Oh dear Google, what hath thou wrought? It turns out that Google’s much touted “go” programming language might be name-squatting on another programming language that has been around for a decade.
Do no evil, indeed.
Surfacing in the Google go section of Code.Google, user fmccabe made the following remark: “I have been working on a programming language, also called Go, for the last 10 years. There have been papers published on this and I have a book. I would appreciate it if google changed the name of this language; as I do not want to have to change my language!”
It turns out that the name of his language is actually “Go!,” but the exclamation point was not a sticking point for other people in the thread:
The book referenced in the thread is this, a tome written on the laugauge. Of course, “Go!,” and “go” are not the same, but that is like saying “Burger King”, and “Burger King!” are not the same. Give the name back, Google, he got there first.
What do you think? H/T @Shiftb.
Looks like Go! programming language is dropping down in search results very quickly.
There is more about it on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go!_(programming_language)
Normal people research a name before they decide to create their own branding. Ok, so Google isn’t “normal people” but there is no excuse for using the same name as an existing programming language. When that programming language is free, open source and released under the GPL it becomes even more galling.
Shame on Google.
Wow. This is the dumbest freaking non-story I’ve ever read.
Elpie: Who cares if Google used an already-existing programming language name??? “Go”, it’s two letters, and it’s a pretty common word. More than that, IT’S NOT USED BY ANYONE. I’m a connoisseur of esoteric programming languages, but please. Nobody. Anywhere. Ever. Uses. Go. And the author’s language is an educational language, what does the name of the language matter? And somehow, in some strange nerdy-twist, just because the license of the programming language Go! is open-source, it’s somehow worse for Google??? Wow. That’s idiotic.
And you’re expecting google to ferret out every self-published, hobby programming language some random guy on the internet may have created in the last few decades?? Yah, okay. Maybe you can foot the bill for that.
Unless Go! is trademarked, this is a non-story. Give me a break. People are just looking for things to complain about.
‘go’ is a natural fit for the company, name-wise. They didn’t even need to steal it. And speaking of fit, it should be survival of the fittest… The best language should get to keep the name. That’s how it will happen anyway.
Easily solved, just change it to Goo. That should stick!
One would think that Google could have done some due diligence, and checked for existing programming language names that were similar. Maybe they could have googled for it :)
Don’t agree. Go is too common a word. That’s like Donald Trump trying to copyright the phrase You’re fired. Silly.
Elpie: Does a C(C++) language is better name that Go! Look at the line of great programming languages: Pascal, Java, .Net, PHP, C++, even old-school Fortran… Why is Go! is worse if it claims to be a new step in advanced software system development?
@Itransition – many of the programming language names were in use before the web and search engines. They were well-established brands long before Google existed. Today, a brand can live or die based on it’s visibility in search engine results. Generic names, such as Go, Wave, Closure, cannot be registered trademarks but could still have a claim under law for first-use, since they were around long before Google chose to use those names. Little guys cannot go up against multi-million dollar corporations though and this fact, along with Google controlling what their search engine outputs, could potentially result in the prior existing projects disappearing off the radar.
Finding unique names for new languages is a tough call & I have some sympathy for Google on that score. But all they had to do was use their own search data to realise they were establishing names that were directly competing with the same (or very similar) names used in a similar language context.