There is no way any reasonable person would confuse windows and lindows. Not only are the names different but the products are very much different. They look different, they work different, they are packaged and sold differently and they have different logos.
You seem to feel that MS is entitled to any word with window in it and also entitled to any word that rhymes with windows. That's simply not true in the law.
For example McDonalds has in the past sued other restaurants named McDonalds. Same name, same business. But they lost. Why? Because a reasonable person would not have walked to the McDOnalds diner in bumfuck iowa thinking they would see Ronald McDonald and buy a big mac.
Yes, it's possible for two businesses to have the exact same name in the exact same industry as long as people are not likely to confuse the two.
In this case the name is not even the same.
Finally. Everybody hates MS. I would say that over 70% of the IT undustry sees MS as an evil organization that actually harms innovation and advancement. Saying that this one guy also hates MS and therefore deserves to lose the case won't wash.
"It already is a legitimate trademark if they earned themselves the little (R) next to their name."
A judge can throw that little R out. It's happened before and it will probably happen again. The judge in this case has already indicated that he thinks the trademark may be invalid.
"That has been debated ad-nauseum here. The rules are simple."
No the rules are not simple. Maybe in your head the rules are simple but in the law rules are very complicated. The test is whether a reasonable person would confuse the two. I don't think any judge would decide that a reasonble person would confuse lindows and windows let alone lindows.com and windows.com.
"So they did catch Lindows before any damage was done, "
First of all no damage was done and no damage would have occured. Secondly MS sued because they got sue happy. The justice system in the US is too slow so while they were waiting for the US judge they started suing in europe too.
The real damage will be done if the judge throws out the trademark, which as I said he has indicated he might. I suspect MS will settle this for big money rather then risk that.
"Wrong. They picked that name on purpose."
Of course they did. Nobody is claiming otherwise. It's a perfectly normal name for a linux distribution.
"They wouldn't need a whole hell of a lot of common sense to realize they were going to draw Microsoft's fire."
Microsoft sues a lot of people. They are a sue happy organization. They sue 16 year olds for gods sake. Everybody at one time or another will draw fire from MS. They are extremely agressive.
"Given the CEO's other MS taunts (like putting up a $250,000 reward to hack the XBOX), well frankly that doesn't help their case."
Not only is this completely inadmissible it's also totally irrelevent. Maybe MS sued out of some spite or hatred for one person (I can certainly believe it) but they can't introduce that in court.
"Lindows ran up to Microsoft and said "Sue me!!!""
They did no such thing.
"It's a tragedy that Lindows is even in business."
Why? Just because you hate them? Just because MS hates them? Because they sell linux? Why?
"Megacorps in general do have too much legal power just by money alone. Though I don't think Microsoft is guilty of being abusive in this particular case, I do happily concede they have done it before."
MS is a sleazy, unethical, evil corporation. They will do anything at anytime to destroy people and companies they don't like. They recognize no laws, they know no boundries. They will continue to act that way as long as the evil people running it continue to be in charge. The govts are powerless to stop it.
Yes I know there are Python gui builders out there but nothing like VB. I want databound controls and lots of whiz bang eye candy widgets I can drag and drop.
"I guess you missed the part where I said "in a legal sense".
Again show me how. A judge has to decide whether
1) Windows is a legitemate trademark (questionable). 2) That a reasonable person would confuse lindows with windows. This one is a high hurdle as lindows does not come in a box, does not have the same user interface, does not have the same logo, and does not run the same programs.
"Seeing as how Microsoft caught them before they had a chance to do any damage, I can't really answer that question for you."
They did no such thing. They went sue happy in europe while the slow and ponderous US legal system was crawling along. That case has not been settled yet.
"I don't think I was modded up for defending Microsoft, but rather for pointing out how stupidly Lindows went about this."
You were modded up because you defended MS. It's very common on slashdot for the MS trolls to mod each other up. Lindows did nothing stupid. They chose a name combining linux and windows. The term windows has been used in software circles for decades now and is commonly refered to when talking about GUIs. Xwindows, wxwindows, ywindows etc.
