unlicensed extensions? This seems quite blatant to me. >

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Hmmm. Okay, well, I'm learning some stuff that I didn't know. But, I'm still confused. If .msstyles is a MS format, don't they want people to make themes with it? And, what "hack" is involved if .msstyles is a native XP thing?

Thanks for the information.

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But, what would happen if Microsoft actually went after TGT Soft legally

If MS so desired they could wipe TGTSoft off the face of the planet with very little effort. It's painfully obvious that StyleXP as a software and TGTSoft as a company have no legal legs to stand on. It would be fun to witness though!!

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don't they want people to make themes with it

Well, it seems that MS wanted to get new ways of changing how Windows looks into the product WITHOUT the hassle of supporting it. Which is why they added the digital signatures to the themes. If they hadn't then they would be forced to support the extensibility of the theme engine and that would be a nightmare at best! As it is, if anyone calls with a problem using say StyleXP MS can simply say, you are violating their EULA by using unsupported 3rd party themes and that they will not support your configuration. Technically, if you called for support on some other piece of the OS and they somehow found out you were using StyleXP they would probably try to blame your problems on it and tell you to call back after you've removed the program. They LOVE blaming problems on anything but the OS itself.

And, what "hack" is involved if .msstyles is a native XP thing

The "Hack" involved is StyleXP modifying something in memory to make XP accept non-digitally signed msstyle files. Before they started doing it in memory, they would simply physically patch the file on your hard drive, which is what the freely available theme patchers do.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1845

Chas....yes, it's fairly blatant....but MS chooses who and what to chase after and it seems a resource-hack/decompile of a theme service is not on their radar....at least not while it's frequently 'broken' with Service updates, etc....

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

The phrase "bigger fish to fry" comes to mind here.

But anyway, the reason there's no .msstyles section here is that in our view, they're borderline warez. Every .msstyles contains Microsoft's copyright and digital signature (an invalid one) in it.

.msstyles are DLLs renamed. On logons and boot screens, we actually wrote free programs so that we could have sections here for them. .logonxp and .bootskin don't reqiure users to redistribute copyrighted files around.

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I think TGT Soft is just lucky that they choose the Microsoft Operating System to hack, steal and profit from the unlicensed format. If this were an Apple OS, I believe that they would be hanging by the neck. Or at least, their wallets would be a lot lighter.

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The phrase "bigger fish to fry" comes to mind here.

It seems to me that Microsoft is the one being fried. If you become too big, everyone wants a piece of you. With Apple on the other hand, it seems everyone looks at them as someone just trying to survive in a Microsoft business. It makes me wonder how Bill Gates keeps any hair on his head. I guess he just lets the lawyers lose the hair.

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makes me wonder how Bill Gates keeps any hair on his head.

are you SURE it's hair and not a CG ?

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Until this discussion, and the mention of TGTsoft licensing some Stardock file formats, I didn't think file formats were copyrightable. I knew that many people try to keep the format of their files proprietary by not publically documenting the format. But I never heard of reverse-engineering file formats as being illegal. I mean Wordperfect reads MS .DOC files, and QuattroPro reads Lotus 123 and Excel file formats. Sure, I can buy that contents of a file are copyrightable, but not the format. Like books for example, the actual words are copyrightable. But if some book vendor would say, "hey, your books have a Table of Contents, Preface and Index just like our books do, you owe us money! I don't think I buy that.

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Thanks for answering some of my questions on StyleXP. So, someone said that .msstyles are a MS proprietary format. In my post above, I said that I'm somewhat dubious of the idea of it being copyrightable. But, assuming that it can and is copyrighted, what is the "official" way to develop .msstyles? Does MS intend for only themselves to develop any, or is there some official program for someone to develop officially blessed .msstyles?

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paxx

Join Date 03/2001

MS intented to only release themes themselves.

File format certainly are copywritable. Some formats are opened (ex: the swf format is now public) some are not. In cases where the format is not public, a licence must be paid to the copyright holder. You mention the DOC format, and I actually seem to remember a lawsuit about it years ago between Word Perfect and Microsoft.

Anyway, the real issue here is not that a company wants to let its users convert another file format into their own - although that's also illegal - the real issue is that a company wants to use somebody else's format as their own! There are no other icon formats for Style XP!! Imagine that! How lazy can you be? You don't even bother making your own format, you're just going to use somebody else's!!

