[HN Gopher] Oracle, it's time to free JavaScript
___________________________________________________________________
Oracle, it's time to free JavaScript
Author : jeremiahlee
Score : 214 points
Date : 2024-09-16 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (javascript.tm)
(TXT) w3m dump (javascript.tm)
| looperhacks wrote:
| The letter makes points that the trademark is already abandoned.
| I'm not familiar with trademark laws, but if the trademark is
| already abandoned, why the need for the letter?
| joshstrange wrote:
| Abandoned as in "they aren't using it", but they do keep
| renewing the trademark so they still hold it.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I have a domain name that I haven't used in years. I keep
| renewing it though, just in case.
| culi wrote:
| Not the same thing. Trademark abandonment is a specific
| legal concept. You can apply for regular renewal of a
| trademark, but others can argue that you are not actually
| utilizing the tm. In this case, JavaScript is not legally
| abandoned but the letter argues it should be
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| Oracle's lawyers dutifully renew the trademark annually.
| Despite their lack of active use, this leaves the door open for
| future use. It creates a nebulous state where Oracle could
| choose to initiate a costly legal action against someone using
| the trademark.
|
| One of those situations where the law can be on your side but
| the real problem is if you can afford the legal battle.
| Finnucane wrote:
| As the letter notes, Oracle has never actually taken any kind
| of action to keep people from using the name. They don't even
| make performative reminders. They know their claim on the
| mark is weak and they aren't going to waste a lot of lawyer
| time on it. But it's Oracle, so they won't willingly give up
| anything that might be worth more than a dime. This is just
| to note their continued non-action when the USPTO is asked to
| nullify the mark.
| lokar wrote:
| It will still cost whoever oracles decides to vindictively
| go after (driven by some unrelated dispute) a bunch of
| money and trouble.
| levi_n wrote:
| Lawnmower is gonna lawn mow
| jeremiahlee wrote:
| JavaScript is a registered trademark. It would be easier for
| everyone if Oracle released the trademark registration than for
| the letter signers to file a legal petition requesting the
| USPTO cancel the registration.
| lambada wrote:
| The site explicitly says they tried to get Oracle to release
| the trademark before, and that this is their final attempt at
| doing so before filing wigh the USPTO.
| lucacasonato wrote:
| It is practically abandoned, but unless the USPTO or a US court
| says that that is so, it is not legally abandoned. That is a
| problem because the confusion and insecurity about the
| trademark remains until it is legally considered abandoned.
|
| That's why we need to file a petition with the US Patent and
| Trademark office.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| In general, unenforced Trademarks are worthless, but prevent
| other people trademarking the name. Trademarks are regional,
| and must be registered in each country even if a part of WIPO.
|
| Some countries, the trademarks are market sector specific, but
| in other places cover all use cases for the name/mark.
|
| It is highly recommended to trademark commercial products/names
| in each country of import. Otherwise your company could end up
| getting sued/imports-seized by an opportunistic a*hole that
| does nothing except sneak copyright/trademark rights.
|
| Oracle is smart, and will sit on the IP like any business
| person should.
|
| Most people that complain about trademarks/copyright have never
| been ripped off for a few hundred thousand by import/customs
| rules, or had counterfeit products show up for warranty
| repairs/returns.
|
| IP is messy for sure, but it is better to negotiate from a
| position of legal power asymmetry when dealing with
| unreasonable individuals. Some people are crazy... had a few
| cons harassing one of the engineers a long time back, and
| needed legal to politely "ask" them to find another hobby. =3
| austin-cheney wrote:
| JavaScript is just a name. The current language's official name,
| according to the specification defining that language, is
| ECMAScript. If the trademark is a problem then simply call it by
| a different name.
| lucacasonato wrote:
| You clearly have not read the post :D
| austin-cheney wrote:
| If you mean:
|
| _Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and a co-signatory
| of this letter, wrote in 2006 that "ECMAScript was always an
| unwanted trade name that sounds like a skin disease."_
|
| Then this is not a matter of trademark or identity. It is
| only a matter of marketing. If this is just a matter of
| trademark my comment remains equally valid. Just use a
| different name.
