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

Summary link is wrong

[Tridus]

Ethereal is at www.ethereal.com, not at www.ethereal.org.

Re:Summary link is wrong

[bsdluvr]

That guy at ethereal.org will be really surprised when he sees his server bill :-)

Re:Wrong link

[JDevers]

Versus ethereal.org, they're just sniffing plain old glue from the looks of the site.

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.

Re:Holding the ethereal trademark makes no sense

[merreborn]

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.

Re:Holding the ethereal trademark makes no sense

[bradkittenbrink]

It's really as simple as: no one has ever gotten sued by their shareholders for not giving assets away.

Re:Holding the ethereal trademark makes no sense

[cimetmc]

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

Re:trademark?

[wishus]

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. ;>

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.

Re:Wireshark...

[jcims]

Yeah, just ask the folks over at Joomla how to come up with a clever new name...

Gotta love Google

[MeanMF]

"Did you mean: Wereshark"