MS got all uppidy and started suing them all over the world because they have the money and they knew lindows did not. It's the great tragedy of our time. The rich sue everybody else into oblivion.
Who gave rights to the word "windows" to MS in the first place. It's a generic word, MS has no rights to it. If the lindows lawsuit actually gets decided I bet the judge will throw out the trademark altogether.
It was wrong for MS to claim trademark on a common word.
"It's fun to bash Microsoft over this matter, afterall it is the 'cool' thing to do here at Slashdot, but the reality is that the CEO of Lindows has intentionally and maliciously made trouble for Microsoft."
What? You can't possibly be serious. What kind of trouble did linodws cause MS? Please list how MS was ACTUALLY harmed by the lindows name. Did their profits go down? Did they lose customers? Did they get calls from customers who were confused?
BTW: Maybe it's fun to bash ms here but defending poor helpless corporations like MS seems to get the mod points.
So what. When did pissing off your competitors become illegal. More to the point what does this have to with MS claiming lin__s is somehow confusing with windows?
As I said in my post. Show me one study that says linux on the desktop is not growing like crazy. Corporations, cities, municipalities and even entire countries are starting to adopt linux on the desktp.
"If they just want to code useful tools for themselves and release the code because they're benevolent, then your argument stands. But if developers gain happiness/utility from their products have more market share, then THEY'RE the ones that need to shut up and put out, not the users."
The vast majority of OSS developers don't really care all that much about popularity of their project. Popularity often brings more headaches then it's worth.
"The whining is a sign that competition is needed, and the developers will be left high and dry when it arrives and all the whiners switch to the better product."
Statistics prove you wrong. Almost everybody who uses windows whines about it and yet almost nobody switches.
"For example, affluent OSS users are supposedly switching to OS X. No surprise there -- KDE/GNOME failed to provide a compelling product, thanks to your anti-user sentiment, and so the rich guys jumped ship to Mac."
I like the way you use the word "supposedly" and then use that as some sort of proof. People switched to Mac mostly from windows.
"Meanwhile they're continue to create bad copies of Windows. And users will continue to jump ship. Linux on the desktop is doomed to failure"
And yet it continues to grow by leaps and bounds every year. Every year a handful of companies and even countries announce that they are moving to linux desktops. Why aren't they moving to the Mac? Why aren't they staying with windows?
I am very happy you abandoned linux on the desktop. The slack left by you is being filled by a hundred thousand chinese who just purchased licenses to the sun linux distro. There are hundreds of thousands more getting ready to do the same thing. I bet linux on the desktop grows by at least an order of magnitude in 2004 and another order of magnitude in 2005.
Doomed to failure my ass. Show me a stat that says adoption of linux is slowing down let alone decreasing. You can't.
"That has nothing to do with being "certified for production use" as you later asked."
Certification is important because you want to make sure you app server won't glitch on you because your JVM does not yet support some weird thing or another.
The whole point is that Sun has a certified JVM and due to obnoxious licence requirements the linux distros are not allowed to distribute it.
If you want a product then pay for it. When you get something for free then you really have no right to whine.
My point is that people like you will never shut up. Nothing will ever be good enough for you to stop whining. Windows users constantly bitch at me about how much windows sucks and yet they continue to use it. If I tell them to use a mac they whine that it's too expensive, if I tell them use linux they whine that it's too hard.
Developers should pay no attention to people like you. You will never be happy. You will never stop bitching. Nothing will ever be good enough for you, ever. Surprisingly you will continue to use products you constantly bitch about.
That's my point. Users will moan, groan, bitch, curse, and complain all the fucking time but they will never take the time help, take the time to learn something or take the time to switch to something else.
"So, it's not going to "fix" itself and there is not much we can do to alter the situation. "
Most people think that if they whine and complain enough somebody else will fix the problem for them. Until that perception is changed we will be subjected to endless articles about how much open source sucks from the perspective of the user.
