[alberth]

Silly question: how are people negatively impacted by the trademark of "JavaScript"?

Because in practice, isn't this a bit like "Kleenex" - where everyone knows you mean "tissue" (EMCAScript).

[StableAlkyne]

It's less the fact that someone owns JS's trademark, and more that it's specifically Oracle (they got it when they bought Sun).

Oracle is an incredibly litigious company. Their awful reputation in this respect means that the JS ecosystem can never be sure they won't swoop in and attempt to demand rent someday. This is made worse by the army of lawyers they employ; even if they're completely in the wrong, whatever project they go after probably won't be able to afford a defense.

[rdtsc]

> Oracle is an incredibly litigious company. Their awful reputation in this respect means that the JS ecosystem can never be sure they won't swoop in and attempt to demand rent someday. This is made worse by the army of lawyers they employ; even if they're completely in the wrong, whatever project they go after probably won't be able to afford a defense.

That is why on one level I am surprised by the petition. They are talking to a supercharged litigation monster and are asking it "Dear Oracle, ... We urge you to release the mark into the public domain". You know what a litigation happy behemoth does in that case? It goes asks some AI to write a "Javascript: as She Is Spoke" junk book on Amazon just so they can hang on to the trademark. Before they didn't care but now that someone pointed it out, they'll go out of their way to assert their usage of it.

On the other hand, maybe someone there cares about their image and would be happy to improve it in the tech community's eyes...

[levkk]

That's why courts don't take hypothetical cases. Someone has to be injured to demonstrate actual harm.

Are there any examples of Oracle using their JavaScript trademark to sue anyone? If they did, that petition would have merit.

Unless Demo was, this feels like a marketing project. And it's working, too, so kudos.

[amelius]

At this point I'm going to assume that adding -Script to a trademarked name allows me to use that name freely.

[onion2k]

Assuming Oracle did decide to go down that route, who would they sue? No one really uses the JavaScript name in anything official except for "JavaScriptCore" that Apple ships with Webkit.

[TeaVMFan]

The incredibly litigious company here is Deno. Deno sued on a whim, realized they were massively unprepared, then asked the public to fund a legal campaign that will benefit Deno themselves, a for-profit, VC-backed company.

This personal vendetta will likely end with the community unable to use the term JavaScript. Nobody should support this.

[dev0p]

The fact that you wrote it wrong is hilariously ironic.

JavaScript is simply the better term, and marketing is everything. Reminds me of Java's POJOs, which was a very simple pattern that no one used, until someone gave them a fancy name.

ECMAScript is a horrible technical name. Might as well call it ACMEScript considering how willie e. coyote it feels to develop with it...

[DANmode]

ACME is actually better, because you can say or read it in under 5 business days.

[bad_haircut72]

it sounds like eczema - naming your programming language after a skin condition is not a great choice

nothing against people with eczema of course

[sionisrecur]

Call it "Jay Ess". Everyone does already.

[msgilligan]

POJO is one of my favorite acronyms. Along with POTS and COTS.

POTS = Plain Old Telephony System COTS = Commercial Off-The-Shelf

[pwdisswordfishy]

> Might as well call it ACMEScript considering how willie e. coyote it feels to develop with it...

And it would feel just the same if it was named something else.

It's just a name, who gives a damn?

[7bit]

> everyone knows

Not everybody knows. People who learn JavaScript don't know. In fact, they must learn this. And from my experience, most learning resources don't mention this, let alone teach this. It took me a really long time to understand what ECMAScript is and how it relates to JavaScript. And the effort I put in this understanding... I would have preferred to not having needed that.

So no, not everybody knows this.

[jama211]

It’s possible that it also really doesn’t matter that much to the majority of people

[cachius]

ECMAScript:JavaScript :: You-Know-Who:Lord Voldemort

[jtwaleson]

EMCA -> ECMA

[mlok]

True. And that's also a reason why "Javascript" is more human friendly tbh.

[9rx]

Europe-Canada-Mexico Agreement?

[9rx]

> Because in practice, isn't this a bit like "Kleenex"

Maybe. That's what the challenge intends to find out.