[comp.emacs] name "emacs" owned by anyone?

spolsky-joel@CS.YALE.EDU (Joel Spolsky) (09/01/90)

Does anybody "own" the name emacs? What legal claims are there on the 
name? Could a commercial vendor release a product named "emacs"?

Joel Spolsky
spolsky@cs.yale.edu                                        Talk Hard.

bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (09/04/90)

In article <25960@cs.yale.edu> spolsky-joel@CS.YALE.EDU (Joel Spolsky) writes:
   Could a commercial vendor release a product named "emacs"?

At least two already have:  CCA and Unipress.

barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) (09/05/90)

In article <BOB.90Sep4091851@volitans.MorningStar.Com> bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes:
>In article <25960@cs.yale.edu> spolsky-joel@CS.YALE.EDU (Joel Spolsky) writes:
>   Could a commercial vendor release a product named "emacs"?
>At least two already have:  CCA and Unipress.

No.  CCA released a product named "CCA Emacs", Unipress released "Unipress
Emacs"; Honeywell released "Multics Emacs", etc.  I think MIT may hold the
rights to the name "Emacs" all by itself; even GNU Emacs, primarily written
by the author of the original EMACS at MIT, is officially named "GNU
Emacs", not just "Emacs" (the introduction to the GNU Emacs Manual refers
to GNU Emacs as a member of the "Emacs family of editors").


--
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar

defaria@hpclapd.HP.COM (Andy DeFaria) (09/06/90)

I thought I saw a software package for Machintosh's called "emacs".  Hmm...