It should be pointed out that users in general are never happy. They never read the documentation, they haphazardly push buttons, they never read the dialog box that pops up in their face and they constanly complain about how much computers suck. We should resign ourselves to users now bitching about linux as much as they bitch about windows.
There is an answer to all the so-called problems of the open source and that's to get off your ass do something. If you can't then give some money to somebody to do it on your behalf.
We need to make a push to make the users understand that they are not buying a product. They are joining a worldwide effort and they help is needed. Just as some shmuck gave up endless staturday nights to code that nice GUI, you need to give up something to help the process along.
" Clear Channel, like any other huge media company, doesn't have a "true" political leaning."
Nonsense. Most corporations give more money to one party then the other. Some corporations give money depending on who is in power but others (like clearchannel) always give more money to one party then the other.
It's patently nonsensical to claim that clear channel does not have a political leaning. They are clearly republicans. Not only does the corporation give way more money to republicans (around 200K for republicans around 25K for democrats) but they have also pulled ads that critize the president.
The interesting thing to watch from now on is which candidate clearchannel supports for president.
Would you support a candidate who fined you a half a million dollars? Most normal businesses would not give money to a candidate or party which fined them incredible amounts of money for basically nothing. After all Howard Stern has been doing his thing for over 20 years now.
To me if they continue to support this administration they actually wanted to be fined. I don't know why but they must have had their reasons.
"The US will become a software 3rd world country if you don't repeal the software patent law."
In most third world countries a handful of people control virtually all the wealth. There are just a few very powerful companies and tons of little mom and pop grocery stores.
MS has a monopoly and the US runs Iraq. Sure we ahve to kill a few hundred iraqis once in a while but we don't lose a lot of people and spend relatively little money when compared to how much money we are going to make from the oil.
His point was that we need to drop our morals and adopt a more violent and less ethical stance just like MS does. MS is kicking our balls and still continue to fight honorably.
You will not win this fight by making a better product or making linux easier to use. MS does not care because they know they will win by kicking us in the balls whenever they want. They will sue, they will get people thrown in jail, they will buy laws, and whatever else they can think of.
You can not win this fight as long as MS is evil and you are good. Evil can only be defeated with brutal violence. Just like what is happening in Iraq.
Americans are violent, they are violent in every way too. The reason we have a huge economy is because people know that there is someone behind us waiting to stab us in the back the minute we let our guard down. It's a survival of the fittest economy consisting of winners and losers. People work very hard to stay ahead of the game otherwise they know they are a hair breath away from unemployment and homelessness. Americans work more then any other country on the planet. They work longer hours, they take less vacations, they take less medical leave, they take less paternity leave. They pretty much live to work.
I disagree that we have the best run govt though. From where I stand it pretty much sucks and consists of people who hate each other yelling at each other. This winner take all system is lousy. Half of this country lives under a governor, senator, president or a representive that hates their guts. It sucks to be liberal in Utah or a conservative in massatuchets.
As for being more honest then anybody I don't buy that either. My experience shows me that people in ocenia are the most honest people followed by the europeans. There are some countries in asia where nobody is honest and some where almost everybody is.
Amazing what giving blacks rights did to the south. a 100% turnaround. Advocating for civil rights cost the democrats the south for decades. Now a white southerner would not vote for a democrat if jesus was on the ticket.
Why would somebody buy a blade server when a rackmount costs less and/or gives you more performance.
I am not going to tell you the answer but I assure that there are very good reasons for buying blades over rackmounts in the enterprise. Google is your friend use it to find out.
Slashdot Mirror
There is no way any reasonable person would confuse windows and lindows. Not only are the names different but the products are very much different. They look different, they work different, they are packaged and sold differently and they have different logos.
You seem to feel that MS is entitled to any word with window in it and also entitled to any word that rhymes with windows. That's simply not true in the law.
