Lindows becomes Lindash 536
Daveh writes "The Register is reporting that 'The operating system Lindows is now available as Lin---s (pronounced: Lin-dash) in those countries where Microsoft has blocked the availability of the desktop Linux distribution. The new name complies with a recent Amsterdam court ruling (PDF), the San Diego company says.' There are a few new sites to reflect the name change, including Lin---s.com and Lindash.nl."
Not that this matters... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not that this matters... (Score:5, Funny)
Totally Idiotic. (Score:5, Interesting)
A better name would've been "Lintel", but okay, I guess the Dutch Govt' wouldn't have seen the humor in that name-switch, eh?
Re:Totally Idiotic. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Totally Idiotic. (Score:5, Funny)
This sounds like some sort of geek clone of a day-time talk show. Then that show sues. You just can't win!
How about "Lintiac, the sporty operating system with a bad water pump"?
Re:Totally Idiotic. (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, this is horrible, this idea. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes, this is horrible, this idea. (Score:4, Funny)
Been done before! (Score:5, Interesting)
this gave the wine an underground cachet. So the next year he just had the lables printed with the black dash. This was great till Taylor wines sued him again, and arguning before the same judge, won the case that the black mark had become identified with "taylor".
So the next year he left off the black mark and instead just put oil paintings of his deceased relatives on the bottles with the captions, joe TAYLOR. mary TAYLOR, etc....
Taylor wines sued him again. So he once again he erased the name and left the pictures that every one now recognized as the taylor family portraits. .
Taylor sued again and won. He was ordered to turn over the lables so he loaded them in the manure spreader and spread them around taylor wines office building.
Finally he altered all the portraits to cyclopses and dared them to say he was related. Around then he also adopted the name "bully hill winery". ANd there it ended.
I'd say lindash should just use a strategically placed Star or fig leaf to cover the last part of its name.
Re:Been done before! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Been done before! (Score:5, Funny)
"Due to the wine Industry's desire for paranoia, greed, and lack of interest in the consumers health/security; dark forces moved secretly in concert illegally to destroy forever the Family's Purity of Purpose regarding its World Leadership in Wine; while others, in adjacent facilities, producing Wine, concentrated on Deception, and the Cult of Omission.
Predictably local Politicians, Religious icons, and Village Leaders sold our beautiful area down the river to Foreign invaders, and scavengers while our Family pulled the wagons around for the final Battle of Bully Hill. "
I think I this guy has all the qualifications of a Linux advocate!
(ITS A JOKE. LAUGH.)
Re:Been done before! (Score:5, Informative)
The court injunction can be found here [uconn.edu].
Re:Been done before! (Score:5, Interesting)
With some new law that was passed tv commercials were not allowed to advertise any tobacco products. So what did tobacco road do? They simply said "Tobacco Road. We can't advertise what we sell, so we will show you ____ [insert random 50's B&W short TV clip]." And at the end, "Tobacco Road. Gas and cheap prices on stuff we can't mention here." It was all quite humorous.
Wine Project? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not that this matters... (Score:5, Funny)
It does matter (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh, someone is gonna burn, even if it is just my moderator points.
Re:It does matter (Score:4, Interesting)
- "Windows" is a generic term that cannot be trademarked.
- Microsoft only has a trademark on "Microsoft Windows."
Thus, I must conclude that it's perfectly acceptable for anyone to use the term "Windows." By extension, if "Windows" itself is OK, then something that is similar is also OK (i.e. "Lindows" or "Lindows Windows").What wouldn't be OK is something like, "Microsoft Lindows" or "Microsoft Windowsish OS" or "Lindows Microsoft Windows".
Side note: It occurs to me that "Linux" has been trademarked by Linus. I think he has more (not much more) of a case against the Lindows company than Microsoft does.
Here's how it goes with trademarks (Score:5, Informative)
For a company to win in a trademark case, the biggest factor is showing that the allegedly infringing trademark is likely to cause confusion in a normal consumer. So it doesn't have to be precisely the same or anything, it just has to be to the point that your normal consumer might get confused by it, and hence you'd have your bussiness hurt.
That's why if it is two totally different products, there's usually not a problem. No one is going to mistake software called Firebird for the car called Firebird, two totally different thigns. However Windows and Lindows were both OSes, and Lindows selling point is being like Windows (similar interface, alleged compatibility, always root, etc).
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.
The statements made by the developers of Lindows don't help either. As memory serves, they were touting it as a Windows replacement, and actually had to back down on some claims because they couldn't get compatibility as good as they thought. That sort of thing is factored in.
Re:It does matter (Score:3, Insightful)
In addition, since the X Window System is commonly referred to by ALL users of the product for as long as it has existed as X Windows, Lindows can continue referring to itself as Lindows because Linux + X Windows = Lindows.
= 9J =
Re:Not that this matters... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not that this matters... (Score:5, Funny)
Or even ---/Lin---- where --- stands for "---'s not ---".
