Re: Oh-NOOOOS: Microsoft says "Linux" infringes 235 of its Patents.
On Tuesday 15 May 2007, debian-user-digest-request@lists.debian.org wrote:
> >> Now there must be a reason why Microsoft browbeat and legally harrassed
> >> Robertson until he gave up the name "Lindows". Certainly.
> >
> > They _paid_ him. The reason being that it had become quite clear that
> > the court was not only going to allow the continued use of the LINDOWS
> > mark but was also going to rule the WINDOWS mark unenforceable.
>
> If I remember correctly, Lindows (now Linspire) actually won the court
> case in the USA, but lost here in Europe, and rather than having to use
> different names in different places in the world, they settled with
> Microsoft.
>
> If you actually read Linspire's (and Freespire's) license agreement[0],
> you'll find that the company's policies are not that different than
> Microsoft. The license specifically grants the user only the right to
> use the software, but not to do anything else with it.
The "spires" as well as many Debian based distrobutions and what we add to
them for our own pleasure go beyond what is covered in the GPL. Enjoy your
media players? Your are into microsoft codecs and most use could be
considered licensing violations of some kind. Remember when most software
refrained from supporting writing GIF image format? How do they get around
that now? Linspire has very convenient installation of all kinds of nice
packages, many proprietary, many GPL.
So that freespire license says what is GPL remains GPL meaning one might pay
for it but have the sources if you wants them, etc. What is proprietary
remains so and one is bound by the author's terms. Yes, one can say it in one
paragraph but EULAs simply have to be long, don't they?
Freespire's innovation: You'd better stop your kids from violating the
agreement, even if it be incomprehensible to an adult. Cute.
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