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Microsoft Loses Appeal To Shut Down LindowsOS
alphabet26 writes "LindowsOS announced yesterday that a Seattle Judge has denied Microsoft's appeal to shut them down, citing that Microsoft's own use of evidence helped determined "Windows" is a generic word. Lindows.com has posted the judge's seven page ruling on their website." Microsoft is trying get an injunction to prevent Lindows from using the name while the trial proceeds, and the judge has denied them, twice. Lindows could still lose the case in the end, though.
Why did Lindows pick that name? To poke at Microsoft. And MS took the bait and ran crying to Mommy. The entire thing is utterly meaningless and so typically penile. Lindows is obviously in the wrong here but MS is only marginally better.
Angela Taylor, PhD
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Feminist, scientist, scholar, woman
Wouldn't that be FUNNY if Microsoft lost its "Windows" trademark name because it tries to bully a small company into obeying its will. Ha! This made my day...
Now, I want you to think about this very hard.
Lindows is Linux with some Wine updates to run Microsoft software on Linux.
Linux was created by Linus Torvalds to be a replacement for Minux.
Minux was based off of Unix.
Unix was not a spin-off of Microsoft's technology.
Please, either redraft your statement so it makes sense, or research before talking.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The truly important bit is regarding "trademarking of common phrases". I think it absolutely ridiculous that companies can trademark any common word or phrase. Reference a similar suit to this one, Mastercard suing Nader over "priceless" to see this kind of silliness in action. (feel free to find a better article, I just pulled the first item off google)
Basically, I do not condone the use of language "exclusivism". Language, as a whole, does not lend itself well to patentability. Satire, documentaries etc. are protected speech regardless of trademark, although occasionally (as usual) the courts can get confused. In this case it is even more bizarre. Suing over a name sounding the same? Poets beware!
-------------rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
No, it isn't. Microsoft has the benefit of having strong public recognition of both their product name and their company name. Furthermore, it wouldn't kill their trademark on the distinctive Windows flag logo that many people have seen at boot-up for the past 7 years.
I also think that retail stores would be less likely to carry a Linux-based operating system labelled "RedHat Windows". Why? Because anyone confused enough to buy "RedHat Windows" only because of the "Windows" in the name is going to return it the very next day when it fails to "work" (where "work" equates to running all his/her existing MS Windows-based programs; wine or other emulation packages aren't going to be enough to appease a novice end-user who was expecting actual MS Windows).
Finally, I think breaking up a monopoly via trademark is inherently lame. The whole point of trademarks are to allow consumers to be able to differentiate the different products in a given market. I know I'd feel dirty if Linux had to start tricking people into using it.
Think about it this way: it's like the people who bashed the hell out of Star Wars Episode I, but still showed up at midnight in full Jedi drag for Attack of the Clones. There's constant whining and putting-down of Microsoft, yet everything that goes into KDE and Lindows tries to make Linux more Windows-like.
Why must Linux define itself through Windows? It's good enough to stand on its own, last I heard...
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
"Without MS, they'd have no reason to name their product that."
Without MS, this product wouldn't exist in the first place, so what's your point?
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
Time to look in the mirror and start applying more makeup as you are no longer passable...
Anyway, this has nothing to do with bait as most likely the Lindows people aren't enjoying spending time and other resources defending themselves. It is just MS trying to defend a trademark and seeing how far it can go. Also, there is the issue of whether it is "fair" to allow a company to ride the wave of someone else's work in building up a brand.
I think it is an important case. If MS wins then corporate lawyers everywhere will be licking their chops to go after anything that even remotely looks similar to an established corporate trademark...it will be another headache for small businesses.
Microsoft Windows (MS-Windows) is one thing; Linux Windows (Lindows) should certainly be another; Bindows (BeOS-Windows) could be another; etc. The "Windows" part is too generic alone to have exclusive right to use --- the identifier "Microsoft" _plus_ the generic though I think is fair to establish as one's own exclusive trademark.
I think Microsoft IS trying to shut down the Lindows OS (or perhaps I should say they are trying to KEEP it vaporware).