Re:Not that this matters... (Score:3, Funny)
i vote for:
Just say it like Homer... (Score:5, Funny)
Just say it like Homer: Lin-DOH!
(Does Fox have a trademark on "DOH"?)
Re:Not that this matters... (Score:4, Funny)
O(+>
So maybe Lin---s needs to change their name to a glyph to avoid all this mess. How about this:
`._____
`.L_|_|
`.L_|_|
Re:Not that this matters... (Score:5, Funny)
Nice original thinking (Score:5, Funny)
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because they use a Linux kernel does not mean that Lindows is somehow a "better" company. Lindows is run
Re:Wow (Score:3, Funny)
because (Score:4, Insightful)
Thats the difference
Look at it this way. is lindows the victim of an unfortuneate naming coincidence ?
No. They're a linux distribution who's only reason for existance is to try and be as much like windows as possible, but not windows. And their name reflects exactly that purpose.
I'm sure you'll agree that i cant stard Fjord Motor Company, a car maker.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Just wondering.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
They... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well (Score:4, Funny)
Re:They... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They... (Score:5, Funny)
It reads like some sort of Dilbert/Windows hybrid. I like it.
Re:They... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:They... (Score:3, Insightful)
In a related story (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In a related story (Score:3, Funny)
about the new name (Score:5, Funny)
--
code newbie [codenewbie.com]: help for coding newbies
I still say (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I still say (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I still say (Score:5, Funny)
How about "I can't believe it's not windows!"
Unfortunate (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unfortunate (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's easy to jump on MS, but let's be honest: Lindows, as a word, doesn't mean anything. It's just Windows with an L instead of a W. It is OBVIOUSLY trying to cash in on the Windows franchise.
Oh, and with a neat 95% of the marketplace, I think MS is winning in the free market. I think most Linux users actually dislike Lindows. Its a lame way to commercialize the OS.
Trademark (Score:5, Insightful)
All they want is the name changed, they're not trying to stop them from selling it.
Re:Unfortunate (Score:3, Insightful)
Amsterdam court ruling (Score:5, Funny)
BSD may be forced also to change it's name to BUD.
Re:Amsterdam court ruling (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, just change the B to a L. Talk about a way to grab attention from your co-workers: "So yeah, I installed LSD this past weekend, and man what a trip it was..."
Or maybe ... (Score:4, Funny)
Wheel of Fortune (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to buy a vowel!
What ever happen to (Score:5, Funny)
winix
uniwindows
linuows
microsnix
lindix
Re:What ever happen to (Score:5, Funny)
Rather it be... (Score:4, Funny)
That's crazy! (Score:5, Funny)
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
Lindows will now sue Microdash for trademark violations.
Will it ever end?
Re:In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In related news... (Score:3, Funny)
Lindo~1
lindo-tildy-one
beter than
lindash
Congratulations Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
What a waste of everyone's time and money.
As first reported on (Score:5, Funny)
As a double bonus is gets around any Microsoft-friendly internet censorware that has lindows.com blocked as "terrorist" or "hate speech".
-JoeShmoe
.
That's using your imagination! (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) Reference Library 2002. (C) 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Good for Lindows. Too bad being a visionary is copyrighted by Microsoft.
Great moments in sarcasm (Score:3, Interesting)
Hilarious ... another great moment in sarcasm history, and yet rather thought-provoking on the question of intellectual property.
in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
- [reference.com] (-) n.
An opening constructed in a wall or roof that functions to admit light or air to an enclosure and is often framed and spanned with glass mounted to permit opening and closing.
Not too bad (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not too bad (Score:3, Funny)
Lin---s in Amsterdam, eh? (Score:4, Funny)
Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
*gong*
Let's hope Linus doesn't press, too! (Score:4, Funny)
Then it would become L-----s.
(Not that it's likely [slashdot.org], of course. Heh.)
Obligatory Homer Exclaimation (Score:5, Funny)
Lindash - the marketing meeting (Score:5, Funny)
"Yeah, I like Lindash a lot. And it sounds WAY better than Laguar or Lanther."
LodinwsSO (Score:5, Funny)
Why not "LinDOHs"? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why not "LinDOHs"? (Score:3, Informative)
Can you raed tihs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Thundercougarfalconbird. (Score:5, Funny)
--riney
That's the dumbest name since... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, how the hell are you going to market that?
This reminds me of the case study done on white wines. Turns out that approx 75% of white wine drinkers prefer Gewertztraminer to Chardonnay grapes. Yet Chardonnay is still the top white grape in the world. [corbansviticulture.co.nz] Why? Because people can't pronounce Gewurtztraminer (Guh-vurtz-trah-mihn-er), and don't want to sound stupid.
Good luck with that dash thing, folks. Let me know how it works out for you.
Further proof that MS should have... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft has from the beginning of this, given Roberson(SP?) (Lindows CEO) more free advertising opportunities than his product could have ever given him.
Keep it up Microsoft... one of these shots in the foot will keep you from walking!
Re:Further proof that MS should have... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Keep it up Microsoft... one of these shots in the foot will keep you from walking!"
