
Google closes Issue 9 - cosgroveb
http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9#c1097
======
cperciva
Google's response to this makes me want to create a pornography search engine
called "Go Ogle!" and respond to the inevitable cease-and-desist letters with
"the naming similarity is unfortunate, but I don't expect it will cause more
than minimal confusion".

~~~
pufuwozu
Go Ogle IT:

<http://www.googleit.com/>

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protomyth
The book is on Lulu [1] and there is an Information Week article [2] on the
issue. I would be pretty ticked if Google (a web search company) stomped on my
work. It just seems like a really cruddy thing to do. It's in the logic /
agent group of languages and I have run across the article a couple of times
but it is my no means famous. It is not like Google's Go is super well known
either, so picking a new name that could be googled would probably be the kind
thing to do.

[1] <http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/lets-go/705004>

[2]
[http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/web_services/sh...](http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/web_services/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=221601351)

~~~
ubernostrum
Flip side:

If someone takes out a patent and has a tiny, fringe or effectively
nonexistent business around actually performing the patent, but sues anyone
who independently comes up with the same idea, we call that person a "troll".

If someone chooses a name for a project and builds a tiny, fringe or
effectively nonexistent community around it, but complains about anyone who
independently tries to use the same name, we curse his vile oppressors.

(Is there just a _bit_ of a difference between this situation and a patent
troll? Yes. Is the difference small enough that you can see there from here?
Yes. Should people be thinking pretty hard about what precedents they want in
this type of situation? You bet your ass they should.)

~~~
invisible
You liken it to a patent but it is more similar to a trademark. I would think
most everyone agrees trademarks are very good things in practice 99.9% of the
time.

~~~
chc
That's because if you don't use your trademark, you lose it. There's no
equivalent to "Oh, I used the name in a little-known paper I wrote and now I
can sue you." If nobody knows about your trademark, you probably don't own it.

~~~
protomyth
Technically it isn't the lack of use that will kill a trademark, it is the
lack of defense or people using it as a generic term. The need to defend
actually causes most of the trouble with trademarks since you really need to
be a little more agressive than you would like.

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hvs
It would've been interesting if they had renamed the language, "Issue 9".

I think Google missed an opportunity to gain a little developer goodwill here,
but I don't think it will hurt them in the long run. (Assuming Go ever becomes
a popular language)

~~~
krakensden
I don't know, it seems to much like assuming the mantle of Plan 9, and that...
has some negative connotations.

~~~
pyre
Aren't a bunch of the Plan9 devs working on Go though?

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hvs
Rob Pike and Ken Thompson were not only on the development team for Plan 9,
many of the ideas in Go come directly from their work on the Limbo language.

~~~
jbarham
And Russ Cox (<http://swtch.com/~rsc/>) is the creator of Plan 9 from User
Space (<http://swtch.com/plan9port/>).

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chc
I do feel for the guy, but if I'm being honest and practical, it will be less
trouble for him to change the name of his obscure and almost unused language
than it would be for Google to rename Go.

It would have been nice if Google had avoided the name conflict, but
unfortunately there's no central programming language registry and he had done
nothing to make his language easily discovered (to the point where it didn't
even have a website), so it seems likely that Google chose the same name in
complete innocence — at the worst, it seems like they might have thought it
was a toy name for a toy language used simply for explanatory purposes, not
something anyone cared about.

Essentially, once the name was already associated in people's minds with
Google, the horses were out of the barn. He chose to get concerned about Go!'s
presence in the public consciousness far too late.

~~~
gaius
How much hassle would it have been for Google to have changed the name _before
they announced it_?

You're right there's no central repository of programming language names...
But there is such thing as a search engine...

~~~
masklinn
> How much hassle would it have been for Google to have changed the name
> before they announced it?

Or right after they did, considering the state of the language at the time I
doubt it was used that much internally, so it's not like it would have cost
them billions of man-hours in lost productivity.

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tspiteri
What some people are missing is that before Google's Go, the Go! language was
so obscure that even googling for "go" would not have found it. In fact, the
second comment
([http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9&cnum=500&...](http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9&cnum=500&cstart=33#c2))
on the issue, by the Go! designer himself, suggests that to find its page you
should google for his name, not for "go" or "go programming language".

~~~
masklinn
> What some people are missing is that before Google's Go, the Go! language
> was so obscure that even googling for "go" would not have found it.

Nobody's missing it, it simply isn't relevant to the discussion/

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barrybe
Before people get carried away with stories about how the big guy is crushing
the little guy, keep in mind that there are at least 4 different programming
languages named D, and this doesn't seem to have killed any of those projects.
Name collisions are inevitable when everyone picks names that are around 1-4
characters.

------
eogas
>Status: Unfortunate

That's cold, Google.

