Ever use a zipper, margarine, or aspirin? All of those used to be trademarks of a company, but the company allowed their usage to become generic, and therefore lost the trademark. So now every company that wants to make a Zipper-brand zip fastener can just call it a zipper! If Google allows their trademark to become generic like that, every search engine can call themselves a google and confuse the hell out of the average internet user, as well as weaken or possibly destroy Google as a company.
This is not just a Google thing either. Xerox ran a huge campaign a while back encouraging people to "photocopy" things using a Xerox machine, not to just "xerox" it. Ever wonder why if you order a Coke in a restaraunt the waitress asks if Pepsi is ok (if that's all they have)? It's not just to keep you happy, it's to keep Coca-Cola's legal department and the legions of secret shoppers they employ off their backs.
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Ever use a zipper, margarine, or aspirin? All of those used to be trademarks of a company, but the company allowed their usage to become generic, and therefore lost the trademark. So now every company that wants to make a Zipper-brand zip fastener can just call it a zipper! If Google allows their trademark to become generic like that, every search engine can call themselves a google and confuse the hell out of the average internet user, as well as weaken or possibly destroy Google as a company.
This is not just a Google thing either. Xerox ran a huge campaign a while back encouraging people to "photocopy" things using a Xerox machine, not to just "xerox" it. Ever wonder why if you order a Coke in a restaraunt the waitress asks if Pepsi is ok (if that's all they have)? It's not just to keep you happy, it's to keep Coca-Cola's legal department and the legions of secret shoppers they employ off their backs.
a Beowulf cluster of these things?