One idiot's blog

Idea for Sun

So, you're all just beside yourselves in elation that Sun has finalized their decision to release Java under the GNU GPL. Here's my one thought on things surrounding that, after reading Tim Bray's writeup on the topic as an insider. He mentions under the heading "Forks" that those who would try to create a new-and-improved version of Java would run up against the Java trademark, and would have to call their new-and-improved Java something else. This is the same thing Red Hat does with its operating system. You are free, naturally, to take all the source, minus trademark-related stuff like logos, and build your own Linux OS and distrubute it all under a similar license, but you can't call it Red Hat (I think they actually take this to some sort of extreme, but that's off the topic for now). On the surface, this seems reasonable; if you do this, what you are distributing is not, in fact, a Red Hat system. However, isn't it reasonable to let the consumer know, in some convenient way, that this is an attempt to duplicate Red Hat, that it is not just YALD?

Companies like Red Hat and Sun could go a long way towards earning community goodwill and keeping in the spirit of the GPL by creating a secondary trademark, reserved for software derived in some way from their own. Let's propose Sumatra, for example, as the secondary trademark for Java. Suppose I take the Java source code, re-engineer the garbage collection to speed up deletion of objects of type JPEGPr0nImage, and re-compile. I could release it as "One Idiot's Sumatra Runtime Environment". Everyone who had any idea what this meant would know that it is not Java, but it is like Java. The important trademark is not diluted, but derivatives get a fair shake.

OK, that's my brilliant thought for the month.