I'm reminded of when the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon series aired, back in the late-80's-slash-early-90's. There was so much effort placed on being non-offensive. Nevertheless, the presence of a wizard in the party wasn't what inflamed religous zealots--- it was the thief. -_-
People need to stop giving good religions a bad name.
I see the point you're trying to make, but Lindows didn't name themselves Microsoft Linux, or Licrosoft Windows, or MSinux, or anything involving the name Microsoft or any abbreviation of Microsoft. Obviously, such names would be a poor choice because Microsoft has a good and legal trademark over the word "Microsoft".
Microsoft lost their trademark on the name "Windows" because it was proven to be a generic term used to describe the manner in which applications are represented by the OS: in a "window." Microsoft calling their GUI "Microsoft Windows" is Microsoft's version of an operating system or environment that uses a windowing system to represent applications running on the computer.
As such, "Windows", is not Microsoft property, and is a perfectly good name by itself for any piece of software, regardless of its similarity (or lack thereof) to any other piece of software.
So if I write a windowing OS and call it "Indigo Windows", there should be nothing stopping me. After all, "Indigo Windows" does not imply any affiliation with Microsoft, any more than "X-Windows" does. Am I right?
Lindows is a good, logical name for a Linux-based windowing operating system. Robertson is well within his rights to call his software Lindows.
Microsoft may have a lot of money invested in Windows---Mother Bell had a lot of money invested in telecomm before it got broken up into a multitude of many companies---but what Microsoft is doing is using their huge, nigh-monopoly status to bully around and smaller companies, to keep them from growing and competing. Antitrust laws were created to try to stop this, though they clearly seem to be ineffective in this case.
So just to be redundant and clear: I would agree that Microsoft calling a text-based version of their OS "Microsoft Linux" would be wrong. But suing a company out of existence over the name "Windows" is wrong, too, and the U.S. courts agreed with this. I'm sure the other courts around the world would agree, too, but Robertson doesn't have the money to fight on all these different fields. But the right or wrong of the name isn't why the name is being changed. It's being changed because Microsoft is capable of suing a competitor out of existence by force of money alone. That is what I think is wrong.
So... you're saying that if I want to blend the traits of two different products together, it's illogical to choose a name for my new product that is composed of parts of the products which I've blended? It's a bad idea to choose a name people will recognize as similar, but different?
You complain that Robertson's been whining as if the whole world were out to get him, but he really only has mentioned Microsoft. No governments have expressed concern over the name, and Robertson has yet to mention any. No *nix distributors have taken offense, and Robertson has only mentioned that Lindows is effectively Linux and X11 running a custom KDE skin, using a very custom version of WINE.
You say Microsoft is in the right, when Microsoft has sued Lindows over every aspect of the company. Why, MS even claimed that the Lindows logo was too similar to the Microsoft logo, when a simple glance reveals that they have almost nothing in common, except a basis in arabic lettering. MS sued over the name being too similar to Windows some years ago based on a trademark on the word "Windows." What was revealed in the courts was that Microsoft should never have earned a trademark on the word in the first place, and they subsequently lost the trademark.
If MS hates Linux and Unix as competitors in the market, they seem to at least doubly hate Lindows for being so brazen as to boast the interior specs of Linux and the external friendliness of Windows. To have had some success in the courts must drive them into even more of a frenzy---how dare this little upstart company actually win a court battle or two?
Microsoft's solution: Sue them to death. Every little thing the courts will hear. In every court possible. Make them pay legal fees so they can't grow their business, can't expand, can't take more market share, can't take money from their pockets. Instead of shaking hands and trying to fight fairly, Microsoft is grabbing Robertson by the balls (the wallet), and trying to squeeze as hard as they can.
Of course Robertson doesn't like Microsoft. If I were running Lindows, I'd be pretty upset, too. I'd happily throw a little money in support of cracking Microsoft's DRM scheme. I'd probably complain a lot more, too, about the injustices of big businesses versus small ones.
Lindows is a fair name, and was a good one to describe their software. It's a shame that Robertson's being forced to change it.
Read the rest of the article, please. The experiment isn't intended to "confirm" GTR. If it were solely to confirm GTR, it would have to be one of the most redundant scientific experiments performed since the last time someone failed to demonstrate the Ether field. The more important observation is "frame dragging", which hasn't been directly observed before because we've never been able to observe an object large enough for it to occur from close enough to detect it. We've been making assumptions about frame dragging that seem to be true, but we can't prove it.
In other words, we're working on faith. And science hates faith. With a passion.
