Subj : Re: Copyrights?
To   : Laurens Holst
From : Brendan Eich
Date : Thu Aug 26 2004 10:52 am

Laurens Holst wrote:

> Hi there,
> 
> We need to know where the copyright of Javascript lies, for some 
> documentation we wrote.


Do you mean trademark, or copyright?


> Can anyone here tell me? It is quite hard to find, with contradicting 
> results :). Some say it's Netscape, some say Sun... My guess is that 
> Javascript is (c) Netscape and JScript is (c) Microsoft, but we're using 
> script for both browsers...


Now it sounds like you mean trademark.


> Who holds the copyright on ECMAScript then?


ECMA, I think.  Have a look at http://www.ecma-international.org/, 
perhaps you can find a trademark policy.  I can't, at a glance.


> And which of the copyright notices should we use? All throughout the 
> document we say Javascript, not ECMAScript, it probably makes a 
> difference...


Sun has allowed Netscape and, since 1998, Mozilla to use JavaScript 
freely, but I believe it's still trademarked by Sun.  But let me know 
whether you *do* mean trademark, and I'll get a better answer.

/be

.