this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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This article makes for an interesting read. Here follow two early paragraphs for context:

Oracle controls the JavaScript trademark because in 2009 it acquired Sun Microsystems, which applied to trademark the name with the US Patent and Trademark Office back in 1995. The trademark was granted in 2000.

While the database giant does not use the name for any commercial products, its ownership of the trademark has led JavaScript-oriented organizations such as events biz JSConf to adopt branding that avoids the term. As the signatories to the letter observe, the world's most popular programming language therefore can't have a conference that mentions what it's about.

Toward the end, the article mentions an initiative to legally pursue Oracle for trademark abandonment.

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[–] RedstoneValley 116 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Just call it Ecmascript and be done with it. The name JavaScript was misleading from the beginning. Well, Ecma sounds like a skin disease but who cares.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago

Writing it also feels as nice as a skin disease so it's fitting well.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

SmegmaScript is just too close

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

SmegHeadScript

kryten

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago

Ecmascript is classic, but WebScript might be better going forward.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

"I need some more [input] sanitizer for my eczema script, the console is red and inflamed whenever I check it."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

This is the solution.

All names have problems but this one has the least.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

but then we have a massive problem that affects millions of people if we call it EcmaScript. POJO becomes POEO, which violates English. Anyone speaking or writing English is negatively affected by the change from POJO to POEO. We should definitely pay Oracle billions of dollars to avoid confusing people about whether it's POI-oh or POYO... keep it POJO.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I feel like the modern name for it would be just "Script".

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

That's way too broad. Scripting is a pretty broad concept.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The only thing worse than Oracle are Oracle sales people.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 months ago (3 children)

oracles lawyers are pretty bad too

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago

Oracle CEOs are pretty bad too

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago

Oracle Sales Lawyers are the worst

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

I put the lawyers under Oracle since they are the physical manifestation of the corporation. Think of Oracle as "crack" and Oracle Sales as "crack dealers". Each horrible in their own special way.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 months ago

Cool! Oracle, a company famous for making good-will decisions, and open to being "urged" into doing the right thing. 🙄

I suppose the open letter is a nice gesture, and I hope that the petition to cancel the trademark succeeds.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago (2 children)

In one fell swoop they managed to gobble up quite a lot of FOSS projects, triggering quite a lot of forks...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Sun Solaris was my first *nix, and I have very strong memories of hanging out in the cluster of Sun machines as well as running a remote x window session from whatever overlocked Celeron win2k machine I had in my dorm at the time.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If it's such a problem, maybe we just collectively move on to ES or TypeScript nomenclature?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Typescript and JavaScript are different languages and the distinction is important, especially because the two are used in conjunction with each other.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Especially because TypeScript compiles down to ~~JavaScript~~ JS

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yeah but why would you ever use javascript instead of typescript.

Don't answer that. 😂

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Because I'm a browser and I can't read typescript.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

For an application? Never. I'd still use it for something very small like a build script where the hassle of separate compile and run stages makes the whole thing a hassle to use. That might change now, though, since I think Node has gained the ability to execute Typescript directly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Been using vite for a while and haven't had to think about it.

Glad node is catching up. But it'd spare even more headaches if it natively supported ES6 modules

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

The article mentions that the letter indicated intent to petition with the USPTO to cancel the Javascript trademark due to abandonment. Hopefully that is successful since that seems to be the best outcome short of Oracle willingly forfeiting it.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm still not over the utter destruction of Sun by fucking Oracle.

[–] nkat2112 1 points 2 months ago

Same, I hear you.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fuck Oracle, we use them for our org and holy fuck, slow to respond, hire people that don't know how to do their job or just don't do it.

Waste of fucking money and air.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

You just described SAP as well.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Javascript? What's that? I only know of ECMA-262-ECMAScript, rolls right off the tongue!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

favorite JavaScript reference docs MDN

meanwhile Mozilla bails on fedi

hardly knew ya