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

LegOS Should Be Renamed

[zoward]

Lego the company has held out the olive branch in a way that other comapnies should emulate. Renaming LegOS is not a huge request to show some goodwill back from the open source community.

Re:LegOS Should Be Renamed

[abe ferlman]

Anyone who watches my comments knows I'm the first to complain when people don't respect free software, but everyone from Stallman to Mundie agrees on one thing: attribution is important. Even in a world without legal "ownership", it's important to make it clear who was responsible for ideas. This doesn't mean that the person responsible should control those ideas, but using the name LegOS does come dangerously close to making it seem as though the authors are speaking for Lego. I hope the authors will simply change the name and take advantage of the free publicity it will generate rather than put Lego in the unfortunate position of using the ugly tools of intellectual property to enforce their will. Don't get me wrong- I'm not saying Lego would be right to do this, but that's not to say that they don't have a valid complaint.

Bryguy

Make an effort to support this attitude

[gandalf_grey]

I think that the open source community should make a concerted effort to support the attitude. Specifically that the modification, use of open standards, and reuse of materials is not a crime, but a bennifit to many companies. "Coding is not a crime".

European mindset ?

[MosesJones]

This isn't totally unexpected. There has been quite a bit of evidence with DeCSS et al than Europe, and in paticular Scandinavia takes a much lighter view on these acts than their US counterparts. In the US the attitude is "its MY toy you can't play" where as the European attitude is more "you've bought it, its your own fault if you bugger it up".

Somewhat ironically in a dicussion on toys the US companies are themselves acting like spoilt toddlers. LEGOs action appears a very mature response to what isn't really a problem. You bought the product, do what you want. If you bought LEGO bricks and , shock horror, made something other than the car on the box then they'd be fine with that.

Hopefully some US companies will realise that once we buy their products we have the right to break them and use them as we want. If I want to use a CD as a coaster I will, or a frisbee or what ever.

I'll get back in my cot now :)

Re:European mindset ?

[Nurgster]

Except the US population has an attitude of taking no responsibility for their actions. If the toy did break, chances are a lawsuit would follow.

This postive attitude is really great

[epsalon]

I think that if Lego are so supportive of people hacking their software and extending it, they might consider opening their own source under the GPL or similar license. This will enable them to directly benefit from the works of the people hacking their products in order to develop better 'official' software kits for Mindstorms in the future. It's a win-win situation.
About trademark protection, they have a point. It's one thing to hack Lego code, but a totally different thing to make it look as if it's official, and I don't buy that LegOS was not intended to sound like LEGO. Changing a name is a small price to pay for a very positive attiude towards open-source and hackers by a lagre corporation.

Yes, exactly.

[Kasreyn]

Tweaking Lego's tail might be fun, but there is such a thing as carrying a joke too far. Lego is being more wise and openminded that the vast majority of companies would in its shoes. We definitely need to LUNGE on this opportunity to SET a PRECEDENT, so we can hold it up to other countries in the same situation and say, "Look, Lego decided to be cool and not sue, and look how much the hackers benefitted them! You should do the same and not sue".

Precedent is good!

-Kasreyn

Hats off to LEGO (tm)

[Ami Ganguli]

I must say I'm impressed. After all the stupidity being perpetrated by mega-corporations lately, it's great to see a company do something thoughtful and intelligent. The letter was straightforward and reasonable - not threats, no legalese, just a well thought out explanation of their position. I had almost forgotten that corporations are capable of common sense - it feels good to be reminded.

You know, I haven't played with Legos in twenty years, but those Mindstorms do look pretty cool. Maybe I'll go out and buy a box.

Very reasonable

[Anonymous Coward]

Lego is the first reasonable corporate citizen on copyright and trademark laws that I've seen. Rather than blasting people with lawyers and nasty legal letters, they sent friendly, cooperative letters explaining the problem and working with the web sites to resolve it. Then, instead of going for an intellectual property landgrab, they set up a set of reasonable policies for fair use.

If I were Lego, I'd do two things slightly differently:

Lobby (and make clear that I'm doing so) for fair international IP law (rather than stronger international IP law), hopefully resambling that which the US had about ten years ago.

Allow some fair use of the red Lego logo (though the latter is really their call, and its certainly morally right if they wish not to do that).

Thanks, Lego! You've always had a strong sense of ethics in the types of toys you've made, and its good to see you're still carrying it on in how you interact with adults. I appreciate how your toys have always been educational and reasonably non-violent. I enjoyed your toys as a little kid, and now I can play with them again at MIT as a bigger kid, and probably my kids (when I have them) will have a huge collections of Legos as well.