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From: Nate Bargmann on 31 Dec 2007 16:30
* Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson(a)cox.net> [2007 Dec 31 12:19 -0600]:
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> Hash: SHA1
>
> On 12/31/07 12:06, David Brodbeck wrote:
> >
> > On Dec 29, 2007, at 3:18 PM, Sjoerd Hiemstra wrote:
> >> As far as I'm concerned, 'Netscape' is a good name. I always wondered
> >> how names like 'Seamonkey', 'Iceape' or 'Firefox' could ever make their
> >> way into a serious, corporate environment.
> >
> > Silly names seem to be all the rage with start-ups these days, so maybe
> > the open source community was just ahead of the curve. ;)
>
> That's been a trend now (in the US, at least) for about 20 years.
> Started with stupid wussy product names and moved to stupid and or
> meaningless company names.

We must be careful not to offend. Companies now spend untold time and
money searching through languages of all sorts to be sure that a new
product or merged company name is not offensive. If even one
person^Wattorney finds it offensive^Wlucrative it is certain that a
lawsuit will be filed.

It's PC insanity and it shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

Happy New Year!

- Nate >>

--

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true."


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From: David Brodbeck on 31 Dec 2007 18:00

On Dec 31, 2007, at 1:10 PM, Nate Bargmann wrote:
> We must be careful not to offend. Companies now spend untold time and
> money searching through languages of all sorts to be sure that a new
> product or merged company name is not offensive. If even one
> person^Wattorney finds it offensive^Wlucrative it is certain that a
> lawsuit will be filed.
>
> It's PC insanity and it shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

While that may be some of it, I suspect a bigger concern is whether
the name can be trademarked. Companies have learned over time that
names with common words in them (say, "Windows") are much harder to
trademark and defend than made-up names.

There's also the increasingly full domain name space to contend with.
If you make up a silly name it's more likely the domain will still be
available. These days it's not very smart to give something a
descriptive name if the <name>.com domain is already taken, and most
of them are.


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From: Celejar on 1 Jan 2008 19:20
On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 10:58:52 -0800
Marc Shapiro <mshapiro_42(a)yahoo.com> wrote:


[snipped discussion about Asimov's "The Feeling of Power"]

> But at only 49 years old it is unlikely to be out of copyright! A lot
> of the items on that site may be in the public domain, but an Asimov
> short story is unlikely to be one of them. I see nothing on the site
> that suggests that this individual has checked for copyright on the text
> that he has posted. He only says that the items are things that
> interest him.
>
> I know that most people don't think about these things, but my wife is a
> librarian, so she always does, and it has gotten me into the habit of
> thinking about it, too.

You are right; it did not occur to me that there might be a copyright
violation. Thanks for pointing it out.

> Marc Shapiro
> mshapiro_42(a)yahoo.com

Celejar
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