For example McDonalds has in the past sued other restaurants named McDonalds. Same name, same business. But they lost. Why? Because a reasonable person would not have walked to the McDOnalds diner in bumfuck iowa thinking they would see Ronald McDonald and buy a big mac.
Yes, it's possible for two businesses to have the exact same name in the exact same industry as long as people are not likely to confuse the two.
In this case the name is not even the same.
Finally. Everybody hates MS. I would say that over 70% of the IT undustry sees MS as an evil organization that actually harms innovation and advancement. Saying that this one guy also hates MS and therefore deserves to lose the case won't wash.
"It already is a legitimate trademark if they earned themselves the little (R) next to their name."
A judge can throw that little R out. It's happened before and it will probably happen again. The judge in this case has already indicated that he thinks the trademark may be invalid.
"That has been debated ad-nauseum here. The rules are simple."
No the rules are not simple. Maybe in your head the rules are simple but in the law rules are very complicated. The test is whether a reasonable person would confuse the two. I don't think any judge would decide that a reasonble person would confuse lindows and windows let alone lindows.com and windows.com.
"So they did catch Lindows before any damage was done, "
First of all no damage was done and no damage would have occured. Secondly MS sued because they got sue happy. The justice system in the US is too slow so while they were waiting for the US judge they started suing in europe too.
The real damage will be done if the judge throws out the trademark, which as I said he has indicated he might. I suspect MS will settle this for big money rather then risk that.
"Wrong. They picked that name on purpose."
Of course they did. Nobody is claiming otherwise. It's a perfectly normal name for a linux distribution.
"They wouldn't need a whole hell of a lot of common sense to realize they were going to draw Microsoft's fire."
Microsoft sues a lot of people. They are a sue happy organization. They sue 16 year olds for gods sake. Everybody at one time or another will draw fire from MS. They are extremely agressive.
"Given the CEO's other MS taunts (like putting up a $250,000 reward to hack the XBOX), well frankly that doesn't help their case."
Not only is this completely inadmissible it's also totally irrelevent. Maybe MS sued out of some spite or hatred for one person (I can certainly believe it) but they can't introduce that in court.
"Lindows ran up to Microsoft and said "Sue me!!!""
They did no such thing.
"It's a tragedy that Lindows is even in business."
Why? Just because you hate them? Just because MS hates them? Because they sell linux? Why?
"Megacorps in general do have too much legal power just by money alone. Though I don't think Microsoft is guilty of being abusive in this particular case, I do happily concede they have done it before."
MS is a sleazy, unethical, evil corporation. They will do anything at anytime to destroy people and companies they don't like. They recognize no laws, they know no boundries. They will continue to act that way as long as the evil people running it continue to be in charge. The govts are powerless to stop it.
Novell is unique in that they have excellent add ons. Groupwise and edirectory are peerless in linux.
They can sell you a desktop system with full groupware capability and centralized management. I don't think anybody else (not even IBM) can do that.
Amen. Something like VB but using python!
Yes I know there are Python gui builders out there but nothing like VB. I want databound controls and lots of whiz bang eye candy widgets I can drag and drop.
"I guess you missed the part where I said "in a legal sense".
Again show me how. A judge has to decide whether
1) Windows is a legitemate trademark (questionable).
2) That a reasonable person would confuse lindows with windows. This one is a high hurdle as lindows does not come in a box, does not have the same user interface, does not have the same logo, and does not run the same programs.
"Seeing as how Microsoft caught them before they had a chance to do any damage, I can't really answer that question for you."
They did no such thing. They went sue happy in europe while the slow and ponderous US legal system was crawling along. That case has not been settled yet.
"I don't think I was modded up for defending Microsoft, but rather for pointing out how stupidly Lindows went about this."
You were modded up because you defended MS. It's very common on slashdot for the MS trolls to mod each other up. Lindows did nothing stupid. They chose a name combining linux and windows. The term windows has been used in software circles for decades now and is commonly refered to when talking about GUIs. Xwindows, wxwindows, ywindows etc.