| genter wrote:
| How many books and blog posts with "JavsScript" in the
| title are there? Several quadrillion is my guess.
| hyperpape wrote:
| "Why should I change? He's the one who sucks."
|
| Oracle gets no real benefit from the trademark, and getting
| everyone to stop calling it JavaScript is basically
| impossible. It would be better for everyone for Oracle to
| just abandon the trademark.
|
| I don't expect Oracle to actively release the trademark,
| but it would be better if they did.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| Don't worry about other people. Just worry about
| yourself. It is either your problem or it isn't a problem
| at all.
| gorkish wrote:
| The language was originally called Mocha, and when it first
| released to the public in Netscape it was called LiveScript. I
| recall that changing the name to JavaScript was quite
| controversial and unpopular at the time among geeks.
|
| So when the geeks got to finally put the open standard out
| there they had a chance to fix this nonsense and take back the
| name! And they chose ECMAScript! .... wait they chose WHAT?!?
| linhns wrote:
| People will keep calling it JavaScript as it's easier to say
| jandrese wrote:
| Nobody likes "ECMAScript". What a dog's breakfast of a name. Is
| Webscript already taken? If not I vote for that. I guess those
| node weirdos who want to write commandline programs using it
| might complain, but I think we can afford to lose them.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| Call it whatever you want. The name you pick is an irrelevant
| aside. That is why Microsoft used to call it JScript, because
| the name doesn't matter as long as its not that one protected
| name.
| znpy wrote:
| Or maybe shall we all start calling it EcmaScript?
|
| If anything to break with the old (IE6 and similar) javascripts
| that are still there, running somewhere.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| I thought this was just another internet rant until I got to the
| bottom of the page:
|
| > Sincerely,
|
| > Ryan Dahl - creator of Node.js
|
| > Brendan Eich - creator of JavaScript
|
| > Michael Ficarra - editor of the JavaScript spec
|
| > Rich Harris - creator of Svelte
|
| > Isaac Z. Schlueter - creator of npm
|
| > Feross Aboukhadijeh - CEO of Socket
|
| > James M Snell - member of Node.js TSC
|
| > Wes Bos - host of Syntax.fm
|
| > Scott Tolinski - host of Syntax.fm
|
| > and 191 more members of the JavaScript community
| alberth wrote:
| There's lots of colloquially used names by the general public
| that technically infringe trademark.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_generici...
|
| "Aspirin", "elevators", "laundromat" are just a few examples.
|
| Even "App Store" was trademarked (by Apple).
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| I think in the case of app store, that's suitably generic that
| someone with money could easily fight it.
| merb wrote:
| Well done stuff probably is not enforceable, like App Store.
| That is too generic
| olliej wrote:
| I'm not sure - trademark law is tricky - "The Container
| Store" is trademarked (and while you might say "App Store" is
| too generic, but I don't recall the term existing _prior_ to
| "The App Store", so this might be a "Hoover" or similar
| situation).
|
| I remember McDonald's used[?] to have "All Beef" as a
| trademark for their burger patties (I also recall them
| getting in trouble in NZ as just because they're "All Beef"
| brand doesn't mean you can advertise them as "All Beef
| Patties" in a way that is clearly intended to imply they're
| "all beef")
| WaffleIronMaker wrote:
| I had no idea Heroin was originally a trademarked cough
| suppressant.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| As you might expect, it's an _exceptionally effective_ cough
| suppressant.
| connicpu wrote:
| The general public can't infringe a trademark unless they're
| selling a competing product ;) Interestingly, Aspirin becoming
| a generic term in many countries was more of a result of WW1 as
| the allied powers seized various things from German companies
| (like Bayer) for war reparations, including intellectual
| property like trademarks. It was technically purchased by an
| American company for use in the US after the war, but I guess
| they didn't defend the mark very well and it quickly fell into
| genericism.
| throwanem wrote:
| Genericization is by definition not infringement.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| The article kinda glossed over how Sun got the trademark: "As a
| result of this partnership...". What does "this" refer to? Using
| the same syntax?
| emmelaich wrote:
| It refers to the partnership between Netscape and Sun, per the
| beginning of that paragraph.
| josho wrote:
| Fun fact, prior to the partnership it was called LiveScript.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript#Creation_at_Netscap...
