Zeno's Paradox requires that the quantity in question ("remaining distance" in the canonical form) be infinitely subdividable. An installed base of computers is necessarily discrete.
It depends whose profit you're talking about, the user's or Microsoft's.
I use Linux for a small online service, for which I (successfully) charge a fee. If I had used Microsoft instead of Linux, my profits would have been much, much lower.
So it's not that Linux generates less profit overall, just that it provides less profit for Microsoft.
It's more than a little disingenuous to compare installed bases - Windows had a substantial headstart, and is bundled with virtually every Intel-based computer, whether you want it or not. Linux is only just beginning to emerge on the desktop. On the server side, the installed base of Linux machines is material and growing.
This article brings up an interesting issue with the GPL - many people think GPL=="Open Source" or GPL=='No Cost" and automatically use the license even in things for which it makes no sense.
I have talked to a number of authors who applied the GPL to their products thinking that it simply made the binaries "free as in beer" and were shocked that I would ask for their source code.
It appears the authors' intents were to make these texts open and freely available, but the software-oriented GPL doesn't seem to be the appropriate license for what they are trying to do.
There are even some situations in software, such as image-based systems like Smalltalk (Squeak as an example), where the GPL's orientation around classical library linkage ends up inadvertently reducing the "free as in speech"-ness.
According to the press release from SCO, the basis of their suit is that Daimler-Chrysler has refused to "certify" that they're not in violation of the software license agreement, but doesn't seem to actually claim that Daimler-Chrysler has actually *violated* the agreement beyond not certifying that they haven't:
SCO's lawsuit seeks the following relief:
Enter an order that DaimlerChrysler has violated Section 2.05 of the
Software Agreement by refusing to provide the certification of
compliance with the "provisions" of that Agreement;
Enter an order permanently enjoining DaimlerChrysler from further
violations of the DC Software Agreement; and
Issue a mandatory injunction requiring DaimlerChrysler to remedy the
effects of its past violations of the DaimlerChrysler Software
Agreement; and
Award damages in an amount to be determined at trial; and
Enter judgment in favor of Plaintiff together with costs, attorneys'
fees and any such other or different relief that the Court may deem to
be equitable and just.
Lindows is a technology company, and isn't in the Fortune 1000, which doesn't seem to match the profile of the targets announced yesterday.
Of course, SCO has said one thing and done another many, many times. If they did attack Lindows.com, then that would certainly dismiss any notion that they aren't shilling for Redmond. Given the potential multi-year delay in the MS trademark litigation, there are probably more than a few experienced IP lawyers on retainer by Lindows.com that are looking for someone else's leg to chew on. And certainly Robertson would love to squeeze more than a little PR out of such a suit.
I guess that's actually a reasonable counter to the study - we've all been living our entire lives, and have evolved, within a planet-sized low-level magnetic field. The field is apparently strong enough to be detected by biological means, ie avian navigation.
I think they're calling themselves "Lin---s.com", which would only get in trouble with the Wheel of Fortune folks - some people appear to be pronouncing it "LinDash", but that's hardly their fault.
Besides which, MS Dashboard in not an operating system, there are several other products with the term "dashboard" in them, and Microsoft has (not yet) asserted a trademark claim on the single word "dashboard".
However, I'm sure they've seriously considered going after Lindows.com even for this joke name, and I'm sure Lindows.com has written their reaction press releases in advance. I think that Lindows.com and Microsoft are developing pretty unhealthy obsessions with each other.
The particular issue in the Lindows case, and the one that has Microsoft worried, is that the judge is instructing the jury to consider whether the term "windows" was generic prior to the use by Microsoft, NOT descriptive. You're correct about what happens with a descriptive term, but that's not an issue in this case.
If it's found to have been generic, then it is simply not defensible, even if some secondary meaning has somehow developed, because it's fruit of the poisoned tree.
Personally, I'm hoping for Steven Spielberg. He did a terrific job on Minority Report. Between that, AI, and Taken, he's definitely on a sci-fi roll lately.
Spielberg's always been doing sci-fi - however, unlike his earlier optimistic films (Close Encounters, ET), the more recent ones (Minority Report, AI) have taken a decidedly dystopian direction.
The question is whether or not he's doing this to be considered more "serious" as a filmmaker, or if he's just becoming cynical and curmudgeonly in his elder years.
