On 7/8/2011 3:27 AM, Tom Davies wrote:
Hi :)
How about if we sold LibreOffice on usb-sticks that could be read by Windows?
Would it be paranoid to think that MS might bother to chase to chase us if we
did that?
Regards from
Tom :)
________________________________
From: Gary Schnabl<[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Fri, 8 July, 2011 8:20:31
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Getting Started Guide_Setting up
Libreoffice
On 7/6/2011 9:26 PM, planas wrote:
Hi,
On Wed, 2011-07-06 at 06:55 -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
Quoting Tom Davies<[email protected]>:
Hi :)
Lol. Why all this change of direction? and why did this suddenly
occur moments
AFTER Jean left for a couple of weeks?
Ignoring the advice of legal experts based on a quick read of a
children's fairy
story does not make any sense to me. From a quick google search
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._TomTom
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._TomTom_%282008,_USA%29
MS sued a company for using fat32, not even the more advanced Ntfs, and won.
Fat32 is pretty much the standard system used by the vast majority
of people on
external storage devices. Being unaware of court actions and being
unaware of
the strategy MS uses (such as buying-up software patents) does not
make us safe
from those issues.
It would be really paranoid to think that Gary might be an MS
employee but he is
using fairly standard tactics that would normally be designed by a
competitor to
disrupt a community-led group.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/07/05/2012229/Microsofts-Hottest-New-Profit-Center-Android?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=twitter
r
rday
Unless someone is willing to spend the time and money to properly
research the US legal issues, the safest course is avoid any chance of
putting us into a possible legal crosshairs. I have neither. The problem
is that no one has come forward who is US attorney and knowledgeable on
software related issues to advise us. MS could consider LO as a direct
competitor to MSO and thus would look for our legal blunders committed
out of ignorance of US law.
It may be more tedious for us to make sure our screenshots do not show
anything that would imply a Windows OS but it is safer. I doubt any
Linux distro would be upset if their desktop was identifiable in one of
our screenshots. In fact a subtle plug could made by saying all the
screenshots were made on various Linux distros. Many Windows users think
we are command line using dinosaurs and would be surprised to see a
vaguely familiar desktop.
One would have to be extremely paranoid to even think that Microsoft
would bother suing anybody or any organization over any screenshots with
the Windows XP theme appearing in any non-MS documents. (Most people,
even Microsoft, have lives...) Especially considering that Windows XP is
nearly a decade old and is not even officially supported by Microsoft
any longer, as MS considers Windows XP as being economically obsolete,
for sales purposes.
Gary
Microsoft, like other older established (considered to be a dinosaur, to
some folk) IT firms, is far more concerned about its remaining
economically relevant in the marketplace in near future than in its
wasting any time and effort concerning such trifles as
screenshots.showing the obsolete Windows XP theme appearing in
third-party documents. After all, there are literally millions
(billions?) of such screen captures to be found nearly everywhere on the
planet. Yet not a real peep from Microsoft other than standard, routine
boilerplate legalese (found virtually everywhere on copyright pages).
My common-sense take on this (non)issue is that Microsoft would actually
not object to any such public exposure of their GUI than in suppressing
it, as it provides free advertising for the (now-obsolete) product.
Ditto for Apple.
Gary
--
Gary Schnabl
Southwest Detroit, two miles NORTH! of Canada--Windsor, that is...
Technical Editor forum <http://TechnicalEditor.LivernoisYard.com/phpBB3/>
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