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Lindows Changes Name to 'Linspire'

Posted by timothy on from the bully-meets-showoff dept.

Robert Nicholson writes "As previously covered, Lindows has decided to change its name thanks to Microsoft legal threats. Well it has just announced the new name - Linspire - clever, huh? There's a site at Linspire.com. The full story and the history behind it all are covered on Techworld."

6 of 418 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Little guys can't fight a giant... by gid13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Microsoft actually thingks they can claim the rights to "Lin---s"? Talk about power hungry."

    Well, they probably don't think they can claim the rights to it so much as they think their lawyers can beat up Lindows' lawyers. And Lindows seems to agree. Yay capitalism, where even the law is privatized.

  2. Re:Little guys can't fight a giant... by Liselle · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, the name "Lin---s" was kind of obviously flipping off Microsoft, especially since they had a poorly-drawn hangman on the website for it with every letter crossed out except "D", "O" and "W". I mean, come on. Michael Robertson is good at criticizing Microsoft and pissing in their Cheerios, but he's not good at coming up with with clever names, I guess (I'm not going to go for the obvious parallel). I think he just should have taken absurdity to its ultimate edge and called the damn thing Linfox.

    I was one of the people who said that you couldn't possibly come up with a more asinine name than "Lindows". Here we all are, eating our words. ;)

    --
    Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
  3. Re:Little guys can't fight a giant... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > I doubt there's a single company that could handle being dragged through the world's courts by Microsoft,

    It was a PR Stunt from the very beginning. If they were really scared of MS' Legal Dept, they would have never picked "Lindows" in the beginning.

    And since they made the slashdot frontpage again, their plan is working great.

  4. No. Lindows was a STUPID name. by sulli · · Score: 4, Insightful
    And it is blindingly obvious that it was chosen to draw fire from Microsoft. Maybe not to the hard-core unix geeks still wishing people think of X Window System when they hear "windows," but to anyone else.

    So, as expected, Microsoft played its part in this little Kabuki drama, and Lindows aka Linspire got its free publicity. And bully for them, I guess. But to suggest that they picked the name for any other reason is sheer folly.

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  5. How MS was able to trademark it by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Windows" is not a common noun in countries that do not have English as an official language. Among European countries, only the UK and Ireland seem to speak English in the trademark office.

  6. Re:Little guys can't fight a giant... by TheAwfulTruth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So who wants "clever" names for products? The plethora of "clever" naming in the computer world is nothing but a source of confusion for the actual users. Give users names like "Adobe photoshop" and they'll be much happier than "Adobe super-fire bird".

    This lesson needs to be taken to heart, keep the clever code names internal, use sensible naming for actual products.

    --
    Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!