[openbeos] Re: Name suggestion
- From: pascal@xxxxxxxxxx
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2002 21:09:00 -0700 (PDT)
On Wed, 26 June 2002, "Michael Phipps" wrote
>
> There is something of a stigma of failure. And if that
>were the only issue, I would say that it pretty well
>balances with the positive side (i.e. popularity, etc).
>The issue is legal. Cloning BeOS and naming ourselves.
>*Be.* is a recipie for a lawsuit.
Might be. I don't know. But on the other hand, if we
refer to the case that rejected Microsoft's claim
against "lindows", we can say for the same
reasons that Be is a generic name and cannot be
registered.
So, I'm not a specialist, but I guess a name is unlikely
to be the target of a lawsuit just because it contains
"be".
Read the ruling, it's interesting.
Among the reasons for the claim rejection:
- (said above) Windows is a generic name;
- Window as a programming concept was known before MS
started using it in '83;
- There are myriads of product names containing *dows,
and MS didn't file any claim against one of them.
- MS does not sale any product called simply Windows,
but only Microsoft Windows and its variants.
On top of that, I wonder if filing against a non
commercial organization can be done easily.
By the way, if we cannot use a name containing be, what
about the library libbe.so?
Pascal
Note that I am not in favor and neither against using
a name in *be*. I am only against "religious" decisions
without careful study, like (for the most famous that
have shown on this list):
- No C++ in the holy kernel;
- No localization of the holy kernel;
- etc...
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