History of Java API

	Revision 10 . . December 13, 2001 1:36 am by Forgotten gentleman [new legal issues section]
	Revision 9 . . December 13, 2001 12:44 am by Damian Yerrick [DT/DD into H4; some copyedits; AWT unimplemented in several cases; look-and-feel trademark issues in Swing]
	Revision 8 . . December 12, 2001 11:54 pm by Forgotten gentleman [Cleanup, links, deeper explanation of javax.swing]
	Revision 7 . . December 12, 2001 10:04 pm by Forgotten gentleman [Clarification, corrections to java.lang/Reflection]
	Revision 6 . . (edit) December 12, 2001 9:52 pm by Forgotten gentleman [Got rid of little border thingie]
	Revision 5 . . December 12, 2001 9:51 pm by Forgotten gentleman [Enumeration of jdk 1.3 APIs.]
	Revision 4 . . December 12, 2001 5:36 pm by Hannes Hirzel [Fixed 'garbage collection link']
	Revision 3 . . (edit) December 12, 2001 5:30 pm by (logged).253.39.xxx [term in bold]
	Revision 2 . . December 12, 2001 2:25 pm by Damian Yerrick [Some experts think it's not the API but the GC]
	Revision 1 . . December 12, 2001 10:49 am by Ed Poor [stub, pro-Java]

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Changed: 66c66

There is support for "look and feels," so that widgets in the GUI can imitate those from the underlying native system (unless the native system's copyright or trademark owner demands that the look be implemented in terms of the underlying native widgets, as in the case of the Aqua look and feel in Apple's Mac OS X), or a completely fictional one.

There is support for "look and feels," so that widgets in the GUI can imitate those from the underlying native system (except when IP rights force workarounds, as noted in the Legal Issues section), or a completely fictional one.

Added: 70a71,77

Legal Issues In the corporate programming culture, legal issues surrounding Intellectual Property often complicate technical issues. This fact of life is especially apparent with regard to the Java API. For example, the Swing API often imitates the underlying native platform's GUI, using perfectly cross-platform code. This way, users (ideally) feel comfortable and unaware they're working on a non-native platform, without Sun needing to pollute Swing with native code. However, the native system's copyright or trademark owner may demand that the look be implemented in terms of the underlying native widgets, as in the case of the Aqua look and feel in Apple's Mac OS X. Apple considers Aqua to be a competitive advantage, and desires the look and feel to be confined to their operating system.