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Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

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Re: Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

#31

Post by irrational »

gary_0 wrote: post #13
worik wrote: post #6

What are the grounds for invalidating the trademark? > we’ll start discovery to show how "JavaScript" is widely recognized as a generic term But "JavaScript" is always referring to the same thing, it is not a term for "in browser scripting". Am I missing something?

Whenever anyone says "JavaScript" they actually mean "ECMAScript", which is the language browsers and scripting engines actually implement. The Web standard documents cannot use the term "JavaScript" because of the trademark issue. There isn't even such a thing as "Oracle JavaScript", they are sitting on the trademark without using it.

I’ve been using JavaScript since the first version in Netscape navigator. When I say JavaScript, that’s what I’m referring to. It may have had some things bolted on over the past quarter century, but I still think of it as that thing way back when.

Re: Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

#32

Post by worthless-trash »

aperrien wrote: post #26
fortran77 wrote: post #25

What's wrong with everyone else calling it "ECMAScript?"

While descriptive, I'd think a catchier name might be in order. As a plus, that can be used to draw people away from any Oracle branding.

Just call it Browserscript, and be done with it. Call it what it is.

Re: Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

#33

Post by thayne »

trademark_ wrote: post #5

They must have read this counterpoint: https://mastodon.social/@trademark_/113732902163918914

> Yet, few of the millions who program in it realize they have much better choices

Oh, if only that were true. I wish there were better choices for web development. And no, transpiling another language to JavaScript doesn't count.

Re: Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

#34

Post by nayuki »

p4ul wrote: post #27

"Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison." [1]. [1.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=2308s

> And by the way, and I've already fallen into this trap here, do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison. Because if you--you need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawn mower. Lawnmower just does, like, mows the lawn. Like, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think like, oh the lawnmower hates me, lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Lawnmower--you don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower, don't fall into that trap about Oracle.

> So, and in particular with open source, oh they wanted to kill OpenSolaris, like no, the lawnmower doesn't care about OpenSolaris. The lawnmower doesn't think about OpenSolaris, the lawnmower can't care about OpenSolaris. The lawnmower can't have empathy.

(I listened to the speech and manually cleaned up YouTube's automatic transcription.)

Re: Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

#35

Post by throw646577 »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #20
mananaysiempre wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And though Sun was undeniably more worthy of sympathy than Oracle is, Sun’s original claim on the trademark seems just as bogus as Oracle’s current one.

Maybe. I'm not a lawyer, let alone an IP lawyer, but Netscape creating a programming language called "JavaScript" seems like the kind of thing that would be likely to cause confusion in the marketplace. Netscape explicitly chose the name to latch on to the popularity of Java at the time. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me for the Sun of 1997 to want to protect their interest in the Java name by licensing it to Netsca…

Netscape didn't just try to "latch onto" the popularity of Java.

Netscape _and_ Sun, together, called it JavaScript. The point was that the renamed language had rudimentary bindings that you could use to connect functionality in an HTML page with the applets embedded in it (which were effectively silo'd in HotJava)

https://web.archive.org/web/20070916144913/https://wp.netsca...

It was fully a partner decision.

Also, f***. I am old.

Re: Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

#36

Post by nayuki »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #21
calibas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It prevents Oracle from suing, but everybody calls it JavaScript anyway...

And the fact Oracle didn't sue for trademark infringement on that or TypeScript which is often referred to as JavaScript is probably not going to help Oracle here. But I doubt Oracle cares either way.

Nor did they sue ActionScript (Macromedia Flash's implementation of JavaScript), CoffeeScript (a separate language that compiles to JavaScript, and has a name very much evoking Java).

Re: Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

#37

Post by nayuki »

worthless-trash wrote: post #32
aperrien wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While descriptive, I'd think a catchier name might be in order. As a plus, that can be used to draw people away from any Oracle branding.

Just call it Browserscript, and be done with it. Call it what it is.

But it's also Serverscript due to Node.js.

Re: Oracle Will Not Voluntarily Withdraw JavaScript Trademark

#40

Post by thayne »

worthless-trash wrote: post #32
aperrien wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While descriptive, I'd think a catchier name might be in order. As a plus, that can be used to draw people away from any Oracle branding.

Just call it Browserscript, and be done with it. Call it what it is.

Or Webscript
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