In article <MPG.2080af3c9a3e4d8b989725@n...>,
Grant Robertson  <bogus@b...> wrote:

>> >Which is what Sun did with Java; they enforced that against Microsoft 
>> >when the MS version diverged too strongly from the spec.

>> This works once the brand is sufficiently successful.  Microsoft
>> could have diverged as much as they liked so long as they didn't
>> call it Java, but they evidently calculated that that wouldn't do
>> them any good.

>Ever heard of C#, pronounced "see sharp"? That is microsoft's attempt to 
>duplicate Java. Some idiots actually program in it. 

I know about C#, but I'm afraid I have completely lost track of your
argument.

To go back to what I thought was the point: there are various legal
mechanisms you can use to discourage people from extending your
standard, and they may or may not work depending on things like
whether you have the respect of your user community, whether you have
built up a "brand", and so on.  But I doubt you can find any purely
legal means to prevent people from doing so: I don't know of any cases
where that has been successful, and I don't think the law *should*
allow you to.

Java and C# are not an example of purely legal means preventing a
company from extending a standard; the trademark on Java meant that
Microsoft would have had to rename their variant, but it was the
strength of the Java brand that made that (apparently) impractical.

And in any case, we have yet to see this "standard".  We don't even
know whether anyone will want to use it, let alone extend it.

-- Richard
-- 
"Consideration shall be given to the need for as many as 32 characters
in some alphabets" - X3.4, 1963.