Re: [xul-talk] DOS, DVD, VCR, RAM

On Thu, 29 May 2003, Gerald Bauer wrote:
>
> It does match it: XML UI Language -> XUL

On sites such as:

   http://luxor-xul.sourceforge.net/

...you claim the acronym stands for "XUL User Interface Language", not
"XML UI Language".

Note that even if you do not accept that XUL is trademarkable, it is still
confusing, as shown by this very mailing list. Every single post has
either been about XUL (Mozilla's UI language), or about the naming issue,
or by you, explaining that you did not intend the "XUL" in "xul-talk" to
refer only to Mozilla's language.

This really should be giving you a strong hint as to whether the term was
wisely chosen or not. (Posts on theserverside.com show a similar
confusion, for that matter.)


To recap. The term "XUL" is a term that was made up to refer to Mozilla's
UI language. It was based on the full name "XML User Interface Language",
but is not a direct acronym. This three letter term is a trademark.

Claiming that one can re-use this acronym by making it stand for something
similar and thus claiming that it is generic and thus not trademarkable
would be equivalent to coming up with the term "IBM" and claiming it stood
for the generic term "International Business Machines" and thus claiming
that "IBM" was not trademarkable.

IBM is a trademark, and someone trying to re-use it would, rightly, find
the real IBM company defending it. Similarly, I am here defending the term
"XUL" from what is effectively a hostile takeover.

Please refrain from using the term "XUL" to refer to things other than the
language developed by Mozilla.


> You will see that breaking XUL free from Mozilla will benefit everyone,
> that is, XUL, Mozilla and the Free World.

This sentence is very confusing for multiple reasons.

What "XUL" are you breaking free from Mozilla?

If by XUL you mean the generic concept of UI languages described in XML
(which seems like an odd idea; why only XML? What's wrong with UIs
described in other metamarkup languages?), then it isn't in any way
restricted to Mozilla, as shown by your own research. Hundreds of people
already have their own UI languages, described in XML and other formats,
and have done for decades. So what is there to break free?

On the other hand, if by XUL you mean the language defined, implemented,
and used by Mozilla, then why do you claim that XUL is a generic term? And
why would Mozilla want XUL to break free, given that Mozilla is already an
open forum for the discussion of the XUL specification?

(Also, why would doing any of this only benefit the "free world"? That
seems like a strange term to use in a technical context. China, for
example, is definitely not "free", but has a large IT industry and would
benefit from these technologies as much as any other country.)


BTW, you still haven't replied to my comments from a previous post:

   http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=5092944

-- 
Ian Hickson                                      )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
"meow"                                          /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
http://index.hixie.ch/                         `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Sunday, 1 June 2003 18:38:00 UTC