LEGO Responds to Business 2.0

Johannes K. writes "Here is an apparently official news message sent out by LEGO as a response to the recent article on mindstorms in Business 2.0. In it, LEGO states that they think it is great that people hack mindstorms and write their own software for it; in fact, they are convinced it will increase the popularity of the product. (Now there's an attitude you don't see nearly often enough.) However, they do have to protect their trademarks, and LegOS is apparently one of the victims of that. Understandable, I suppose."

Comments

LEGO Mindstorms meet AI Mindforms

[Mentifex]

The LEGO Minstorms robot has already been hacked for Forth by Ralph Hempel; logic dictates that the next step is to adapt the Artificial Mind from http://mind.sourceforge.net for LEGO Mindstorms, since the JavaScript teaching AI is also in Forth at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mind/.

Trademark infringement

[Diabolical]

The name LegOS was intended to sound and read just like LEGO. I read a lame excuse about the author saying his name would be translated into "Leg" and OS was meant to mean Operating System... However he also said to take it with a wink...

I grew up with LEGO. I still think it's the coolest toy around.. so much possibilities with only your imagination as the border... i'm glad they took this stand however i don not think it has anything to do with being european (i am european btw). It is just a case of sound mind.

For all i can tell the fact that hackers creating unthought ways of using Mindstorms has made the company sell more sets than even they anticipated.. (i read somewhere an est. 100.000 against the 15.000 they thought). It certainly would be a bad idea if they were going to bite the hand that feeds them..

Besides.. the software used for mindstorms isn't their core bussiness.. it's the plastic that we play an build with...

Re:European mindset ?

[MosesJones]

if she'd been Italian he would have given her another bottle.

As a tourist its the same all over, I've had dodgy problems in stores in the US (esp smaller ones) and the basic attitude is "I know you can't do jack because your leaving in two days time".

Same the world over. European laws do protect the consumer in a similar manner to the US laws. The warrenty on Software products however protects the company and basically says "you gave us $200, we will allow you to use the product for a little while but we still own it and can take it back, disable it or whatever, oh and any bugs in it then tough shit and fork out for the upgrade"

Re:European mindset ?

[ebbe11]

There's more to it than that. The U.S. has consumer protection laws that make the producer liable for a product's performance. That's why there are warranties.

Can't have it both ways and U.S. laws give the protection to the consumer. This isn't something a company can chose to opt out of.

So do most European countries. But there's a limit: our laws do not protect the consumer from himself. Around here we assume that people can think for themselves and if they can't, it's their own bloody fault.

BTW, we also have fewer lawyers over here...

Re:Makes some sense

[Foggy Tristan]

Fifth paragraph after Clarifications...

Again, not a problem with the programs themselves, or with hacking LEGO MINDSTORMS software and hardware in general. To be absolutely clear: we have never sued, are not suing, and do not contemplate suing anyone for taking apart LEGO MINDSTORMS and writing their own code to extend the product, or for distributing that code for free.

(I am really getting sick of the 20 second rule here by the way)