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| > and it is causing widespread, unwarranted confusion and
| disruption
|
| In what way? I don't see any immediate benefits.
| SahAssar wrote:
| All the official specs and working groups use different terms
| than what people colloquially use.
|
| It's a bit similar to when people still call TLS "SSL" but that
| is for very different reasons.
| theanonymousone wrote:
| The HN title is wrong. The missing word significantly changes the
| meaning.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Does Oracle actually defend it? Isn't the rule behind a trademark
| that you actually need to enforce it?
|
| VELCRO(r) has this song about it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRi8LptvFZY
|
| Edit: as I watched the video again I finally caught on the fact
| that RollerBlades are a brand of inline-skates. In Belgium we
| called them inline-skates.
|
| It's interesting to see how brands-as-identifiers change based on
| language and countries. My Walloon friend calls tape Scotch, but
| I don't.
| codemonke wrote:
| I just noticed that that video has a copyright notice at the
| end for Velcro BVBA (which I think is Belgian). Apparently it's
| a swiss invention. I had always assumed velcro was an American
| company, because in my language we don't say velcro either.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Tangent, but in Poland these are called "Iceskaterollers"
| (lyzworolki). Now I wonder how my mother tongue compares to,
| say, English in terms of gzip compression efficiency.
| vlakreeh wrote:
| Unfortunately yes, they'll send you a C&D if you pop up on an
| Oracle lawyer's radar. A coworker of mine had a course named
| "Rust for JavaScript developers" and received a C&D from
| Oracle.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Oracle still uses Java though. You can't spell JavaScript without
| Java. Regardless, JavaScript is now much larger than Java, so the
| trademark for JS should at least revert to the public.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| > Regardless, JavaScript is now much larger than Java
|
| Curious, but in what way? Java still drive lots of enterprise
| and banks, and I cant' say I've seen any Node.js in the backend
| at any of these places.
| lucacasonato wrote:
| JavaScript is the world's most popular programming language.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/793628/worldwide-
| develop...
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| That graph can't be right. Everyone knows it's a toss-up
| between Rust and Clojure. :)
| jajko wrote:
| That's a poor stats to be polite. SQL is no programming
| language, PL/SQL and its variants are. Without scripting
| languages you can't embed much logic in it.
|
| I also wonder how they count multi users, I can easily mark
| 10 of those if not more.
|
| > HTML/CSS were the most commonly used programming
| languages
|
| I am sorry but that can't be taken seriously, then I know a
| ton of Excel developers, and wait till I get to Powerpoint
| ones.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Sorry, but the second largest "language" on that graph is
| HTML/CSS. I mean that's not even a programming language.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| There are enough open source interpreters/engines. Let's fork
| it and call it WebPageScript.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| I'd call it "JS"
| jandrese wrote:
| I remember the day Netscape added "Javascript" and many people
| complained that the name was confusing because it had nothing
| at all to do with Java. It was especially confusing because
| people used to embed actual Java applications in webpages as
| "applets". It was a dumb marketing move right from the start
| and it has caused nothing but trouble ever since. It's way past
| time for the name to be changed.
| whartung wrote:
| They're clinging to it because of the "java" part, not the
| "script" part.
|
| And they'll hold on to that tightly.
|
| The most manifest example of this is simply what they made the
| Eclipse org jump through when they dropped, now, "Jakarta" EE.
