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Lindows becomes Lindash
Daveh writes "The Register is reporting that 'The operating system Lindows is now available as Lin---s (pronounced: Lin-dash) in those countries where Microsoft has blocked the availability of the desktop Linux distribution. The new name complies with a recent Amsterdam court ruling (PDF), the San Diego company says.' There are a few new sites to reflect the name change, including Lin---s.com and Lindash.nl."
but Fox would have forced them to shutdown their Simpsons Fan website
In dutch: "Beveelt Lindows.com om binnen acht dagen na betekening van dit vonnis de toegang voor de website(s) van Lindows.com waarop zij programmatuur aanbiedt onder de naam "Lindows", "Lindows.com", en "LindowsOS", inclusief maar niet beperkt tot de website op URL http://www.lindows.com, ontoegankelijk te maken voor bezoekers uit Belgie, Nederland en Luxemburg." , which roughly translates to:
"(The court) Orders a verdict under which Lindows.com is to block access to the website of Lindows.com where she offers software under the name of "Lindows", including but not limited to the website at URL http://www.lindows.com, to all vistors from Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg."
I can still access it, even though I'm from Holland, but I feel I still have the right to get the Lindows product from Lindows.com as I please.
This view of the "Internet", and the websites that it houses is quite stalinistic in my humble opinion.
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The web site you're looking for is http://www.bullyhill.com/
Apparently the recent labels have a picture of a goat on them. Halfway down this page is a picture from the Bully Hill Winery with an unusual quote sitting atop one of the doorways in reference to the goat labels:
If only he had 0wned llamas. Excuse me, that should have read "owned."
True story.
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Sponsoring several open source projects:
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kde-look.org
- kde-apps.org
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Mozilla
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Nvu
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gaim
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And the list goes on
...
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Hiring Everaldo
Yeah, let's hope they go belly up. Now, who is the baby ?The court injunction can be found here.
"Inflammable means flammable? What a strange country!" -Dr. Nick, The Simpsons
Except that it's the X Window System, not X Windows.
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Actually, the way trademark infringement works is that you can _only_ go after people whose products compete in the same arena yours do. The idea is to prevent somebody from taking a name or other identifier that's been effectively built up by one company in a particular type of business, and using it to their own benefit.
So, for example, "Anonymous Coward Computing Solutions" would have a tough time suing "Anonymous Coward Shoe Warehouses." They're entirely different markets, and there's pretty much no way one could cause harm to the other. On the other hand, "'Nonymous Coward Shoe Warehouses" might be infringing.
In theory, you can't own the word "windows"- you can only have rights to it in your particular trade. IMAO, it would actually be much worse if companies had to defend their trademarks against anyone using remotely similar trademarks. That would mean that people in completely other business areas would end up getting sued by Microsoft (or IBM, or whoever), just 'cause their name was similar. I'd hate to see what would happen to "Bob's Windows and Frames"...
Since we studied this in a law class last semester:
For a company to win in a trademark case, the biggest factor is showing that the allegedly infringing trademark is likely to cause confusion in a normal consumer. So it doesn't have to be precisely the same or anything, it just has to be to the point that your normal consumer might get confused by it, and hence you'd have your bussiness hurt.
That's why if it is two totally different products, there's usually not a problem. No one is going to mistake software called Firebird for the car called Firebird, two totally different thigns. However Windows and Lindows were both OSes, and Lindows selling point is being like Windows (similar interface, alleged compatibility, always root, etc).
That's probably why MS had a fairly strong case, since it seemed reasonable that a normal consumer would get confused. I think that is a reasonable statement, a non-savvy user could easily buy a Lindows machine believing it to the same as Windows.
The statements made by the developers of Lindows don't help either. As memory serves, they were touting it as a Windows replacement, and actually had to back down on some claims because they couldn't get compatibility as good as they thought. That sort of thing is factored in.
I get the joke, but it doesn't work because Lindows is only 7 characters.
In the case of the car and candy trademarks you cited, they're all based on words not generic within their category - as is also the case with Apple, Amazon, etc.
In the case of your cereals, there's some actual relevant history there - a company got a trademark on the descriptive name "Shredded Wheat" and lost it when they tried to stop another company from using it because it was found to be unprotectable. Descriptive names can only be protected if they gain some secondary meaning beyond the raw description. This also why you see so many "Raisin Bran" and "Corn Flakes" cereals out there from different companies.
Then comes "generic" terms - you cannot trademark the single word "Apple" for apples, though you might be able to trademark the descriptive combination "Tasty Apples". "Windows" was and is a generic term used in computer science, and Microsoft is the only entity that disputes this fact. The combination "Microsoft Windows" is a valid trademark, but the single term "Windows" should not be - in fact the USPTO turned them down three times on that basis.
The "Xerox" issue is one where a trademark term is in danger of going from protectable to unprotectable (fanciful to generic) due to lack of diligence in defending it. The Lindows/Windows case is about the exact opposite - a generic term somehow becoming protectable. The judge in the US Lindows case (IMHO correctly) found that law and case precedents did not support that notion, and Microsoft is appealing.
WindX overview
WindX home
Lindows is an unstable bastardization of Debian. It's insecure, forcing you to run as root.
.sig.
-- For more information on dirty underhanded tricks that Lindows has pulled (worse than the name) - read my
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
That's what "Lindash" is for.