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Lindows Agreeing to Change Name
xandroid writes "It looks like Lindows.com has thrown in the towel for the fight to keep its name: the Seattle Times reports that they 'would not continue a worldwide legal battle with Microsoft.' They will announce the new name next Wednesday, although a favorite is Lindos -- 'because it's the W that is causing all the problems'." Update: 04/07 19:37 GMT by S : This is worth clarifying - Michael Robertson is claiming "...the company will go by a different name outside the U.S. until it can win the right to use the Lindows name internationally."
From 2003, when Robertson (of Lindows fame) answered /. questions he said, "When we started Lindows.com we believed that software installation was extremely difficult for most users".
To me this shows that Robertson is making his money on the connection between Linux, Windows and Lindows; by bridging the gap between the ease of windows and the better systemic designs of Linux. Therefore without the perfect name, Lindows may vanish into obscurity; but is a name that important? I think so, I don't think so... it doesn't matter really, does it? What to call it? How about Easy-Linux? Lindos won't work either, because it's got DOS in it...
The entire thing was a PR stunt anyway. Anyone who didn't see this coming was kidding themselves.
Won't "Lindos" be just as scrutinized by Microsoft? After all, MikeRoweSoft was shot down, showing that a phonetic similarity is just as condemning as anything else.
Typos... that's just how I role.
DOS is just an acronym for Disk Operating System... if Caldera could/can have DR-DOS without copyright problems, I think Lindos would be pretty unencumbered.
Random thought: Why does everyone say IANAL? Wouldn't it be easier to assume no one is a lawyer unless they say otherwise?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
... sick of hearing Robertson whine like the world is out to get him?
"I believe it's the only way to respond to an onslaught from such a rich company, since we need to be able to continue to grow our business," he said.
Boo hoo. Who cares what you think of MSFT, they're in the right, IMO. If the OS was called Lacintosh OSX, Apple would do the same thing.
Selling a "windows replacement" as "lindows" is pushing the line. Myself, I see it as a sleazy attempt to confuse unsavvy K-Mart shoppers into thinking they're getting Windows compatible machine.
If MS released "Winux" do you think Linus would excercise his TM rights? I do, and he should.
Screw this guy. He poked a bear with a stick, and is now crying that the bear took a run at him. He should consider himself lucky to get away, company intact, without being mauled.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Why is it so difficult to find decent software names? Why does Adobe have "Photoshop" and the open source community have "The Gimp", which literally means a person with a limp? Why is there "Oracle" and "SQL Server", one which is cool, both historically and as a product brand, and one which is straightforward and easy to remember (if nothing else), but the OS community as "PostgreSQL"?
A lot of programmers in the Slashdot community take cheap shots at marketing and this is important, because extreme marketing types can be every bit as annoying as extreme nerds, but it would be nice if it was acknowledged that marketing is, actually, a legitimate discipline and that product naming is important.
Lindos? So this is the BEST they can do?: Ask the community or drop the 'W'? Come on, guys. You came up with the software, why not make a legitimate effort to take the name seriously?
Would you go around to all your friends to ask what to name your child? And if you couldn't come up with anything by taking a poll would you just, say, drop the 'H' in John, if that was your first name, and call it done? I mean let's face it, good software is a lot harder to make than a baby, for most of us anyway ...
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
At one point, Lindows had been taking the position that Lindows could not be infringing upon the Windows trademark, because Windows was itself an invalid trademark (already being a common term within the computer industry before MS started using it). I had really wanted to see how this played out. I think Lindows was correct on this assessment; MS was improperly granted a trademark on an already-existing term from that field. On the other hand, there is now so much business, brand recognition, and so forth built upon that trademark by now that the situation would be very difficult to correct, even if MS's hordes of attorneys failed to convince the judge to leave the situation be. The legal questions raised in that particular side of the case was what I was most interested in hearing the answers to, but now it's not something we're likely to see addressed.
That would be funny.
I do need to take issue with Robertson's stance that Microsoft will sue anyone in the desktop space. You'll notice for example, that they haven't sued Xandros and Mandrake. Gee, I wonder why. Could it be that their names don't rhyme with Microsoft's flag ship product?!
