[xcombinator]

He is not.If you think he is the misinformed person is you.

You can inform yourself.Search for DRDOS.Search for windows trademark issues,lindows, you know what? they were an entire line of windows branded products before MS, MS destroyed them all, you can search what happened to them.

Windows is a generic word, it can't never be trademarked(unless you are rich to get over the law), that applies to "word", "powerpoint", "project", "excel", "exchange". A word in the English dictionary just can't be trademarked, by law.

Maybe you were a kid then, but there was a time when "word" was not the most used word processor, it was "WordPerfect", and people used Lotus123 instead of "excel". What did MS did? They made windows but didn't let WordPerfect and Lotus123 people(and everybody else, like compiler builders) use the windows API, so MS had a 4 year period of advantage. Once they did, the high level exposed API was slower than what MS used.

I'm tired too. When people don't know they don't know what they don't know.

[archangel_one]

Well, not quite. Lindows certainly wasn't around before MS. According to Wikipedia the company was founded in 2001. Edit: On further reading, Microsoft didn't manage to force them to change over in court - they just paid $20 million and Lindows changed over. Hardly "destroyed" them.

Windows is an English word, however that doesn't mean it doesn't enjoy some trademark protection in an arrangement like "Microsoft Windows". The protection is not as significant as it would be on an invented word (like, say, "Microsoft") but it's still there if you come up with something that's judged to be similar enough to cause confusion.

Similarly, try founding an IT company called Apple and see how far you get - that's an English word too.