"Android" was first coined in "Tomorrow's Eve" by Mathias Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (written between 1877 and 1879). It is not a trademark.
"Droid" is indeed a trademark of LucasFilm Ltd. As far as I understand things (IANAL), companies are required to defend their trademarks at every infringement, or risk harming their ability to defend them in future. They would certainly want a monopoly on "droid"-labeled merchandising and so on; this word still has a very strong association with "Star Wars".
Note that Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" has a closer association with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" than "Star Wars". The former featured a character named "Marvin, the Paranoid Android".
We are all using egcs, it replaced the original gcc years ago.
"Android" was first coined in "Tomorrow's Eve" by Mathias Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (written between 1877 and 1879). It is not a trademark.
"Droid" is indeed a trademark of LucasFilm Ltd. As far as I understand things (IANAL), companies are required to defend their trademarks at every infringement, or risk harming their ability to defend them in future. They would certainly want a monopoly on "droid"-labeled merchandising and so on; this word still has a very strong association with "Star Wars".
Note that Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" has a closer association with "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" than "Star Wars". The former featured a character named "Marvin, the Paranoid Android".