Under the current law, a generic term is "not subject to trademark protection under any circumstances" (Filipino Yellow Pages Inc vs Asian Journal Publications). There is substantial trademark law supporting that, much of which is cited in both Lindows.com's motions and the judge's rulings ("No amount of proof that a term has acquired secondary meaning associating the term with a particular producer can transform that generic term into a trademark."), as well as the various responses given by the USPTO to Microsoft back when they were applying for the mark ("Since the term is a generic designation for the applicant's goods, then, no amount of evidence... can render the term registrable." - USPTO 1993) I'd be very interested if you can cite rulings or law to the contrary - with all their resources, Microsoft couldn't in their filings. I can think of a number of worried lawyers in Redmond that would love to hear from you.
Of course "windows" is now associated so strongly with Microsoft, because they've had a government sanctioned exclusive use of the mark for ten years - anyone who wanted to use the mark couldn't.
I agree that even if the "windows" mark is not defensible on its own, Microsoft could still make a case for trade dress infringement, given the possible confusion between the Lindows mark and the combination "Microsoft Windows", though this would still be a tough argument.
If you read the rulings, the judge acknowledges the provocative nature of Lindows' choice of name, but also chastises Microsoft for their original choice, which had precisely the same intention - to leverage the existing meaning of the term "windows":
Although Lindows.com certainly made a conscious decision to play with fire by choosing a product and a company name that differs by only one letter from the world's leading computer software program, one could just as easily conclude that in 1983 Microsoft made an equally risky decision to name its product after a term commonly used in the trade...
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.
However, this all presupposes that the trademark is a valid one in the first place. Lindows.com has demonstrated a substantial amount of evidence in its pre-trial motions that it isn't and it appears to be a strategy which has Microsoft on the run.
If Lindows.com is correct in this assertion, potential or real customer confusion or Lindows.com's intentions are completely irrelevant, and the fault lies entirely with Microsoft for choosing a poor trademark.
Microsoft only has a trademark on "Microsoft Windows."
No, Microsoft *also* has a trademark on the single word "Windows", and this is the basis of their trademark case against Lindows.com, as well as the basis for Lindows.com's defense.
As to your speculation about Linus having a case against Lindows.com, I guess he'd have to explain to the court why he hasn't done anything about the people using the term "Linux" unmodified in their product names, such as "Red Hat Linux", "Mandrake Linux", etc, while complaining about only three letters in common in "Lindows.com". Heck, even/.'s own parent company was called "VA Linux" for a while.
It would be interesting though - part of Microsoft's case is that the company/product name is "windows" with a single letter difference, and therefore seem to claim ownership of "in". A Linus claim over the "Lin" prefix would conflict with that.
Despite your research, you apparently did not uncover the difference between fanciful, descriptive, and generic trademarks.
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.
I am "punishing" Windows users no more than non-Windows x86 users are currently being "punished". They're forced to pay for software they don't intend to use. Is that fair?
As I said in another post, the game and application developers would very likely quickly port their products to whatever operating system shipped on a large number of OEM machines.
Microsoft has been convicted (not just accused) of abusing their monopoly status by actively preventing other operating systems and enabling technologies from being installed on new computers. This proposal simply reverses the situation. If it was OK for them to do to others, how can they object when it is done to them? As a monopoly, the free market pressures no longer apply to them, and I believe the government is the only force that can enforce a correction. Even after their conviction in the United States, Microsoft is clearly behaving in a "business as usual" manner.
I'm sympathetic to your viewpoint, but it is the role of government to punish entities that commit criminal acts.
Note that in my proposal, nothing prohibits anyone from purchasing a Microsoft product - it only removes a single distribution channel from them, the particular one they've been using to prevent competition.
Note that my solution does not prevent you from purchasing Windows if that's what you want. It just wouldn't come with the machine, so you'd have to buy it and install it yourself, find the right drivers, etc. Just as those who currently don't want Windows still have to pay for it (admittedly with a few exceptions), you might end up paying for something you may not want if you really want Windows. Any argument you could make about how unfair this might be to Microsoft is already orders of magnitude worse for anyone currently trying to compete with them.
Chances are that if another OS were installed on a huge number of machines, then the game and major application developers would target it. The goal here is to create a market environment for other operating systems to flourish and punish Microsoft for their inequitable conduct.
If Windows is truly so great that consumers will choose to pay retail for it, then Microsoft has nothing to worry about. I suspect, however, they would fight such a proposal to the death.