| That was not a small rock in the Java pond at the time when we
| had to go through the Great Renaming.
|
| But they did it anyway because the packages used to be named
| "javax", and Oracle was not going to let that go.
| vips7L wrote:
| IIRC it was also because the Eclipse community didn't want to
| go through the Java Enhancement Process which the javax name is
| tied to.
| devsda wrote:
| > That was not a small rock in the Java pond at the time when
| we had to go through the Great Renaming.
|
| Haha. It still hasn't ended actually.
|
| Slowly all the old software that supported only java ee are now
| (nearing) EOL.
|
| Only recently I've seen teams planning and preparing for the
| "move".
| criticalfault wrote:
| > JavaScript is the world's most popular programming language
|
| Is this really so?
|
| I have the feeling this is 'popular' because there are no
| alternatives. Web is popular, this is just an accompanying
| disaster.
|
| There was an argument about fragmentation so people didn't want
| more things as option. As an answer to that there were many (?)
| attempts to solve problems that come with JavaScript for years,
| anybody remember coffee script? The only one that worked is
| typescript. And typescript again transpiles to Javascript having
| worse performance and a bunch of limitations.
|
| The only alternative that I saw that makes sense is dart and
| people crucified google for considering to include it in
| chromium. It is really a shame that this didn't get accepted.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| > Is this really so? [...] I have the feeling this is 'popular'
| because there are no alternatives
|
| I think it's pretty clear that JavaScript is the most popular
| one. And yes, it's popular because in it's space it's without
| alternatives. But so was C for many environments. We can judge
| if that's fair or unfair, but it does not change the situation
| we have.
| criticalfault wrote:
| Maybe it's about the definition of the word 'popular'.
|
| Dictionary.com:
|
| 1. regarded with favor, approval, or affection by people in
| general
|
| 2. regarded with favor, approval, or affection by an
| acquaintance or acquaintances:
|
| 3. of, relating to, or representing the people, especially
| the common people:
|
| 4. of the people as a whole, especially of all citizens of a
| nation or state qualified to participate in an election:
|
| 5. prevailing among the people generally:
|
| 6. suited to or intended for the general masses of people:
|
| 7. adapted to the ordinary intelligence or taste:
|
| 8. suited to the means of ordinary people; not expensive:
|
| I have always associated popular with definition 1. Let me
| ask differently: do people really like JavaScript or they
| like web and JavaScript is forced upon them since there are
| no alternatives (and they actually dislike/hate it)?
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Well, there are alternatives. Many people user TypeScript
| (which then is compiled to JavaScript) or some other
| alternative. JavaScript is just a compiler artifact format.
| TeaVMFan wrote:
| With TeaVM you can compile Java to JavaScript and run it in
| the browser again. We've come full circle.
| https://teavm.org/
| exabrial wrote:
| ^ This.
|
| Popular, but terrible.
| williamstein wrote:
| In the GitHub [1] and TIOBE [2] language stats, Javascript is
| NOT the most popular language.
|
| [1] https://madnight.github.io/githut/#/pull_requests/2024/1
|
| [2] https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
| tracker1 wrote:
| 1. https://octoverse.github.com/2022/top-programming-
| languages
|
| 2. https://innovationgraph.github.com/global-
| metrics/programmin...
| worik wrote:
| > The only alternative that I saw that makes sense is dart
|
| I do not think Dart was much of an improvement
|
| When the tooling improves WASM is
| Animats wrote:
| Oracle's claims to be making "use in commerce" of Javascript are
| listed here: [1]
|
| There's a link to the non-Oracle page for node.js download, and
| to Oracle Javascript Extension Toolkit. Weak, but arguable.
|
| [1]
| https://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn75026640&docI...
| cxr wrote:
| This is a stupid non-issue. You can go ahead and call it
| JavaScript despite what Oracle does or doesn't say.
|
| Better yet, though: _don 't_ call it JavaScript--call it JS.