MS got all uppidy and started suing them all over the world because they have the money and they knew lindows did not. It's the great tragedy of our time. The rich sue everybody else into oblivion.
Who gave rights to the word "windows" to MS in the first place. It's a generic word, MS has no rights to it. If the lindows lawsuit actually gets decided I bet the judge will throw out the trademark altogether.
It was wrong for MS to claim trademark on a common word.
"It's fun to bash Microsoft over this matter, afterall it is the 'cool' thing to do here at Slashdot, but the reality is that the CEO of Lindows has intentionally and maliciously made trouble for Microsoft."
What? You can't possibly be serious. What kind of trouble did linodws cause MS? Please list how MS was ACTUALLY harmed by the lindows name. Did their profits go down? Did they lose customers? Did they get calls from customers who were confused?
BTW: Maybe it's fun to bash ms here but defending poor helpless corporations like MS seems to get the mod points.
So what. When did pissing off your competitors become illegal. More to the point what does this have to with MS claiming lin__s is somehow confusing with windows?
No I am talking about purely desktop growth.
As I said in my post. Show me one study that says linux on the desktop is not growing like crazy. Corporations, cities, municipalities and even entire countries are starting to adopt linux on the desktp.
"If they just want to code useful tools for themselves and release the code because they're benevolent, then your argument stands. But if developers gain happiness/utility from their products have more market share, then THEY'RE the ones that need to shut up and put out, not the users."
The vast majority of OSS developers don't really care all that much about popularity of their project. Popularity often brings more headaches then it's worth.
"The whining is a sign that competition is needed, and the developers will be left high and dry when it arrives and all the whiners switch to the better product."
Statistics prove you wrong. Almost everybody who uses windows whines about it and yet almost nobody switches.
"For example, affluent OSS users are supposedly switching to OS X. No surprise there -- KDE/GNOME failed to provide a compelling product, thanks to your anti-user sentiment, and so the rich guys jumped ship to Mac."
I like the way you use the word "supposedly" and then use that as some sort of proof. People switched to Mac mostly from windows.
"Meanwhile they're continue to create bad copies of Windows. And users will continue to jump ship. Linux on the desktop is doomed to failure"
And yet it continues to grow by leaps and bounds every year. Every year a handful of companies and even countries announce that they are moving to linux desktops. Why aren't they moving to the Mac? Why aren't they staying with windows?
I am very happy you abandoned linux on the desktop. The slack left by you is being filled by a hundred thousand chinese who just purchased licenses to the sun linux distro. There are hundreds of thousands more getting ready to do the same thing. I bet linux on the desktop grows by at least an order of magnitude in 2004 and another order of magnitude in 2005.
Doomed to failure my ass. Show me a stat that says adoption of linux is slowing down let alone decreasing. You can't.
"That has nothing to do with being "certified for production use" as you later asked."
Certification is important because you want to make sure you app server won't glitch on you because your JVM does not yet support some weird thing or another.
The whole point is that Sun has a certified JVM and due to obnoxious licence requirements the linux distros are not allowed to distribute it.
"Would you trust your ecommerce site to Linux?"
Of course I would if I was running apache, php or zope. I would not if I was running any of the JVMs you mentioned though.
Are any of those certified for production use? Would you trust your ecommerce site to them?
You are very confused.
If you want a product then pay for it. When you get something for free then you really have no right to whine.
My point is that people like you will never shut up. Nothing will ever be good enough for you to stop whining. Windows users constantly bitch at me about how much windows sucks and yet they continue to use it. If I tell them to use a mac they whine that it's too expensive, if I tell them use linux they whine that it's too hard.
Developers should pay no attention to people like you. You will never be happy. You will never stop bitching. Nothing will ever be good enough for you, ever. Surprisingly you will continue to use products you constantly bitch about.
That's my point. Users will moan, groan, bitch, curse, and complain all the fucking time but they will never take the time help, take the time to learn something or take the time to switch to something else.
That's because everybody is sitting around waiting for somebody else to make it nice for them.