The way we've applied GTR---gravity lenses, GPS, etc---obviously work without accounting for frame dragging or by applying our assumptions about frame dragging. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if we could, say, improve the accuracy of GPS with more knowledge about frame dragging.
Well, it's true that there will probably be legislation involved in setting limits to what can be tracked about a person. Would stores even care if I walk into the building wearing a tshirt and jeans that they don't sell? It doesn't take much common sense realize the practical limits of RFID technology, just based on what people will put up with:
Talking devices that know your name are completely out. I don't care how often they show up in Sci-Fi movies, they just aren't practical for stores, and will probably drive customers away.
Tracking your progress throughout a store will be equally unlikely, for similar reasons plus all the equipment they'd have to place to do it just to read your RFID chips(which would take up a lot of valuable space that could be used for products).
Tracking an individual's purchases to direct more appropriate advertisement already exists in opt-in programs. Making these mandatory is unlikely because of privacy issues: Congresspeople actually care about being reelected, and will pass laws to appease all the ticked off masses. On a personal note, if they plan to send me ads anyways then I'd rather see the ads for the latest electronic toys than for Depends, Marlboro, and Cabbage Patch Kids.
RFIDs embedded in people are about as likely as barcodes tattooed to our necks or on top of our balding skulls. If it takes off, it'll be by choice.
RFID has real limitations, just like barcodes. Everyone here has probably seen those varied RFID cards they're using at some gas stations now. You actually have to bring the card close to the reader. This makes it hard and expensive to implement systems that are not either really intrusive or opt-in. Don't want that voice to follow you around offering the latest deals and specials? Then don't wave your card in front of the big "Preferred Customer eService Plus" station.
Let's say that you write a trojan and send it out via email.
That's quite the analogy. In that case, you're trying to forcibly get the software onto the victim's machine, then fool them into opening the malicious software.
What these guys are doing is quite different: The "victim" volunteers to download what they already know to be illegal software.
Suppose I want to go buy drugs. I approach someone who looks like a dealer. I ask for some coke. Oops, they're the fuzz, and I'm busted. I have no case against them, I approached them.
You would be a special case, then. Do you really think that you're in the majority of people who download cracked software after they've purchased a legal copy? How many games alone are cracked and "released" on the underside of the web before they're even officially released? I can name dozens of titles, including Jedi Knight II, Jedi Academy, and Freelancer.
Sure, people will pay for what they respect. But I don't think many pay for these games at all. And what would you think if you were, say, Volition, or Interplay, or Retro Studios, and your latest, hottest product was being pirated by the thousands of copies? And I'm just hamming on the games end of it--- let's not even begin to get into lost income from other types of software.
I have no sympathy for pirates. What they're doing is illegal. Plain and simple.
As for these two guys, I admire what they're trying to do. It may be unethical, and they may not be the proper people to be doing it, but I think they have a case. You see, the vice divisions of police departments use similar tactics: Pretend to be a willing participant, then arrest the person once they've incriminated themselves. There are a lot of rules they need to follow to avoid "entrapment" scenarios, but lots of arrests are made every day by these folks.
Certainly, what these guys are doing should be a heckuva lot less illegal than piracy.
Geez you guys/.'ed them quick... couldn't hardly finish the article!
But they didn't say "make your own mind up". They said "We'll let the facts speak for themselves." Isn't the conclusion obvious? Would any reasonably intelligent person buy from this guy?
Of course, unless they can post proof of a specific crime (ie fraud) they can't really call the guy a liar yet... that would be libel.
Well I'm not surprised... after all, if HardOCP can be threatened by a company marketing vaporware for posting clearly stated opinions, then THW probably figures it's better to just not tempt fate.
After all, the cost of a lawyer could really bite into their pool of money for when FX-51 3400+ really does come out.
There's an important difference you're overlooking: Nobody's getting shut out of the DVD player business.
Seriously, how many legal car repair shops do you think there are? A million is most likely a conservative figure. The car computer legislation is happening because there are a lot of people in the car repair business, and have been in the car repair business for generations. But, suddenly (last few years) they've been unable to fix cars because they don't know the secret codes for the cars' computers.
This isn't "I want everything, like MP3s and DVDs, for free". This is "I want to fsck-ing survive here.
How do international liscenses and copyrights apply to the Internet? Supposing a given song is liscensed in Japan and not the U.S., is it legal to acquire a copy of the song within the U.S.? What happens when the song finally is liscensed in the U.S.?
Your answer: Moneys! $ix-figures is incredibly 1337 in most denominations (Japanese need to add 2 more zeroes to enter "1337n3ss"), and it's actually plausible if you're really that good of a programmer and UI designer. Money is a wonderful incentive to write good GUIs, and all the good GUIs seem to be coming from corporate environments.
