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Lost the .orgLost the .orgPosted Oct 20, 2012 12:34 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)In reply to: Lost the .org by am Parent article: OpenOffice graduates from the Apache Incubator Hardly, according to Google Trends. (Stupid link will not work on Firefox, but OpenOffice.org popularity is about 10% that for OpenOffice.) It is a wonder that anyone would add a suffix trendy like 10 years ago and keep it for so long.
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Lost the .org Posted Oct 20, 2012 18:53 UTC (Sat) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link]
"Trendy" never had anything to do with it at all. "Avoiding legal problems in the Netherlands (and neighboring nations where NL trademarks are valid)" did. "Apache OpenOffice" is different enough from the Dutch company "Open Office" that they figured they wouldn't have any trouble.
Lost the .org Posted Oct 20, 2012 20:25 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I guess that "Sun OpenOffice" would have also been sufficient, then. Perhaps there was a legal background to not using the bare "OpenOffice", but the specific suffix must have been chosen for commercial reasons. Perhaps "trendy" was a bit too generous though.
Lost the .org Posted Oct 20, 2012 21:23 UTC (Sat) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link]
On the other hand, maybe "Sun OpenOffice" wouldn't have worked in 2000. There may well have been other reasons why the Dutch computer services company presented a credible litigation threat in 2000 but not in 2012.
For instance, gradual dilution of their already-rather-generic trademark, changes in Dutch IP law or new precedents, or contact/negotiations/discussions between the parties in the past dozen years we don't know about.
Also, a still-relatively-financially-strong Sun starting a new project may have been an attractive litigation target in 2000, while targeting a nonprofit for a 12-year-old issue is likely to bring a company nothing but bad will.
Lost the .org Posted Oct 28, 2012 20:41 UTC (Sun) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]
Remember that Sun was trying to get outside help for the development of the basic parts of their Sun StarOffice product, and I'm not so sure IBM, Novell, e.a. would have been too happy to work on a project named *Sun* OpenOffice...
Lost the .org Posted Oct 20, 2012 21:31 UTC (Sat) by jensend (guest, #1385) [Link]
The suffix was probably just chosen because they were already using openoffice.org as their website and they figured including the suffix would be easy to remember and not force too huge of a branding change.
I guess you can call that "commercial reasons" if you like, but your portrayal of Sun as trying to jump on some dotcom bubble hype phrase for its fashion appeal and then leaving it there through ignorance that it had fallen out of fashion is really wildly inaccurate.
Only the lawyers etc involved really know why Sun took that route then and why Apache Legal Affairs cleared the more direct name now.
Lost the .org Posted Oct 20, 2012 22:17 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I am really puzzled that they chose a bad, unwieldy name and stuck to it for so many years. Perhaps they wanted to bank on the community aspect by highlighting the ".org" suffix. Remember that at the time many companies were trying to harness the power of the community by launching ".org" initiatives.I don't really know, but you are offering nothing but conjecture either. Anything better than a "was probably just chosen" would be interesting!
Lost the .org Posted Oct 22, 2012 18:15 UTC (Mon) by khc (subscriber, #45209) [Link]
Link works fine in firefox 17 for me (currently in beta)
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