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Microsoft and Lindows Settle Trademark Case
An anonymous reader writes "According to an official press release hosted over at Yahoo, Microsoft and Lindows have settled their trademark case, and have announced: 'Over the next few months Lindows will cease using the term Lindows and transition to Linspire globally as our company name and primary identifier for our operating system product.' Although it's claimed: 'Terms of the settlement are confidential', ZDNet has an article filling in more details, including the fact: 'Microsoft will pay upstart Linux seller Lindows $20 million... [so that Lindows] will give up the Lindows name and assign related Web domains to Microsoft.'" We've previously covered the Microsoft and Lindows conflict in some detail.
I was hoping that Lindows would have went all the way to prove that the Windows trademark is too generic a term to be valid. Instead they take the easy option and go for the cash.
Although I guess you probably would find it difficult to refuse MS cash if you were a company.
He starts a good fight... then sells out.
You can't re-use code, if you can't find it.
MS sues and Linspire walks away with $20M to use against MS to make their product and Linux better.
Sweet!!!
Know what? Arguments about how MS is trying to enforce an "overly broad Windows trademark" are now moot. The settlement shows that Microsoft is aware that they cannot force names like Lindows to stop just because of a similarity, but they ARE willing to pay out to keep a monopoly. And know what? That's damn fair.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
What did we really expect? First off, I believe that when someone says it is a matter of principle, that person really means it will be really expensive. Two, Microsoft knows that they lost, so why not through money at the problem. That is how they handle competition and democracy.
I have to say, good for Lindows. They've managed to secure some decent funding for their development while getting a lot of attention. Lets face it, most Linux users are 'in the know' in the IT world. The transition from Lindows to Linspire (or whatever) is *not* going to get people lost. So good for them!
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One, 20 million dollars is 1/3000th of their cash hoard. A movie ticket to someone making $250,000 a year salary.
Two, there was a real danger of losing their trademark on Windows as being generic.
Infuriate left and right
But I would like to say, I think Microsoft not only would have won any court cases, but probably should. "Lindows" is clearly a trademark infringement, and for the so-called "Joe Whatever" so trumpeted here as the "average user", it simply isn't clear that there would be no confusion. Whenever I think people are not that stupid, they always prove me wrong.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
You guys are happy that people can extort money from a company by naming their products something similar?
Whether you like it or not, whether its trademarkable or not, people associate 'Windows' with Microsoft Windows. Naming their product 'Lindows' was an attempt to be leach off of a brand name.
This is so obvious to anyone who isn't blinded by dumb hatred of anything Microsoft. If there was any OSS software that was popular amongst the novice computer-user masses, and MS named a competing product almost the same thing, there would be OSS bedwetter outcry galore.
This dishonest crap of changing one letter in a name, or naming it something very similar, or making the logo similar, has been going on for far too long; long before commerical computer programs. Its BS, no matter what medium its in. Don't applaud it.
Instead of playing off the *indows theme, maybe choose a name that plays off it, but is not directly related, like "Doors," or "Steps," or something.
...I dunno... sounds hokey.. but it sends subtle jabs to Windows without infringing directly on copyright..
It seems knock-offish I know, but imagine the advertising possibilities:
"Why look through a Window when you can walk through a Door"
or
"Make sure you take the right Steps to yada yada yada..."
This message was posted using recycled electrons.
Looks to me like they did a no-no - they put MS binaries from Windows into Lindows. Without licensing them from Microsoft.
It's not surprising that Microsoft's going to witch-slap them for that one.
Why? What's so wrong with Linspire that you don't want them to join your following? I see this attitude everywhere, but I don't understand it. I hope this is something more than the script-kiddie "If grandma can use it then it sux: OSS should be hard to use" attitude.
Actually, MR has been in the trenches quite a bit.
He was one of the first people to try challenging Microsoft for the desktop head-on.
He managed to grab $20M in funding from Microsoft.
He funded the "run Linux on the XBox awards" that partly funded the practical breaking of the XBox DRM, which probably cost Microsoft quite a pretty penny in lost royalties.
MR may not be a nice person. He may not even be someone that you want associated with Linux. You could argue that he hits below the belt when he fights. But one thing you can't say is that he wasn't fighting against Microsoft, because he did, more so than just about anyone out there -- he walked up, challenged Microsoft, and has been steadily beating them, abeit with a thousand little stabs. He's managed to cut himself a nice little niche out of Windows market share while staying about as high-profile at Redmond as could possibly be imagined. He's one of those rare beasts -- a competent exec.
He's hardly sold out -- he now has a slightly changed product name (that personally, I find more appealing), a good chunk of money, plenty of publicity from the case, and based on what he's done so far, I expect that he'll do fine for himself.
May we never see th
If it were that, you'd see the same comments about Xandros and Lycoris. Lindows just comes across as sleazy and disreputable: the constant imitation of trademarks from Microsoft and Apple (that you've got to think are done with an eye towards generating publicity), the rebadging of others people's open-source applications, the ludicrous claims of Windows compatibility. There's a feel that responsible Linux companies have, and they simply don't have it.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
> Linspire will no longer bundle Microsoft's media DLLs in its distribution.
Was waiting to see someone get busted for MPlayer copyright infringement. Hopefully this will put an end to this bit of Free Software Hypocrisy.
Not only has he changed his product's name to something non-lame but he also managed to get his biggest competitor to pay him to do it!
#1 "Windows" is a stupid thing to trademark, anyway. It's a common word!
#2 Why would anyone want to name a Linux distro after Windows?
#3 Who would be stupid enough to take the risk that MS might sue them over a name?
#4 What kind of a name is "Linspire"?
#5 Someone should name their Linux distro "Pronghorn," just to aggravate the Microsofties.
...is why people keep saying that "Windows" is trademarked. "Windows" by itself is not trademarked, whereas "Microsoft Windows" is. Even if people use an abbreviated version of the trademark in day to day talk, it doesn't mean that Microsoft owns the word, "Windows" any more then they own the word "win" or "soft". A owner of a trademark is not automatically granted the abbreviation to said trademark.
If someone created a company called Remus's Famous Cookies and trademarked it, it doesn't mean that they can sue another company that came out with "Amos Famous Cookies or Ms. Fields Famous Cookies" even if their trademark was granted first.
I think the big concern is how much of a bully Microsoft can be. For example, many people don't even realize that Wordperfect had a product called WordPerfect Office, (that was dos-based) long before Microsoft decided to bundle, Word, Excell and Access and call it Microsoft Office. However, WordPerfect was such a small company they didn't want to risk Microsoft stomping all over thier product so they changed the name of their suite of applications instead.