| "JavaScript" is and always was a dumb name. "JS" is not only
| fine, but better--and not because "JS" is particularly good, but
| because "JavaScript" itself isn't exactly hard to beat.
|
| The only thing left to do is for the spec authors (which includes
| signatories to this petition) and the rest of TC-39 to say so;
| the next edition of ECMA-262 should modify the existing
| disclaimer in the preface about "JavaScript" being an Oracle
| trademark to state unequivocally that "JavaScript"--an
| unfortunate vestige of an ill-considered marketing decision in
| the 1900s--is a deprecated way to refer to the language not
| otherwise terribly well-known as ECMAScript and that the
| recommended way to refer to it is simply as "JS".
| sigzero wrote:
| There is nothing better about "JS" over "JavaScript".
| cxr wrote:
| Wrong, and that's not the question, anyway.
|
| There is nothing worse about "JS" over "JavaScript".
|
| (Whereas the reverse is not true--there is something worse
| about "JavaScript" over "JS". Several somethings.)
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| "JavaSciript" implies it's some scripting language related to
| Java, which was originally an idea, where it was meant to
| control Java Applets. But that is not a thing anymore. Thus
| the name makes no sense. "JS" is just a name only conflicting
| with my initials.
| layer8 wrote:
| The name was exclusively chosen based on marketing
| considerations, to have it benefit from the Java hype of
| the time. It was actually called LiveScript before.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| They succeeded though
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| but "JS" implies it is some sort of amalgam of the J and S
| programming languages - or it doesn't and probably the Java
| implication doesn't exist anymore either - who really, on
| hearing the name in a modern context is going to think
| "hey, it must be a scripting version of that one really old
| programming language granddad in the office is always
| reminiscing about"?
| kragen wrote:
| javascript is an oracle registered trademark, js isn't
| rz2k wrote:
| It works well as a modifier, and makes it easy to search for
| projects that are named after other common concepts or
| objects. It's also easy and natural- sounding to say for
| English speakers. Compared to other modifiers, it's more like
| "-dot-com" than "-lang", or even worse "libre-".
| agumonkey wrote:
| Makes me wonder if there are rules to use area names for your
| brands. Can I start Tennesseescript ?
| kragen wrote:
| this is an interesting angle. maybe the js luminaries signing
| this open letter can get support from the government in
| jakarta. i didn't realize this, but _a hundred and fifty-six
| million people_ live in literal java
| agumonkey wrote:
| early adopters of java-RT
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Isn't the technical name ECMAScript?
|
| What would be really cool is if the community could just rally
| around the original name, LiveScript... it never had anything
| to do with Java, let that go...
| nashashmi wrote:
| What issues is this causing among developers? I personally think
| JS should be sunsetted and spun off as a set of 2nd gen languages
| like typescript and rust and Ecma. It is clear that Oracle is not
| working on JS. The browsers are. The w3c is(?). Let them coalesce
| onto a spin off version. Like WebScript.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Maybe it's time to stop caring about such things entirely.
| kragen wrote:
| i don't think oracle does anything in order to earn goodwill or
| because it's the right thing. they're structurally immune to
| moral suasion. don't forget that oracle was the company that sued
| google for the independent reimplementation of java they used in
| android. if you want oracle to do something, you either need to
| offer them a lot of money or level an extremely credible, well-
| financed legal threat at them
|
| as agumonkey implicitly points out in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41559110, though, 'java' is
| the name of the world's most popular island. i wonder if the
| indonesian government could be persuaded to support the trademark
| revocation
| elzbardico wrote:
| "It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It
| doesn't feel pity! Or remorse or fear and it absolutely will
| not stop!... ever... until you are dead!"
| saati wrote:
| I don't think your death stops them from going after your
| estate.
| redslazer wrote:
| Iceland the country won its trademark case agains Iceland the
| supermarket chain so there is probably something to it.
