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> I don't think it's generic--when I boot up Linux on my laptop, I don't say, "This Linux/Xorg/Openbox combination sure is a great windows!"

You never 'open a window', or 'close a window', or 'change a window'? You might be younger than me (I'm 30) but I've been doing that since having an Atari ST in the last 80s.

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As far as I know, MSFT doesn't have a trademark on the term "window" as used to describe objects in a GUI. They have a trademark on the term "Windows" as a whole system.

Same reason you can buy "linux" laundry detergent.

Windows began as an installable GUI, target than a whole system. It was only in 1995 that it started doing more than windowing.

Ahem, 'target' should be 'rather'. Hooray autocorrect.

Even so, their trademark in that case was on the windowing system. Not on the UI elements generally called "windows".

I'm going to flat disagree that windowing systems and window UI elements are separate fields of endeavor, in the same way that laundry detergent and computer Operating Systems are. I think most lawyers would too.

Sure I perform window operations, but they're not nearly the same thing as using Windows--which entails a lot more than using windows.

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