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You mention the DOC format, and I actually seem to remember a lawsuit about it years ago between Word Perfect and Microsoft.

Really? I don't remember any such suit. If there was, I'd be interested in knowing the outcome.

In cases where the format is not public, a licence must be paid to the copyright holder

Now I do specifically remember years back people publishing books on file formats. Somebody reverse engineered various formats such as Lotus, DB2, etc., and published books. I don't think people were happy, but I don't remember any lawsuits. I acknowledge I could be mistaken, but I don't think so.

Anyway, the real issue here is not that a company wants to let its users convert another file format into their own - although that's also illegal

Um, doesn't Stardock's SkinStudio import .msstyles? If so, aren't they the proverbial pot calling the kettle black?

the real issue is that a company wants to use somebody else's format as their own! There are no other icon formats for Style XP!! Imagine that! How lazy can you be? You don't even bother making your own format, you're just going to use somebody else's!!

Oh, come on! This is just silly, like you are just trying to find something to criticize.

I seem to remember current Wordperfect/Quattro Pro offerrings supporting MS formats not just as import/export, but elevated to being classified as "native" formats. The idea has NOTHING to do with laziness, it has to do with compatibility and standardization. Everybody can read a .DOC file or a .PDF file, it is just dumb to release new formats for no purpose other than "just to be different". The world doesn't need new file formats just to be a differnt file format.

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Imagine this. I create a Program and a special file format. This special zip format(Iptheme for example) can read from a contained ini file and know where the icons and cursors contained in that package go, the name of the package, the author, etc. Then I create a program that executes the instructions in my special zip folder. This is much more complicated than a mere .doc file. You don't think I would have rights to my iptheme file. Then I guess I wouldn't have rights to the program that I created to read it. Or maybe someone changes my programs interface, relabels it and calls it their own. Then, should they be allowed to use my Iptheme file as well?

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2419

With regards to intellectual property, companies have to defend that intellectual property or lose their rights. That's what, for example, trade marks are so heavily enforced these days.

SkinStudio imports .msstyles. But Stardock waited THREE years to do that. If it weren't for Stardock's desire to honor Microsoft's wishes, it would have owned the whole .msstyles phenomenon (we were making .msstyles back in December 2000 before XP even shipped).

It was only Stardock's refusal to use .msstyles without MS's permission that opened the door to programs like Style XP in the first place.

Since Microsoft has done nothing to actively stop msstyles from being created, Stardock has the competitive right to make use of them as well. From a business point of view, nothing would please us more than for Microsoft to aggressively eliminate third party msstyles.

Ultimately, the rule and law is: He that creates a thing has certain rights over that thing.

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Now with regards to the .msstyles format: If someone creates a bmp image or jpeg image is that copyrightable? According to you, it shouldn't be. The author did not create the bmp format or the jpeg format. This is similar to .msstyles files. The author does have a copyright on the images contained within that file. If the author then decides to convert his image files to another format, which doesn't belong to Microsoft, is he not entitled to do so? This is what Windowblinds does, and Stardock owns the rights to the wba format. Unlike TGT Soft which directly takes the Microsoft .msstyles file, reverse engineers and hacks the Microsoft operating system files and calls the .msstyles file their own. Yes, calling it their own because, they have not paid for the right to profit from this special Microsoft format.

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Last time I looked there was a free version of WindowBlinds.

Problem solved!

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And to be even more legal, Stardock initially did not even use msstyles file(as Brad explained). Windowblind created its own file format and its own program to use that format. The recent usage of msstyles files were again as Brad explained. If there was a copyright against conversion, how could any graphic or word processing program even exist? Does one company own the PNG, JPEG, PSP and BMP formats? Does one company own txt, wpd, doc, files? Should conversion be allowed? No? Then, what about the programs themselves that use scripts? These are basically text files too. With your given scenario, as you can see, there would be no programs outside of Microsoft programs. This is just what the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Microsoft for, and established fair program competition.

Formats such as txt and bmp are neccessary to run any program. Whereas, compiled file formats are not. They were specially created to use with the program itself. I.E.(Iptheme, msstyles, wba)

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