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Google Under Fire For Calling Their Language "Go"

Posted by Soulskill on from the rename-it-to-proceed-with-caution dept.

Norsefire writes "Since releasing the 'Go' programming language on Tuesday, Google has been under fire for using the same name as another programming language that was first publicly documented in 2003. 'Go!' was created by Francis McCabe and Keith Clark. McCabe published a book about the language in 2007, and he is not happy. He told InformationWeek in an email: 'I do not have a trademark on my language. It was intended as a somewhat non-commercial language in the tradition of logic programming languages. It is in the tradition of languages like Prolog. In particular, my motivation was bringing some of the discipline of software engineering to logic programming.'"

3 of 512 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So? by MBGMorden · · Score: 0, Troll

    Like reusing the name of an obscure project that seemingly died years ago and nobody here has even heard of?

    Sorry, but that's one of those cases where ETHICALLY I wouldn't even care if he did have a trademark - that project is long dead and forgotten. The only barrier then is legal, and as such if there are no legal problems then I say full steam ahead.

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  2. McGabe's whining about common things by mysidia · · Score: 0, Troll

    Multiple incompatible languages winding up with the same name is par for the course in the compiler industry.

    You have any idea how many different compiler vendors call completely different languages BASIC ?

    How many different incompatible implementations of C there were (before ISO standardization)?

    If something's not widely commercialized with name rights locked up tight, or ANSI/ISO standardized, then you are asking for incompatible competing implementations, or even totally different languages, all going by the same name, unless you secure rights to the name.

    Also, Go! is such a short and generic title for a programming language, that noone should get to use it unless they can make a famous name out of it.

    In fact, other languages use GO as a statement or keyword in the language, from before 2003. E.g. T-SQL. And in fact the word go is iconic and well recognized by programmers all over the world already.

    But Google actually makes the name non-generic by adding a ! to the end. So it's not just Go but Go bang. See, this implies a sexual innuendo, which is certainly more interesting than just Go... which could imply Go away, Go eat a cactus, etc...

    In any event, so McCabe is not the first to use the name in the field of programming languages.

  3. Re:Go! by BasilBrush · · Score: 0, Troll

    Gmail was leaked pre-alpha, announced alpha, announced beta with invites, leaked in press releases several times and then announced again after invites, and finally announced once more at public release.

    The name "Gmail" was announced precisely once. Because after that, the public already knew it's name. Just as "Go" was announced precicely once. It's not something you can bullshit your way out of. The logic is unassailable.

    I saw mention on a tv special about google over a year ago that they were working on a language with short compile times.

    You didn't know it was called "Go" a year ago. And neither did the creator of "Go!".

    So unless you have something better than nu uh to reply with save the text. I won't be feeding the trolls.

    You don't have any better option than to shut up now. You know you're wrong.