Slashdot Mirror
AOL: Lindows Is Misleading People
jgeelan writes "According to this breaking news item, AOL has apparently said over the weekend that it is going to ask Lindows to change its promotional material after concluding that Lindows is misleading people into thinking that it has a strategic relationship with AOL."
Lindows CEO Michael Roberts, formerly CEO of mp3.com, was reported as saying "We have great faith in AOL's ability to fund me with another $100 million in venture capital, and I'm really sorry about that whole mp3.com blowout thing. Anyone want to go for a ride on my new yacht?"
For their next trick, having pissed off Microsoft and AOL, Lindows will be renaming to iLindows, just to attract attention from Apple
Lawyers - collect the set.
a grrl & her server
...just how hard is it to mislead potential AOL customers?
The issue is totally independant from the software. The issue is that Lindows is claiming strategic partnerships with AOL and Netscape, when in reality all they did was "fill in a one-page form on Netscape's web site and click the 'I Agree' button. So have 70,000 other resellers under the Netscape Browser Distribution Program. The software is free.". Whether the OS was Linux-based or not, the issue is that you can't just go around claiming partnerships with any company you want just to get yourself 15 minutes of fame or credibility.
slashdot!=valid HTML
That Lindows is a really shady operation? Everything they do seems a litle scummy.
Reminds me of AIMster.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Why, it even had MSNBC talking about Lindows 2.0 as "AOL's new Netscape OS."
;-)
So this wasn't just a case of Lindows stretching the truth- it was also a case of bad reporting by MSNBC, without whom the "AOL-Lindows" link would never have been brought up (or at least, it would not have been as hyped as it was).
But what if it wasn't just "sloppy reporting"? You have to wonder- why would a site associated with MS hint at a non-existant connection between Lindows and AOL?
I smell a conspiracy here...
Richard Stallman, director of the Free Software Foundation, wrote a 43 page letter to Lindows telling them why they should NOT call their operating system GNU/Lindows.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Imagine this in the future, grom Ask Slashdot:
"Hello. My name is John and I'm having problems with my new PC. The AOL daemon (AOLd) keeps crashing. Anyone had this problem before? Thanks!! u r so cool if u can help!"
I think Lindows is trying to follow the Napster model:
1. Create a product (it doesn't have to be any good).
Oh, that's right, Napster *was* a crappy product, despite the fact that it was one of the first of its kind, and managed to almost single-handedly change the face of music online. Napster was the cream of the crop when it started, despite the fact that it started to tank later on in its life.
Lindows has no such claim to fame. From what I can tell (not having used the OS), it just seems like a sloppy distro, made to look pretty, with a name that (erroneously) implies that it'll run MS products. It very well may do more harm to the Linux (GNU/Linux, whatever) cause than good.
Lindows is misleading people into thinking that it has a strategic relationship with AOL...
This just in.. Company changes its name to AOLindows. Claims it's just an amazing coincidence.
=-Jippy
Actually Lindows was implying a partnership with AOL by focusing on the ability for AOL software (the Windows version) to run under Lindows. The page is gone from the Lindows site now, apparently because of this legal threat but it prominent (big and flashing graphics) and on the homepage.
Everything inside Lindows 2.0 is improved. Not perfect, but improved. The graphics are better and there's an overall feeling of a professional OS inside, rather than geeks-only software. The KDE desktop looks and feels like Windows, with a few exceptions.
Jeez I don't know where to start...
There's an overall feeling of a professional OS inside, rather than geeks-only software.
Ummm I'm just reading this and my head begins to hurt. I use linux and I believe it has always been a professional OS. By professional I mean, well it works, it's extremely advanced, can be used for just about anything and it's very customizable. Not because it isn't "geeks-only" what kind of stupid statement is that? If I give my cousin a fisher price computer thingy with those plastic crappy cards that have different games on them, I don't call it a professional computer because it's not. It isn't "geeks-only", but that doesn't make it professional.
When I want a professional OS, I don't install Windows Me, that isn't professional, it isn't "geeks-only" either. I would install Linux (or FreeBSD which I have started to use these past few weeks.) When I use Linux it does have a "geeks-only" feel to it, that's one reason why I like it. It's stable, secure (well most of the time), small, powerfull, and all this stuff is what makes it professional (in my opinion), I don't call something professional when it isn't "geeks-only." I don't want a little paper clip to hold my hand when I compile a kernel, I don't want a little dog to help me updatedb and locate | grep. I want a raw OS, one that's powerfull and secure, not one that's designed with my grandmother in mind. The things that make it professional are the same things that make it feel like it's "geeks-only."
The KDE desktop looks and feels like Windows, with a few exceptions.
Why does everyone try to compare desktop managers with Windows? Isn't the whole point of installing Linux to get away from Microsoft? Out of the 6 billion people in this world (yeah they're not all comptuer geeks but still at least one should be good enough) is the Windows desktop the most creative and easy to use interface we can come up with? I'm sure there must be something better out there to use. Why do we keep making Linux more and more like windows in all these Distro's. Well I guess it's to make the transition into Linux an easy one, but people seem to learn how to use Mac OS just fine and that's far from windows (at least from what I've seen it is, I could be wrong, not a huge Mac user.) Anyway that statement about Lindows being more professional because it isn't "geeks-only" really pisses me off, and also the comparison to windows.
Why shouldn't AOL team up with a linux distribution to make some kind of "AOL-Linux"? It would be a niche product basically for people who use their PC's exclusively for AOL and web browsing. A 50% tax on perfectly usable hardware ($200 bare bones at Walmart, $300 for same system with windows) is quite excessive.
That MSNBC article reminds me very much of the early days of micros... when nothing worked but nobody would admit it. An attitude that has, alas, to some extent been internalized into the whole PC industry.
... doesn't work. Outlook almost works (it can't find my e-mail server at work) and Internet Explorer works sometimes. I haven't tried other Windows software titles, but I'm told some do work."
In the late seventies, an acquaintance of mine used to rave about his Northstar system. I asked about reliability and he said it had been perfect, never any problems. I asked for a demo. He said he'd love to give me one but he couldn't right then, as the power supply had burned out. I said "I thought you said you hadn't had any problems." He said, "Oh, the problem is just in the power supply. The computer itself is fine."
The MSNBC article has that flavor to me. "As for the Microtel hardware, everything works as advertised except for the CD-ROM drive, which I haven't been able to get sound from yet." Right. It's not as if sound were an important function.
He says "I mentioned that Lindows was originally touted as being able to run Microsoft Windows programs. Guess what? IT CAN." (Capitals his). That's what he says first. It's only a little later that he mentions "[in Office the] Open New Document icon;
Yeah, right. It's not as if you'd ever want to create a NEW document, editing existing ones should be good enough for anyone. It's not as if it matters that the email program can't talk to your email server. And, yes, I'm so picky that I expect IE to work more often than "sometimes." I demand nothing less than "mostly," and you should, too.
Lindows... "IT CAN" run Windows software. And my friend's Northstar computer wasn't broken.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I find it pleasing to see a click-through agreement being leveraged the other way. After all, we're repeatedly told by Big Interests that click-throughs (like EULA's) ARE binding contracts entered into by mutual agreement. Fine, then we have a contract, a.k.a. a business relationship, a.k.a. a high level strategic alliance. ;-)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.