[riceboy]

Reported on Neowin by Tom Warren

On Monday 12th December, Francisco Javier Ocasio Gotay aka KoL received a Microsoft legal threat regarding a theme he released 5 months ago. Not content with threatening innocent bloggers on material related to Windows Vista, the company is moving onto its next attack plan by demanding that ported themes from Vista visual styles back to Windows XP be removed.

KoL was one of the first skinners on the scene back when it was discovered that a simple hack of the uxtheme.dll meant un-certified themes could run freely on Windows XP. A simple search on Google demonstrates just how much KoL has contributed to the skinning community. The theme is question is the VistaXP Visual Style which is based on Longhorn build 5203. Many have tried to copy the theme but lack the crisp feel of Vista.

The theme was originally released on 17th July 2005 and is arguably the best Vista port to date. The thread here at Neowin generated more than a 1000 comments and had nearly 300,000 visitors. It has taken the company nearly 5 months to contact KoL to ask him to remove the theme. Third party law firm, Seed IP contacted KoL 2 days ago.

When questioned Francisco is defiant that this will not prevent him from creating high quality themes in the future. "They say that the themes include Microsoft UI artwork, fonts and images that are subject of copyright, trademark and trade dress. That's true and I think they took it down because of that but also because of the popularity of the skin" he said.

Like Neowin, KoL believes Microsoft should have alerted him months before this date and should pursue others that are distributing similar themes.

Clearly over at Redmond if you're popular then be careful, first Messenger Plus! and now a theme designer.....watch out Google!

Agree that this is Ludicrous? Disagree and think Microsoft is well in their rights? Post a comment and let us know!

[xpheno9x]

thats rediculous.

seems like good old <b>MicroNazi</b> are up to their old ploys once again..

what i dont understand is this - the gui skinning community have been around for a very long time. obviously with the 'news' that a new OS will eventually be released to supercied XP [in this case Longhorn/Vista], and the Beta release of Vista 5203, Microsoft should have well been aware of such behaviours of skinning artists such as Kol to port the visual theme of Vista and port it to XP - such a task is NOT rocket science, and the skinning community are a smart bunch - it isnt impossible to not figure out.So now they hold such artists accountable and demand for them to liquidate their work? it isnt like these artists are making money off of their talents this way.

maybe Microsoft should have considered this long before even releasing a beta such as this to the MSDN community in the first place, knowing well enough that such would eventually be leaked. they have themselves to blame, and its just pointless yet typical of them.

[cybero]

its a pity..kols skin is the best....his skin was just too close to the orginial

[DrunkMonkey]

Maybe its because one of the biggest reasons alot of people will want to switch to Vista is for the look?

Yes, there is MUCH more than a changed look but that is the only thing most people are aware of.

[riceboy]

Well there is a lot of themes out there that are very close to the actual thing so why are they still around? An example is the Arrow theme:

Arrow Theme

In my opinion it's very close to the real thing. Maybe one reason they took it off is because Kol called it VistaXP and not something else....sheesh

This post has been edited by riceboy: 14 December 2005 - 10:23 PM

[Frylock86]

DrunkMonkey, on Dec 14 2005, 08:39 PM, said:

Maybe its because one of the biggest reasons alot of people will want to switch to Vista is for the look?

Yes, there is MUCH more than a changed look but that is the only thing most people are aware of.

Thats the same thing i am thinking.


Do you think once Vista is released, will Kol be able to distribute it again?

[cybero]

i was hoping for vistaxp v4 too....not that v3 need much changing...just the shut down and log off buttons

[Faneramx]

read more here: http://-kol.deviantart.com/

[SEIKO]

sigh

[Saxo]

It is things like this which gives Microshafters a bad rep with the computing world.

Surely they could let this go, as likely the final version will look totally different with the color and taskbar etc.

I just do not get why they have spent time/money in something so pointless and only going to bring them bad repuation in the public relations.

[Sushee XP]

Kol on Deviantart

Quote

dont worry I'll create a better skin than VistaXP hehe

[KoL]

Yeah it suck but they have the right to do that. Read more on my deviantART Journal - http://-kol.devianta...ournal/7297022/

This post has been edited by KoL: 15 December 2005 - 10:31 PM

[mike_b1954]

Sorry to hear about this ,KoL . . . as far as a PC Newbie like myself is concerned , I always thought that your work was ( and STILL is ! ) the
best . . I look forward to more of your Great Works . . ASAP . .!

[Saxo]

KoL, on Dec 15 2005, 10:15 PM, said:

Yeah it suck but they have the right to do that. Read more on my deviantART Journal - http://-kol.devianta...ournal/7297022/

I feel for you KOL I lucky me backed them all up jus in time too

Can't wait for your next offering I dare you to make another Vista one

[SEIKO]

Saxo, on Dec 16 2005, 04:29 AM, said:

KoL, on Dec 15 2005, 10:15 PM, said:

Yeah it suck but they have the right to do that. Read more on my deviantART Journal - http://-kol.devianta...ournal/7297022/

I feel for you KOL I lucky me backed them all up jus in time too

Can't wait for your next offering I dare you to make another Vista one

playing 'truth' n 'dare' around aye boy?