~~~
akent
And I thought "WONTFIX" was harsh.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
I would have just used WORKSFORME.

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gaius
This is what not being evil looks like. Imagine the howls if Microsoft had
steamrollered over a small developer who'd spent 10 years working on M#.

~~~
jbarham
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_vs._MikeRoweSoft>

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poink
I wish Google would have come up with a new name, and I feel bad for this guy,
but it's just way too common a name to figure you'll have it all to yourself.
I'd feel the same way if the language was called "Do" or "Run".

------
sigzero
Did anyone _really_ think Google was going to respond in any other way? I read
Issue 9 when it came out along with some of the comments on it. I knew then
Google would just close the ticket and do nothing.

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junkbit
"Status: Unfortunate"

~~~
emehrkay
"Resolution: Get over it"

~~~
shill
Workaround: Go! fuck yourself.

~~~
shrikant
Methinks "Go! [bang] yourself" alone would work :)

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Terretta
I quite liked the comment suggesting Google rename their language to the
eligibly employable moniker "i9".

~~~
mdwrigh2
Hello lawsuit from Intel.

~~~
heyitsnick
How about iNine?

Hello lawsuit from Apple

~~~
mahmud
Visual Eye-Nine# Enterprise Edition.

~~~
arethuza
Visual Eye-Nine# Enterprise Edition (Service Pack 3)

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cosgroveb
On the one-hand I feel for the developer who originally named his language
"Go." On the other hand I've never heard of it... Who does HN think is right
in this case and why?

~~~
jkkramer
I think they both chose a terrible name.

~~~
protomyth
There are some great language names for search, but go isn't one of them. Perl
and PHP seem to work really well. Ruby and Python sure don't.

~~~
silentbicycle
Worse still: J, K, R, Io, T. At least with Python and Ruby, you can google for
"python programming" or "ruby programming".

Also, some forums don't allow you to search for single-letter names.

~~~
mahmud
Ummmm, C?

~~~
silentbicycle
True, but C's past the critical mass where googling for just "C" is likely to
get you info about the programming language. 3 of the top 10 results
(including #2) are about C programming. Most of the rest are about Citigroup,
which has the stock symbol 'C'. (Oddly, Cookie Monster is missing.)

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shuri
The guy should rename _his_ language to issue 9 and he will get the good will
and publicity :).

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supersillyus
Seems like an instance of the well-known "Michael Bolton Problem" from Office
Space. You had a name, you were using it, but something significantly more
notable comes along with the same name. They didn't steal your name, but by
virtue of being much more popular, now nobody thinks of you when they hear
your name, they think of the other thing that you have no association with and
came after you. There's no theft, just an annoyance for you. You were probably
never going to be famous, but now it is much harder. On the ironic upside,
people who didn't care about you before now remember you, because of the
naming conflict.

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roryokane
The original bug submitter's language, originally called Go, is now called
Go!: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go!_(programming_language)>

~~~
nene
As far as I know, that language has always been called Go! (your referenced
wikipedia page doesn't state otherwise, although the wikipedia page for Go!
didn't even exist before Google annouced its Go language).

~~~
roryokane
You’re right; I misread that Wikipedia page.

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slowpoison
> From the comments - <http://code.google.com/p/go/issues/detail?id=9#c576>

"Gone" can also be an alternative :))

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xentronium
He could still use the name "go-bang" or something like that which is even
arguably better googlable. However, google response makes me sad too.

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techiferous
Now what am I supposed to do with issuenine.com? ;)

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knodi
I love the issue status (Status: Unfortunate). Poor bastard.

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may
The Go logo looks like a potato with feet.

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yanw
No one really confused the two and I don't see how having similar names would
hurt any of them.

Also it's not even the same name: 'Go' vs 'Go!'

It is "unfortunate", carry on.

~~~
seabee
This is what gets me; nobody gets C and C# confused. Why Go and Go! ?

~~~
mahmud
# is pronounced "sharp". How do you pronounce "!"?

"Go [rising intonation]"?

~~~
ispivey
go bang

~~~
tdoggette
Very good advice.

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bhiggins
Both will be irrelevant soon enough anyway.

