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.'"

Comments

Holding the ethereal trademark makes no sense

[wowbagger]

I cannot understand why the company would want to hold onto the Ethereal trademark if the development of the project is moving to a new name. A trademark is, by definition, a MARK that you are TRADING under, so unless they are planning on continuing the project (a fork), there is no value to the mark.

So the only thing that makes sense to me is that they plan on forking the project and continuing the development - which really would not make sense, as the odds are such a move would be viewed with great disdain by the community, and in all likelihood the project will be outstripped by the new Wireshark project.

Unfortunate name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I guess "WireShark" kinda has a "kewl" ring to it, I'm a bit concerned because, let's face it, a shark is a predator. So you have to explain to people why you want to run some predatory application that captures packets on a network. At least with the old name you can say "hey, it's a diagnostic tool" without people giving you a "yeah, right" look that you'll now get with WireShark.