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RIP Ethereal, Long Live Wireshark
teknogeek0 writes "From Newsforge (also owned by OSTG), it appears that popular open source network traffic analyzer Ethereal has changed it's name to Wireshark. The surprising move was due to Gerald Combs, the founder of the project, changing jobs and having to leave the Ethereal trademark behind. From the article: 'I recently accepted a job with CACE Technologies, best known for WinPcap .... The move also means a major change for the project. We're continuing development under the name Wireshark, at http://www.wireshark.org/. The web site, mailing lists, bug tracker, SVN repository, buildbot, and other resources are already in place.'"
Maybe you should change the old URL to http://www.ethereal./ com/
Ethereal is at www.ethereal.com, not at www.ethereal.org.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Versus ethereal.org, they're just sniffing plain old glue from the looks of the site.
does his old job own the trademark or something?
;>
Yes, according to the article.
Several years ago, my former employer (NIS) registered trademarks for the Ethereal name and logo. At the time this provided valuable legal protection for the project. Unfortunately, when I left we weren't able to come to an agreement on the trademarks and they stayed behind.
It's a good article. You should read it.
Actually, a name itself can have value. My fiance worked for a small chain of coffee stands called "Jazzland". Appearantly, the trademark itself was the most valuable asset the company had.
That's probably what's going on here. There's nothing preventing the guys who own the ethereal name from using it to label a totally different product.
It's really as simple as: no one has ever gotten sued by their shareholders for not giving assets away.
NIS had a significant benefit in having control on the Etehreal name and web site. In fact, they have a daughter company called Ethereal software http://www.etherealsoft.com/ for which the business consists in providing services aroung Ethereal. By having control of the Ethereal name and web site, they have a very distinct advantage in promoting their services compared to other companies that would provide services around Ethereal. I can very well understand why they didn't want to give up the name Etehreal as giving up the name might mean the death of "Ethereal Software". Marcel