Generic term or not, if you name your competing operating system anything that even remotely sounds like Windows, you're begging for a Microsoft law suit. And I think Robertson knows it. I just wish he could be honest about it.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Microsoft owns "MS-DOS", but there have been many other DOS products (DR-DOS comes to mind). DOS is simply an acronym for Disk Operating System. In a very real way, Linux is, at least partially, a DOS, as are any other operating systems that run on a disk. The term just isn't used anymore because nobody wants to have anything to do with it, since it implies old MS-DOS for most.
Then again, I thought windows were pretty generic too...
With all due respect sir,
:p) or any other Distro.
I personnaly think that Lindows is good.
Lindows isn't Gentoo, RedHat, SuSE or Mandrake (..well screw that last two
Lindows is Lindows, Linux equivalent to Windows and most promising replacement OS for the average joe who does not want to take control on the computer.
The average joe wants a safe computer on which he can send email, browse the net and play solitaire...Lindows can do that and in the mean time proves that Linux can be usable by the non-technical folks.
plus, it offers a nice transition between windows & linux, you begin to understand how it works but still behind the comfort of a gui, wizards....etc.
Then, when you are ready, you jump in the bigger stuff.
Truly your appear to be a linux user and that's great. We respect the fact that you know a lot of stuff and are very technical, but linux NEEDS distros like Lindows to gain popularity and popular support.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
Have to agree with you. The only things that kept old Willy out of economic trouble was the .com thing and the Y2K bug. Without those, we'd likely have had the economic problems of the current "W" in the late 90's. Maybe one could even say the false economic growth from Willy's terms could be cause of the current state due to inflated over growth of the economy back then.
.com and Y2K bug, where do you (follow up posters) think the US economy would have been?
Without the
The funny thing is, Clinton gets credit for the bubble like it was real, and W gets blame for the collapse like the prices in March 2000 were supposed to stay that way forever.
"All I know about W is that when Clinton was president, the Nasdaq was 5000", basically.
Bubbles are bad, whatever the cause. They cause people to invest time and energy and money in businesses that don't actually produce as much resources as they consume. (If the businesses turn out to be profitable and the stock prices don't collapse in the long run, then it's not a bubble!) The bubble is a flight from reality, and the collapse is a return to reality.
I think Michael is making a mistake trying to fight this battle. Whilst the Windows trademark needs fighting, he should really be concentrating on battling Windows as a product.
In the end, I don't think it matters what the product name is. Calling it Lindows might get some people to purchase it that might otherwise purchase Windows, but I doubt it really causes much confusion. However, calling it "Lin---s" in one area, whilst calling it "Lindows" in another, and then changing to "Lindos" outside the US is sure just to cause confusion to your average consumer.
Far better to give the product an uncontraversial, but rememberable name, and concentrate on building that brand.
OSS developers always seem to pick the most moronic names.
That's because whenever we pick a simple, obvious name, Microsoft takes it and sues us for using it.
There is a long list of MS trade names that were used by someone else before MS started using the name. The most egregious is probably "Personal Computer", which was used by all the small-computer makers before MS took it over. And DOS was used as an OS name by many other vendors before MS claimed it; it was the industry-standard TLA for Disk Operating System in the days when many computers didn't automatically come with a disk.
The lesson is that you don't want to use a trademark that Microsoft will want. If you do, you either give it to them when they ask, or they'll bankrupt you with legal fees. Granted, they're likely to do that anyway, but you don't have to give them an easy excuse.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I'm used to referring to the X system as "X Windows". Why doesn't Microsoft go after this name? Is it older than Microsoft Windows, or is it just that no one uses it commercially? Also, the are a lot of programs that claim to be "Window Managers" (e.g. twm, fvwm), which in combination with X, have basically the same functionality as MS Windows.
So either all these programs are also breaking Microsofts trademark, or that trademark is invalid (since it implies that "window" is a pretty generic word referring to the type of interface used by all the aforementioned systems).
I'm thinking "Lindoze" would be great. If Microsoft went after them for similarity to "Windoze", I'd laught till I fell off my chair.
While that's funny, the fact that Lindows is far too much like Windows is not. The run-as-root implementation grafts all the worst problems of Windows onto a Linux distro. I'm going to (ackk, gag) root (no pun intended) for Microsoft on this one. Lindows (by any name) needs to go away for the greater good of Linux.