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RedHanded

Windows Ruby? #

by why in cult

Tom’s Hardware is reporting that Microsoft registered a handful of domain names along with its intended Microsoft Vista domain. One of these domains is windowsruby.com! Seriously, that can’t happen. It’ll wash the one-click installer out of the ranks. (And confuse the entire Earth.) Also note: MS has used the name before.

Oh and they also registered windowssapphire.com. So it looks like Windows is going the Pokemon route. (Many coats to Andrew for sending this in!)

26 Jul 2005 at 11:56 | 10 comments

MenTaLguY

said on 26 Jul 2005 at 12:15

More to the point, could there be any future trademark issues?

Not a lawyer

said on 26 Jul 2005 at 12:39

A domain name isn’t a trademark, and our Ruby predates it by about 20 boy-bands’ lifetimes. I don’t think even Microsoft’s lawyers could argue that one.

In all likelihood, these were possible names for Vista, and Gates couldn’t make up his mind (“Should I sound like an old folks home or a Nintendo game?”) for a while, so they went ahead and registered them all.

MenTaLguY

said on 26 Jul 2005 at 13:12

Prior use hasn’t really stopped them before.

But, neither are there any signs that they are actually using Ruby as a trademark (registered or otherwise). So, yeah. Probably not a big deal, but…

Daniel Berger

said on 26 Jul 2005 at 17:54

So much for that plan!

Dave Burt

said on 26 Jul 2005 at 19:09

There’s still Longhorn Server to be named… The Register notes “Vista” isn’t that enterprisey a name. I’m betting they’re not going to name it after a cow.

“Windows [Server] Seven” or “Windows Ruby” like the .nl domain names?

If the latter, Ruby will stop meaning the programming language and start meaning a particular version of Windows.

Geoff

said on 26 Jul 2005 at 23:12

Omitted from the list were windowsredhanded.com and windowstheluckystiff.com

_windows

said on 27 Jul 2005 at 09:59

yes we have big plans for the foxes. big plans.

Peter Cooper

said on 29 Jul 2005 at 10:33

I see no reason not for MS to continue with its professional sounding Microsoft Windows Server 200x idea. So I guess it’ll be 2007 in this case.

JH

said on 31 Jul 2005 at 11:30

Interesting, I was Googling ruby the other day and turned up results in msdn.com. Unless I am mistaken, it looks like Microsoft is once again trying to pave over existing technology terms with something entirely their own. Like eXtreme Programming (XP) and Windows XP. In this case Ruby looks like it is used to support Asian text

Dave Burt

said on 02 Aug 2005 at 18:35

JH, ruby annotations are older than this W3C recommendation (31 May 2001)

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