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Lindows Takes a Hit in the Netherlands

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the taking-the-business-elsewhere dept.

diersing writes "The Register has the latest on it. Resellers of the Linux distribution Lindows in the Netherlands were ordered today to stop selling the product. Amsterdam judge Rullmann agreed with Microsoft that in many ways Lindows is 'profiting from the success of Windows' by infringing on Microsoft's trademarks." This seems to be a rather common occurrence lately.

5 of 354 comments (clear)

  1. They had it coming by Kieckerjan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Although I detest this verdict, I cannot say Lindows didn't have it coming. The name is a deliberate gamble. And when you gamble, you win some and you lose some. They won a lot free publicity all around the globe. Now they lost a case. Big deal. It's all in the game.

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  2. Re:TRanslated from dutch website by storem · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Also the judge ruled that Lindows must ensure that internet users from the Benelux [BElgium NEtherlands LUXembourg] can no longer access the site www.lindows.com.

    Not that I'm that patriotic or anything, but how on earth can a Dutch judge restrict my ability (I'm Belgian citizen) to visit a particular website (even if it is www.lindows.com) by obliging the owner to deny me access?

    There are no court agreements between the Benelux countries in my opinion, at least a Belgian judge should rule in the same way as the Dutch one to make this ligitimate. This would be different if this ruling was made in the EU (European Union) court in Strassbourg, whose rulings supersede Belgian ones.

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  3. Re:Seriously.. by Liselle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is no "they", there is the Lindows CEO, Michael Robertson. This is the guy who funded the XBOX hacking contest. Any opportunity he has to piss in Microsoft's Cheerios, he will take.

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  4. Why is everybody so upset by this? by Monkey+Overlord · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why is everybody so upset by this? The fact that Microsoft is evil, does not mean they are wrong going after Lindows.
    Lindows tries to emulate MS Windows' look, functionality and even the name. What's worse is that it is not doing any of those things very well either.
    I don't see why Lindows is even out there. What purpose does it serve? Are they trying to confuse people to switch to Linux? I can see how something like that could happen to some Joe-Sixpack who goes to a store sees Lindows OS v.XX on the shelves and thinks it the new version of XP. Also, I can see why someone would want to emulate Windows API to run applications ... makes sense considering that a lot of software is not available for Linux. But the look and the name just don't make sense. If the GUI is the user's problem, he/she should not be using Linix anyways. Jesus, if you are too stupid to figure out which one is the "close window" button in KDE because you are so used to Windows ... you are too dumb, don't reproduce, pick up smoking and drinking and use MS Windows for the rest of your natural life.

  5. X Lindows by totierne · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Or would MIT and apple complain?
    How did Microsoft Windows get a trademark on Windows, is it that different to X Windows?

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