The real problem is: Cool programmers who are writing new cool software for Unix don't usually give a [censored for the kiddies] about how user-friendly their software is, because the people who do get it working are smart and l33t (ie, their peers) and go "Hey, that's really cool".
And Grandma's not one of our peers. She's an old lady we don't see very often who uses her brand-new $6,000 10-GHz Pentium VI with it's 1337 platinum-, gold-, and diamond-plated ThermoNuclearDevastationToOurCompetitors core to shuffle cards for 8 hours a day. And in the geek community she rates no sympathy for having lived through WWII, instead, she's berated for not having kept up.
But when Grandma or Grandpa pays... well, it doesn't take a management systems degree to see the past trend.
Honestly, I think it will become an issue, because I think there's a generational change en route. At present, marketing studies do show that men are the dominant force in the violent games market. On the other paw, I'm seeing a generation of young girls growing up around me that are more interested in games like Counter-Strike, etc.
But starting male chouvenistic crap like segregating male and female teams...? Oh, my definetely female teammate is going to have a field day with that one at our next clan practice.
What's rather sad, but I love anyways, is that being a part of our Nintendo generation means I get to view pieces of life through movies like that...:)
Personally, I had always taken that as a quote suggesting that we had to put the smaller things behind us to grapple with the bigger issues.
Slashdot Mirror
People need to stop giving good religions a bad name.
Microsoft lost their trademark on the name "Windows" because it was proven to be a generic term used to describe the manner in which applications are represented by the OS: in a "window." Microsoft calling their GUI "Microsoft Windows" is Microsoft's version of an operating system or environment that uses a windowing system to represent applications running on the computer.
As such, "Windows", is not Microsoft property, and is a perfectly good name by itself for any piece of software, regardless of its similarity (or lack thereof) to any other piece of software.
So if I write a windowing OS and call it "Indigo Windows", there should be nothing stopping me. After all, "Indigo Windows" does not imply any affiliation with Microsoft, any more than "X-Windows" does. Am I right?
Lindows is a good, logical name for a Linux-based windowing operating system. Robertson is well within his rights to call his software Lindows.
Microsoft may have a lot of money invested in Windows---Mother Bell had a lot of money invested in telecomm before it got broken up into a multitude of many companies---but what Microsoft is doing is using their huge, nigh-monopoly status to bully around and smaller companies, to keep them from growing and competing. Antitrust laws were created to try to stop this, though they clearly seem to be ineffective in this case.
So just to be redundant and clear: I would agree that Microsoft calling a text-based version of their OS "Microsoft Linux" would be wrong. But suing a company out of existence over the name "Windows" is wrong, too, and the U.S. courts agreed with this. I'm sure the other courts around the world would agree, too, but Robertson doesn't have the money to fight on all these different fields. But the right or wrong of the name isn't why the name is being changed. It's being changed because Microsoft is capable of suing a competitor out of existence by force of money alone. That is what I think is wrong.
Microsoft re-filed for the name 5 years later and got the trademark.
Microsoft sued Lindows 3 years ago, or so, arguing that "Lindows" was too similar to their trademark "Windows."
As I understand things, Microsoft lost the trademark to "Windows" as a result of that lawsuit.
Behold irony.
You complain that Robertson's been whining as if the whole world were out to get him, but he really only has mentioned Microsoft. No governments have expressed concern over the name, and Robertson has yet to mention any. No *nix distributors have taken offense, and Robertson has only mentioned that Lindows is effectively Linux and X11 running a custom KDE skin, using a very custom version of WINE.
You say Microsoft is in the right, when Microsoft has sued Lindows over every aspect of the company. Why, MS even claimed that the Lindows logo was too similar to the Microsoft logo, when a simple glance reveals that they have almost nothing in common, except a basis in arabic lettering. MS sued over the name being too similar to Windows some years ago based on a trademark on the word "Windows." What was revealed in the courts was that Microsoft should never have earned a trademark on the word in the first place, and they subsequently lost the trademark.
If MS hates Linux and Unix as competitors in the market, they seem to at least doubly hate Lindows for being so brazen as to boast the interior specs of Linux and the external friendliness of Windows. To have had some success in the courts must drive them into even more of a frenzy---how dare this little upstart company actually win a court battle or two?
Microsoft's solution: Sue them to death. Every little thing the courts will hear. In every court possible. Make them pay legal fees so they can't grow their business, can't expand, can't take more market share, can't take money from their pockets. Instead of shaking hands and trying to fight fairly, Microsoft is grabbing Robertson by the balls (the wallet), and trying to squeeze as hard as they can.