Jobs mimicked Xerox. Gates mimicked Jobs. Robertson mimicked Gates. Only Gates knows how well mimicking works as a business model.
I think Microsoft wants Lindows to never be done...or at least they never want Windows to be done until Lindows won't run(tm).
The silly trademark thing was the only thing they could attack until there's an actual product.
You can bet [if|once] a final, shipping product comes out of lindows.com Microsoft will sue for reasons other than just the Windows trademark.
Winux will mean too much of a resemblance wit Linux, which, contrary to windows, is not a generic term.
"'Pocket PC' is a generic term used throughout the industry," company representative Marianne Peterson said to a judge in a near-empty court. "Microsoft is simply not infringing this trademark...and asks the court to dismiss the case." Cnet
"The evidence relied on by Lindows is insufficient for two reasons," said Microsoft. "First, it shows use of 'windows' as the name of a feature, not as the name of a genus of products. Such feature references may show that 'windows' is descriptive of the goods, but not generic. Second, Lindows' evidence shows repeated uses of Windows as Microsoft's trademark. Thus, it offers no support for a finding of genericness." zdnet
Maybe not a complete contradiction, but amusing nonetheless.
For the love of $DEITY, loose != not win!!!!!
They've never used a Secure OS before, So why would they CARE about security? The goal is to place them on linux, not give them "security"
And they expect Wine to be the magic bullet for compatibility with the users software. While Wine is amazing technology and certainly praiseworthy, it's hardly a universal solution. What Transgaming and Codeweavers have done with Wine is excellent in their relevant niches. But to build up expectations that Linux will be able to run pretty much whatever Windows software you throw at it? Not a chance. There's still some Win 3.1 apps that won't run (Distant Suns: First Light is the only one I care about.
WindowsXP doesnt run Windows 3.1 or Windows95 software yet no one seems to care as long as it runs Word, IE, etc.
No, Lindows takes the weaknesses of both OS's in Windows lack of security and Linux's lack of wide commercial software support and emphasizes them.
What really matters is if Linux is more stable than Windows, More powerful than Windows, and offers more FREEDOM than Windows.
Windows users who want Security will eventually upgrade to a better Linux, the goal isnt to give security to people who dont understand how security works.
The goal is to give them stability and freedom and let them decide what to do next. Linux wont crash. Linux wont have DRM, People like to burn their CDs and not have their computer crash.
These people are used to being hacked by tom dick and harry and wont really notice a diffrence there.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I can see the headlines...
.NET framework).
"Microsoft announces it's new operating system, 'WinLinux', which will combine the security and reliability of Linux with the ease of use and application base of Windows."
Not likely, huh?
The biggest threat against the Windows monopoly is not the presence of a technically superior operating system. The biggest threat to the Windows monopoly, is widespread awareness that an alternative *exists* at all.
Microsoft is better off ignoring Linux than starting campaigns against it, which is largely what it has done. But they are losing anyway.
Which is why they are trying to dominate and control other markets instead, like the handheld computer market (with their PocketPC), the game console market (with their XBox), or the market for platform-independent network-transparent applications (with their
I am aware of the differences in SysV and BSD style *nixes. And Linux is very SysV-ish, if you know what I mean.
Are you suggesting they have taken the linux kernel and put a BSD-style userspace, filespace, etc. to it?
If so, what would be the point? I mean, why NOT just use FreeBSD? Starting with FreeBSD, hiring programmers to improve linux binary compatibility, and throwing in Wine would not require you release your changes to FreeBSD back to the community right? I mean, I thought that was the point of the BSD license?
This is why I'd like someone who HAS a preview to run strings on the binaries. I'd like to know if they actually came from linux or [Free|Open|Net]BSD?
I don't know, I suspect the linux trademark would be easy to break. Linux himself has intentionally done nothing to defend the trademark. (IIRC someone else registers Linux in their own name, and lawsuit was brought which proved the Linus is the rightful owner. Linux said thanks, but I'm not enforcing it because trademrk protection is not something that linux needs.