On Tue, Nov 12, 2002 at 12:20:42PM +0900, Miles Bader wrote: > Chris Halls <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Prerelease packages for OpenOffice.org are now available from the unstable > > section of our mirrors (http://www.linux-debian.de/openoffice/mirrors.html). > > Can someone tell me _why_ this project uses the name `OpenOffice.org' as > a name for their software? What's wrong with `OpenOffice' (which is > surely the name humans use when talking about it, and morever, isn't > confusing)?
Trademarks. Due to the lameness of trademark law, someone else used OpenOffice once for a product that no one has ever heard of, and now we can't use it. If anything, I would have thought that having the same name as a Free office suite would be _good publicity_ (especially since the office suite is evidently far better known than they are), but I guess their legal department disagrees. Of course, if I ever do actually find out what this other 'OpenOffice' product is, I'll avoid it on principle. -rob
msg12662/pgp00000.pgp
Description: PGP signature