Of course Robertson doesn't like Microsoft. If I were running Lindows, I'd be pretty upset, too. I'd happily throw a little money in support of cracking Microsoft's DRM scheme. I'd probably complain a lot more, too, about the injustices of big businesses versus small ones.
Lindows is a fair name, and was a good one to describe their software. It's a shame that Robertson's being forced to change it.
In other words, we're working on faith. And science hates faith. With a passion.
The way we've applied GTR---gravity lenses, GPS, etc---obviously work without accounting for frame dragging or by applying our assumptions about frame dragging. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if we could, say, improve the accuracy of GPS with more knowledge about frame dragging.
"Her wetware matches her software!"
RFID has real limitations, just like barcodes. Everyone here has probably seen those varied RFID cards they're using at some gas stations now. You actually have to bring the card close to the reader. This makes it hard and expensive to implement systems that are not either really intrusive or opt-in. Don't want that voice to follow you around offering the latest deals and specials? Then don't wave your card in front of the big "Preferred Customer eService Plus" station.
That's quite the analogy. In that case, you're trying to forcibly get the software onto the victim's machine, then fool them into opening the malicious software.
What these guys are doing is quite different: The "victim" volunteers to download what they already know to be illegal software.
Suppose I want to go buy drugs. I approach someone who looks like a dealer. I ask for some coke. Oops, they're the fuzz, and I'm busted. I have no case against them, I approached them.
I don't think your analogy works at all.
Sure, people will pay for what they respect. But I don't think many pay for these games at all. And what would you think if you were, say, Volition, or Interplay, or Retro Studios, and your latest, hottest product was being pirated by the thousands of copies? And I'm just hamming on the games end of it--- let's not even begin to get into lost income from other types of software.
I have no sympathy for pirates. What they're doing is illegal. Plain and simple.
As for these two guys, I admire what they're trying to do. It may be unethical, and they may not be the proper people to be doing it, but I think they have a case. You see, the vice divisions of police departments use similar tactics: Pretend to be a willing participant, then arrest the person once they've incriminated themselves. There are a lot of rules they need to follow to avoid "entrapment" scenarios, but lots of arrests are made every day by these folks.
Certainly, what these guys are doing should be a heckuva lot less illegal than piracy.
But they didn't say "make your own mind up". They said "We'll let the facts speak for themselves." Isn't the conclusion obvious? Would any reasonably intelligent person buy from this guy?
Of course, unless they can post proof of a specific crime (ie fraud) they can't really call the guy a liar yet... that would be libel.
After all, the cost of a lawyer could really bite into their pool of money for when FX-51 3400+ really does come out.
They can also unfairly decide "You can't pay me, therefor I'll blackmail you out of your life's work."
Seriously, how many legal car repair shops do you think there are? A million is most likely a conservative figure. The car computer legislation is happening because there are a lot of people in the car repair business, and have been in the car repair business for generations. But, suddenly (last few years) they've been unable to fix cars because they don't know the secret codes for the cars' computers.
This isn't "I want everything, like MP3s and DVDs, for free". This is "I want to fsck-ing survive here.
How do international liscenses and copyrights apply to the Internet? Supposing a given song is liscensed in Japan and not the U.S., is it legal to acquire a copy of the song within the U.S.? What happens when the song finally is liscensed in the U.S.?
The real problem is: Cool programmers who are writing new cool software for Unix don't usually give a [censored for the kiddies] about how user-friendly their software is, because the people who do get it working are smart and l33t (ie, their peers) and go "Hey, that's really cool".
And Grandma's not one of our peers. She's an old lady we don't see very often who uses her brand-new $6,000 10-GHz Pentium VI with it's 1337 platinum-, gold-, and diamond-plated ThermoNuclearDevastationToOurCompetitors core to shuffle cards for 8 hours a day. And in the geek community she rates no sympathy for having lived through WWII, instead, she's berated for not having kept up.
But when Grandma or Grandpa pays... well, it doesn't take a management systems degree to see the past trend.
Honestly, I think it will become an issue, because I think there's a generational change en route. At present, marketing studies do show that men are the dominant force in the violent games market. On the other paw, I'm seeing a generation of young girls growing up around me that are more interested in games like Counter-Strike, etc. But starting male chouvenistic crap like segregating male and female teams...? Oh, my definetely female teammate is going to have a field day with that one at our next clan practice.
What's rather sad, but I love anyways, is that being a part of our Nintendo generation means I get to view pieces of life through movies like that... :)
Personally, I had always taken that as a quote suggesting that we had to put the smaller things behind us to grapple with the bigger issues.