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

Re:Another possible way

[eXtro]

That would probably be a bit scary for LEGO. Once you license your name out then the reputation of that project affects your reputation and brand recognition. Around here the reputation of the software is apparently good, but what about outside of this small group of people? Right now its probably mostly unknown, but once its licensed it becomes more visible.

Not everybody would feel the same way, especially if some well intentioned but misguided people decide that the path to salvation is through unchaining people from the official LEGO (though the unofficial would now be official too!) software.

I wish I could find the link, but I found an utterly clueless rant the other day as I was looking for video4linux information. He was chastising the video4linux developers because they didn't support his hardware and that it only supported a few high priced boards and older technology. He had absolutely no concept that this was a) a volunteer effort, b) required reverse engineering in most cases since most companies don't release specifications.

Anyway, I see the same thing happening here, only much worse: "I installed the LEGO software on my kids LEGO set and can't make it do anything. I want my damned money back."

Sure, the response should be "Oh, use the software on the CD, its a nice graphical language" but from past experiences that response won't work.