VC

[Phil Staub]

In article <597 at calma.UUCP> smithson at calma.UUCP (Brian Smithson) writes:
>In article <455 at sii.UUCP> drd at sii.UUCP (David Dick) writes:
>>[...]
>>'vc' is a registered trademark of Software Innovations, Inc. for
>>our UNIX(R) spreadsheet.  We've been selling our spreadsheet
>>under that name for 5 years now.
>>[...]
>>named "sc", for spreadsheet calculator.  I think a good name
>>for this new incarnation would be "sc2" (or"sc3" if you want
>>to count Mark Weiser's version).
>
>I'd recommend against sc2 or sc3, not necessarily because of
>trademark violations (but perhaps...), but because of confusion
>with SuperCalc 2 and Supercalc 3, normally abbreviated as sc2 and sc3.

I nearly replied to David's original posting, but hesitated until I saw
Brian's, which seems to bear out the point which I would have originally
made: One might find it very difficult to find a program name which does not
conflict in some way with somebody's copyrighted program name, at least when
invoked by the (typically) two- or three-letter name which UNIX (TM) users
(and presumably nearly anyone else who uses command line-type interfaces) 
are so fond of.

Think about it: there are a very small number of single character program
names, and not terrifically more two character names. Even three character
names would hardly be immune to this problem.

Presumably, one names a program by a name which seems to suggest something
about the purpose of the program, with very little consideration of similar
command names chosen by other developers. 

Now, if I were to decide to market a software package (read: for money), I
would feel obligated to attempt to avoid conflict with someone else's
package, for two reasons: 1) to avoid copyright infringement suits,
particularly if my package were to become a great success, and 2) to 
avoid any negative publicity, in the event that someone else's package is
not as well written as mine (presumably) might be.

For this reason, I refuse to be particularly concerned about finding a
(non-copyrighted) name to use if and when I submit any public domain
software to this net. I will submit it by whatever name I happen to use
for it on my system, and worry about the copyright infringement suit when it
happens. 
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Phil Staub              tektronix!tekigm!phils    (206) 253-5634
Tektronix, Inc., ISI Engineering
P.O.Box 3500, M/S C1-904, Vancouver, Washington  98668
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Staub              tektronix!tekigm!phils    (206) 253-5634
Tektronix, Inc., ISI Engineering
P.O.Box 3500, M/S C1-904, Vancouver, Washington  98668