"So, it's not going to "fix" itself and there is not much we can do to alter the situation. "
Most people think that if they whine and complain enough somebody else will fix the problem for them. Until that perception is changed we will be subjected to endless articles about how much open source sucks from the perspective of the user.
It should be pointed out that users in general are never happy. They never read the documentation, they haphazardly push buttons, they never read the dialog box that pops up in their face and they constanly complain about how much computers suck. We should resign ourselves to users now bitching about linux as much as they bitch about windows.
There is an answer to all the so-called problems of the open source and that's to get off your ass do something. If you can't then give some money to somebody to do it on your behalf.
We need to make a push to make the users understand that they are not buying a product. They are joining a worldwide effort and they help is needed. Just as some shmuck gave up endless staturday nights to code that nice GUI, you need to give up something to help the process along.
" Clear Channel, like any other huge media company, doesn't have a "true" political leaning."
Nonsense. Most corporations give more money to one party then the other. Some corporations give money depending on who is in power but others (like clearchannel) always give more money to one party then the other.
It's patently nonsensical to claim that clear channel does not have a political leaning. They are clearly republicans. Not only does the corporation give way more money to republicans (around 200K for republicans around 25K for democrats) but they have also pulled ads that critize the president.
The interesting thing to watch from now on is which candidate clearchannel supports for president.
Would you support a candidate who fined you a half a million dollars? Most normal businesses would not give money to a candidate or party which fined them incredible amounts of money for basically nothing. After all Howard Stern has been doing his thing for over 20 years now.
To me if they continue to support this administration they actually wanted to be fined. I don't know why but they must have had their reasons.
"The US will become a software 3rd world country if you don't repeal the software patent law."
In most third world countries a handful of people control virtually all the wealth. There are just a few very powerful companies and tons of little mom and pop grocery stores.
Seems to me we are well on our way.
Of course it has. In both cases.
MS has a monopoly and the US runs Iraq. Sure we ahve to kill a few hundred iraqis once in a while but we don't lose a lot of people and spend relatively little money when compared to how much money we are going to make from the oil.
I think you missed his point.
His point was that we need to drop our morals and adopt a more violent and less ethical stance just like MS does. MS is kicking our balls and still continue to fight honorably.
You will not win this fight by making a better product or making linux easier to use. MS does not care because they know they will win by kicking us in the balls whenever they want. They will sue, they will get people thrown in jail, they will buy laws, and whatever else they can think of.
You can not win this fight as long as MS is evil and you are good. Evil can only be defeated with brutal violence. Just like what is happening in Iraq.
Americans are violent, they are violent in every way too. The reason we have a huge economy is because people know that there is someone behind us waiting to stab us in the back the minute we let our guard down. It's a survival of the fittest economy consisting of winners and losers. People work very hard to stay ahead of the game otherwise they know they are a hair breath away from unemployment and homelessness. Americans work more then any other country on the planet. They work longer hours, they take less vacations, they take less medical leave, they take less paternity leave. They pretty much live to work.
I disagree that we have the best run govt though. From where I stand it pretty much sucks and consists of people who hate each other yelling at each other. This winner take all system is lousy. Half of this country lives under a governor, senator, president or a representive that hates their guts. It sucks to be liberal in Utah or a conservative in massatuchets.
As for being more honest then anybody I don't buy that either. My experience shows me that people in ocenia are the most honest people followed by the europeans. There are some countries in asia where nobody is honest and some where almost everybody is.
Whatever man don't be pedantic.
I habe built plenty of systems with the AMP portion on freebsd but would anybody get a reference to FAMP?
Amazing what giving blacks rights did to the south. a 100% turnaround. Advocating for civil rights cost the democrats the south for decades. Now a white southerner would not vote for a democrat if jesus was on the ticket.
What you really meant to ask is.
Why would somebody buy a blade server when a rackmount costs less and/or gives you more performance.
I am not going to tell you the answer but I assure that there are very good reasons for buying blades over rackmounts in the enterprise. Google is your friend use it to find out.