|
| EUIPO "[Iceland Supermarket] cannot reasonably trademark the
| name of a country that has been around since the 9th century".
| falcor84 wrote:
| I didn't know that was decided, and was just catching up on
| it now. This was a fun read:
|
| > Mr Walker and other high-level executives from Iceland (the
| supermarket), took an emergency delegation to Iceland (the
| country), where they were met with a cold shoulder.
|
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-13/iceland-country-
| secur...
| pimlottc wrote:
| Most /populous/ island is what I presume you mean.
| kragen wrote:
| yes, thank you, that was a stupid mistake on my part!
| verandaguy wrote:
| "Don't anthropomorphise the lawnmower[0]"
|
| -- Brian Cantrill on Larry Ellison, USENIX 2011
| [0] https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?feature=shared&t=2115
| yarg wrote:
| It wasn't really a java implementation - they used the APIs,
| but broke compatibility.
| falcor84 wrote:
| Oh, I wasn't aware of that - what did they change?
| yarg wrote:
| The ability to launch a jar?
| cxr wrote:
| Geez, not this shit again. (One of the many ways you could
| tell Oracle was doomed in trying to find and convincingly
| argue a tenable position against Google: half the people half
| the time argued that Google should be sued for implementing
| Java, and the other half the time argued that they should be
| sued for _not_ implementing Java.)
| yarg wrote:
| If you can't run jars, it's not a java implementation.
| elzbardico wrote:
| People falling in the ages old trap of antropormophizing Oracle
| executives.
| mp05 wrote:
| Have you seen Larry lately? How do you look like that at 80
| years old? He must be a cyborg.
| psychoslave wrote:
| I heard that blood transfusion in Switzerland clinics, using
| blood of young healthy people of course, works pretty well.
| RankingMember wrote:
| He can afford the top-shelf blood boys
| CSMastermind wrote:
| > Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphising Larry
| Ellison. You need to think of Larry Ellison the way you think
| of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the
| lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and
| it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower
| hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower
| can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't
| fall into that trap about Oracle. -- Brian Cantrill
| (https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=33m1s)
|
| For those unfamiliar. Worth a watch.
| orev wrote:
| When JavaScript was introduced, Java was already gaining
| traction, and the name JavaScript was chosen to ride on the
| coattails of that popularity. From that perspective, there's a
| pretty good argument in favor of whoever holds the Java
| trademark, which happens to be Oracle.
|
| I have definitely run into people who say things like "they wrote
| a Java script", which actually turned out to be a Java program.
| worik wrote:
| I agree It is time to let JavaScript go
|
| I do not mean the trademark
| Borborygymus wrote:
| It's long gone the time people should stop doing business with
| Oracle.
| jay-barronville wrote:
| Oracle executives are scheduling a meeting right now just to read
| this letter together and laugh at it.
|
| All jokes aside though, they don't care, and frankly speaking,
| despite how much sense it makes for them to release the
| trademark, they have no reason to care.
|
| To seriously move the needle on this issue, you need deep pockets
| and lawyers.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| >GraalVM is far from a canonical JavaScript implementation;
| engines like V8, JavaScriptCore, and SpiderMonkey hold that role.
|
| >you must dig into the documentation to find its support.
|
| Okay but it's in the documentation which ruins your whole
| "abandonment" argument.
|
| Even still, they clearly have their own use of JavaScript, albeit
| not "canonical", whatever the author meant by that bitter
| refutal.
| vidzert wrote:
| According to comments in this post, it appears that Oracle is
| defending the use of the name "JavaScript" in some cases.
| However, the internet is filled with various resources that use
| "JavaScript" in their names. I'm curious if there are any
| confirmed instances of Oracle suing someone for using this name,
| or if these are just false rumors and Oracle is merely reserving
| the right to do so in the future.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Well.. ecmascript got a lot of marketing value from JavaScript
| and thus Java. If it was called something else it would've never
| become so big
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(page generated 2024-09-16 23:01 UTC)