Imagine what the software publishers would do if *all* x86 machines in Europe came with Mac OS X preinstalled and not Windows. You would not have to wait for long for every major application and game to be ported - and Microsoft Office is already there.
The difference is that WMP is allegedly integrated into the operating system such that it cannot be removed or replaced by a third-party alternative. On top of that. Microsoft has been accused of actively preventing these third-party alternatives from being provided by the OEMs and have even been accused of making changes to the operating system to prevent them from running optimally or providing sufficient information to developers to do so.
On the other hand, nothing prevents you from removing iTunes or iPhoto, or even QuickTime from MacOS, on top of the obvious fact that Apple is not a monopoly and therefore inherently abides by different rules.
I thought the right answer for the US, and possibly for Europe, is that Microsoft be prohibited from selling Windows either preinstalled or bundled with a new computer for ten years. Basically, any operating system can be preinstalled on OEM machines *except* Windows - if you want Windows, you have to separately pay for a retail license.
The OEMs would be free to ship with no operating system, but would probably want to ship *something*, so they may choose a Linux desktop. If Be were still around, this might have changed their fate, or perhaps Apple might choose to release OS X for x86.
A variant would be to prohibit site licenses or other volume discounts for Windows.
In exchange, Microsoft can "innovate" all they want, if that's truly what they think they're doing.
"Wall Street" was about the takeover market of the 1980's, and doesn't reflect the takeover environment of the 2000's.
Back then it was common to leverage junk bonds to gain control over companies in order to break them up as you described - nowadays, they're typically misguided attempts at exploiting alledged business synergies, which never seem to actually materialize, AOL-Time Warner being the best recent example.
While it's true that Comcast's motives are certainly not altruistic (why would they be?), it's very unlikely they want to buy Disney in order to break it up and sell the pieces.
Blue horseshoe does not like The Walt Disney Company.
If they were trying to make Linux look bad, then it probably would have been a good idea to remove all those bogus.eml files that indicate the server was infected by Nimda. Wherever these files came from, clearly security wasn't a very high priority.
Which, of course, being a "different" spin, implies the first item *also* had spin. As the original submitter, I can assure you that my intent was that both views be considered spun. In the PI article, the idea that Microsoft thinks this ruling is positive or is happy with the judge is completely absurd.
The best analogy is for an 0-10 football team being "happy" that they have first draft pick.
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Anyone who's been paying attention would know that signing up for the Duke Nukem Software Assurance Program was a bad idea.
Zeno's Paradox requires that the quantity in question ("remaining distance" in the canonical form) be infinitely subdividable. An installed base of computers is necessarily discrete.
I use Linux for a small online service, for which I (successfully) charge a fee. If I had used Microsoft instead of Linux, my profits would have been much, much lower.
So it's not that Linux generates less profit overall, just that it provides less profit for Microsoft.
It's more than a little disingenuous to compare installed bases - Windows had a substantial headstart, and is bundled with virtually every Intel-based computer, whether you want it or not. Linux is only just beginning to emerge on the desktop. On the server side, the installed base of Linux machines is material and growing.
But then you know all this already,
Unless...maybe...what they're trying to tell us is Dustin Hoffman *is* Al Pacino...
I have talked to a number of authors who applied the GPL to their products thinking that it simply made the binaries "free as in beer" and were shocked that I would ask for their source code.
It appears the authors' intents were to make these texts open and freely available, but the software-oriented GPL doesn't seem to be the appropriate license for what they are trying to do.
There are even some situations in software, such as image-based systems like Smalltalk (Squeak as an example), where the GPL's orientation around classical library linkage ends up inadvertently reducing the "free as in speech"-ness.
Any compensation should be sought from the person who sold them to you.
If the article is factual, EB is clearly on the wrong side of both the law and ethics in this case.
Lindows is a technology company, and isn't in the Fortune 1000, which doesn't seem to match the profile of the targets announced yesterday.
Of course, SCO has said one thing and done another many, many times. If they did attack Lindows.com, then that would certainly dismiss any notion that they aren't shilling for Redmond. Given the potential multi-year delay in the MS trademark litigation, there are probably more than a few experienced IP lawyers on retainer by Lindows.com that are looking for someone else's leg to chew on. And certainly Robertson would love to squeeze more than a little PR out of such a suit.
Not necessarily - the uptime clock on many operating systems, including Linux, Solaris and HP-UX, roll over after 497 days.