They've got more feet than you can imagine and even if they have to resort to crawling, they'll still surpass distros like Lindows who pull childish things like this.
-indows (Score:3, Interesting)
Blocking access to website ? (Score:5, Informative)
"(The court) Orders a verdict under which Lindows.com is to block access to the website of Lindows.com where she offers software under the name of "Lindows", including but not limited to the website at URL http://www.lindows.com, to all vistors from Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg."
I can still access it, even though I'm from Holland, but I feel I still have the right to get the Lindows product from Lindows.com as I please.
This view of the "Internet", and the websites that it houses is quite stalinistic in my humble opinion.
Throwing down the gauntlet (Score:5, Insightful)
"Any action from Microsoft to block Lin---s will show their true intentions are not to protect their trademark, but to eliminate competition and maintain their monopoly." [theregister.co.uk]
Basically he's bear baiting.
This is why... (Score:5, Funny)
gotta love their page footer (Score:5, Funny)
Copyright (C) 2004 Lindows.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
Lindows.com is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft Corporation in any way - in fact, we don't even really like them because they are suing us.
LINL (Score:3, Interesting)
They should take a tip from Apple (Score:4, Funny)
Many years ago, Apple was developing a new computer under the code name "Carl Sagan". Well, Carl Sagan learned of this and had his lawyers send a C&D letter to Apple. So Apple changed the code name to "Butt-Head Astronomer". A few details are here [idiot-dog.com].
Maybe Lindows should be named Butt-Head CEO?Only a matter of time... (Score:4, Funny)
And then we'll have to refer to those household objects as casements, skylights, transoms, portholes, panes, windowpanes, or glass. (Yes, I got all those synonyms from M$ Word's "thesaurus", which interestingly did not provide "operating system" as a synonym for "windows" ;-)
Re:babies... (Score:5, Funny)
They should just have something that reminds users that their LINUX (obviously, symbolized by a penguin) is HOT (symbolized by fire), so i would recommend they call their product "Firebird".
No really, it was funny when i first thought about it.
Lindows, Inc secondary to fight with MS (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael Robertson is as much interested in the fight with MS as the future of his company, which he is using as a vehicle. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing - Lindows is privately held [lindows.com], after all, so he can do what he likes, and I respect his convictions. What Robertson really would like to see, I think even *more* than the success of Lindows, would be for a US court to strip Windows of trademark protection.
Not so much... (Score:5, Insightful)
The US courts are more reasonable, and likely won't let Microsoft pull words from the English language/computing circles like European courts have. Lindows is a great marketing name for a linux desktop solution, combining linux, a term the average joe may be unfamiliar with, with windows, a term most people use in reference to their computer everyday (not M$ Windows(tm), but those little boxes people are used to dealing with on their desktops in *any* OS environment, when they are instructed to "close the window" etc.). Trademarking the word "windows" is like trademarking the words "mouse" or "cursor".
I don't know much about the distro or the company... but I give them props for their name. Marketing wit is something the linux community can always use more of.
Re:Not so much... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
they forgot (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:babies... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this pokes fun at MS's insanity.
This seems completely asinine. How many hundreds of products out there call themselves "win"foo, or foo"indows"-bar? Yet who does MS go after? a Linux company.
Microsoft arguably has to protect their trademarks to keep them valid, but the existance of exactly the examples I gave demonstrate that they have already given up their trademark. And that doesn't even take into consideration the outright absurdity of trying to consider a common English word as a trademark in the first place.
So, a jab at MS? Yup. Infantile? Hey, personally I would have gone even further, changing it to something like "Nanosuck Lindoors YQ", with a slogan like "what it takes them a millionth of a second to do, we do in a billionth", or "Bo and Luke may have used windows, but the rest of us prefer doors", or "A full letter ahead of the competition" (okay, those all sound really stupid, but you get the idea - Push the limits of trademarkability to their idiotic extremes).
Earlier today, I thouht the EU came down a bit hard on MS, rejecting the very settlement they (the EU) themselves had proposed. But now? Crap like this makes me long for the revocation of a company's (not just MS's) corporate charter. If they can't all play nice, take 'em out back and put 'em all against the wall.
Who is the baby ? (Score:5, Informative)
-
Sponsoring several open source projects:
[lindows.com]
-
kde-look.org
- kde-apps.org
-
Mozilla
-
Nvu
-
gaim
-
And the list goes on
...
-
Hiring Everaldo
[linuxpr.com]
Yeah, let's hope they go belly up. Now, who is the baby ?Re:I'm confused. (Score:3, Interesting)
Linn-ess
Sounds like Linus, eh.
PlaceHolder (Score:4, Interesting)
The judge has instructed the jury [lamlaw.com]to evaluate the Trademark of Windows as it was before it was "Given" to MS. They will loose and we can call our favorite OS, Windows for Linux, Windows for BSD etc.
Re:I've got a suggestion for them... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lindows will certainly win their case against Microsoft.