> On Tue, Mar 04, 2003, Eli Billauer wrote about "Re: [Fwd: BSA Accuses OpenOffice > ftp sites of piracy]": > > But the problem is not that some people want a WYSIWYG word processor, > > or spreadsheets. Micro$oft doesn't have any rights on the WYSIWYG > > concept. But if you call an application KWord and make it look like > > MS-Word, you've made a statement about its origins. > > Excuse me? > M-w.com lists the phrase "word processor" as dating back to 1970, which is > a good 15 years before the first version of MS-Word I know of. Microsoft > has no copyrights on the generic English word "word", and while calling > a word processor, of all names, "Kword" may be strange - it is certainly > not illegal.
This reminds me of an ancient story about MS acquiring the English language. (http://www.stokely.com/lighter.side/ms.english.html for once) If I recall correctly it was circulating exactly out of the fear that some time in the future, common generic words like Word or Project will become proprietary. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