I guess that's actually a reasonable counter to the study - we've all been living our entire lives, and have evolved, within a planet-sized low-level magnetic field. The field is apparently strong enough to be detected by biological means, ie avian navigation.
Besides which, MS Dashboard in not an operating system, there are several other products with the term "dashboard" in them, and Microsoft has (not yet) asserted a trademark claim on the single word "dashboard".
However, I'm sure they've seriously considered going after Lindows.com even for this joke name, and I'm sure Lindows.com has written their reaction press releases in advance. I think that Lindows.com and Microsoft are developing pretty unhealthy obsessions with each other.
If it's found to have been generic, then it is simply not defensible, even if some secondary meaning has somehow developed, because it's fruit of the poisoned tree.
The question is whether or not he's doing this to be considered more "serious" as a filmmaker, or if he's just becoming cynical and curmudgeonly in his elder years.
Of course "windows" is now associated so strongly with Microsoft, because they've had a government sanctioned exclusive use of the mark for ten years - anyone who wanted to use the mark couldn't.
I agree that even if the "windows" mark is not defensible on its own, Microsoft could still make a case for trade dress infringement, given the possible confusion between the Lindows mark and the combination "Microsoft Windows", though this would still be a tough argument.
If you read the rulings, the judge acknowledges the provocative nature of Lindows' choice of name, but also chastises Microsoft for their original choice, which had precisely the same intention - to leverage the existing meaning of the term "windows":
Although Lindows.com certainly made a conscious decision to play with fire by choosing a product and a company name that differs by only one letter from the world's leading computer software program, one could just as easily conclude that in 1983 Microsoft made an equally risky decision to name its product after a term commonly used in the trade...
If Lindows.com is correct in this assertion, potential or real customer confusion or Lindows.com's intentions are completely irrelevant, and the fault lies entirely with Microsoft for choosing a poor trademark.
As to your speculation about Linus having a case against Lindows.com, I guess he'd have to explain to the court why he hasn't done anything about the people using the term "Linux" unmodified in their product names, such as "Red Hat Linux", "Mandrake Linux", etc, while complaining about only three letters in common in "Lindows.com". Heck, even /.'s own parent company was called "VA Linux" for a while.
It would be interesting though - part of Microsoft's case is that the company/product name is "windows" with a single letter difference, and therefore seem to claim ownership of "in". A Linus claim over the "Lin" prefix would conflict with that.
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.
As I said in another post, the game and application developers would very likely quickly port their products to whatever operating system shipped on a large number of OEM machines.
I'm sympathetic to your viewpoint, but it is the role of government to punish entities that commit criminal acts.
Note that in my proposal, nothing prohibits anyone from purchasing a Microsoft product - it only removes a single distribution channel from them, the particular one they've been using to prevent competition.
Chances are that if another OS were installed on a huge number of machines, then the game and major application developers would target it. The goal here is to create a market environment for other operating systems to flourish and punish Microsoft for their inequitable conduct.
If Windows is truly so great that consumers will choose to pay retail for it, then Microsoft has nothing to worry about. I suspect, however, they would fight such a proposal to the death.
Imagine what the software publishers would do if *all* x86 machines in Europe came with Mac OS X preinstalled and not Windows. You would not have to wait for long for every major application and game to be ported - and Microsoft Office is already there.
On the other hand, nothing prevents you from removing iTunes or iPhoto, or even QuickTime from MacOS, on top of the obvious fact that Apple is not a monopoly and therefore inherently abides by different rules.
The OEMs would be free to ship with no operating system, but would probably want to ship *something*, so they may choose a Linux desktop. If Be were still around, this might have changed their fate, or perhaps Apple might choose to release OS X for x86.
A variant would be to prohibit site licenses or other volume discounts for Windows.
In exchange, Microsoft can "innovate" all they want, if that's truly what they think they're doing.
Back then it was common to leverage junk bonds to gain control over companies in order to break them up as you described - nowadays, they're typically misguided attempts at exploiting alledged business synergies, which never seem to actually materialize, AOL-Time Warner being the best recent example.
While it's true that Comcast's motives are certainly not altruistic (why would they be?), it's very unlikely they want to buy Disney in order to break it up and sell the pieces.
Blue horseshoe does not like The Walt Disney Company.
If they were trying to make Linux look bad, then it probably would have been a good idea to remove all those bogus .eml files that indicate the server was infected by Nimda. Wherever these files came from, clearly security wasn't a very high priority.
The best analogy is for an 0-10 football team being "happy" that they have first draft pick.