rename.html - gerrit/www.eclipse.org/mylyn - Git at Google

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 <h2 align="center">Mylar to Mylyn Project Rename FAQ</h2>
 <p>About the name: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myelin">myelin</a>
 substance accelerates our thoughts by making neurons much more efficient at
 conducting electricity. The <a href="http://eclipse.org/mylyn">Mylyn</a>
 name is a tribute to this substance, as many users claim that our tools increase
 efficiency to the point where we can code at the speed of thought. The preferred
 pronunciation is&nbsp; <tt>'mIl&amp;n</tt>, like saying &quot;my&quot; and &quot;lynn&quot; quickly.</p>
 <h3>Why is the Eclipse Mylar project changing its name to Mylyn?</h3>
 <p>The Eclipse Foundation takes a lot of pride from the efforts it puts into
 shipping clean intellectual property. We want our ecosystem to be able to adopt
 technology from our projects without fear of encumbrances. Trademarks are
 intellectual property, so we must ensure that we have clear provenance of
 Eclipse trademarks as well. </p>
 <p>The Eclipse Foundation is currently going through the process of re-writing
 its trademark guidelines to include Eclipse project names as trademarks of the
 Eclipse Foundation. As part of that process, we have learned that there are
 complexities regarding the assertion of clear ownership of the Mylar name. After
 much research and discussion --- including discussion by the IP Advisory
 Committee of the Board of Directors --- we decided that the best way forward was
 to change the name of the project.</p>
 <p>We understand the marketing and technical issues to the Mylar project,
 community and adopters related to this name change. We have not taken this
 decision lightly, and we all wish that this change did not have to happen or
 that we had discovered the issues earlier. The popularity of the Mylar project
 has been growing very rapidly, and this is the best decision for the project, as
 well as the overall Eclipse community and ecosystem.</p>
 <h3>Why would Eclipse not use the name Mylar if the product is not in the
 software domain?</h3>
 <p>In most cases, trademarks are restricted to a particular field of use and
 related areas. However, Mylar was invented and registered as a mark in the
 1950s and has been a well-protected mark. Mylar is a mark coined by its owner
 --- as opposed to an English language word that was adopted as a trademark.
 Therefore, its owner may have a very strong claim against anyone who uses Mylar
 in any sense, including software.</p>
 <h3>How can its owner have invented the word if it has been a surname since the
 1600s? </h3>
 <p>A company can assert trademark rights in a mark which happens to be someone's
 surname. The strength of the mark is a function of whether that surname is a
 real word, and whether that surname is already being used as a trademark, by the
 surname holder or someone else. In this case, there is no evidence that Mylar
 was used as a trademark by more than one company. Thus, there is a good argument
 to the strength of that mark.</p>
 <h3>Why did you not choose a less disruptive name like Milar or Myl-r?</h3>
 <p>We considered a large number of possible options. But since we are going
 through the process of changing the name it made the most sense to change it to
 a name which has no obvious encumbrances. Under trademark law, there are
 possible complications with those names based on the possibility that they may
 be perceived as confusingly similar to Mylar. We like the Mylyn name, its
 connotations, and the fact that it was created by the projects committers. </p>
 <h3>Was it possible to keep the package or plug-in IDs as org.eclipse.mylar to
 minimize disruption?</h3>
 <p>No, Eclipses projects must align their names with the name spaces they use.
 The right time to do this for the Mylar project was just prior to the Europa
 release when adopters had to port from the Mylar 1.0 to the Mylyn 2.0 APIs. We
 do appreciate that there is a significant possibility that this change will be
 disruptive to users and adopters. We are making sure that this change is well
 publicized to the community and are taking technical steps to make the switch as
 painless as possible. </p>
 <h3>I redistribute/repackage/reuse Mylar. How does this affect existing
 products/services/tools that include the word Mylar?</h3>
 <p>As you migrate to the new version of Mylyn shipping with the Eclipse Europa
 release in June 2007, you should ensure that you update your product
 documentation to reflect the new name.</p>
 <p>&nbsp;</p>

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	<head>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
	<title>Mylar to Mylyn Project Rename FA</title>
	</head>

	<body>

	<h2 align="center">Mylar to Mylyn Project Rename FAQ</h2>
	<p>About the name: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myelin">myelin</a>
	substance accelerates our thoughts by making neurons much more efficient at
	conducting electricity. The <a href="http://eclipse.org/mylyn">Mylyn</a>
	name is a tribute to this substance, as many users claim that our tools increase
	efficiency to the point where we can code at the speed of thought. The preferred
	pronunciation is  <tt>'mIl&n</tt>, like saying "my" and "lynn" quickly.</p>
	<h3>Why is the Eclipse Mylar project changing its name to Mylyn?</h3>
	<p>The Eclipse Foundation takes a lot of pride from the efforts it puts into
	shipping clean intellectual property. We want our ecosystem to be able to adopt
	technology from our projects without fear of encumbrances. Trademarks are
	intellectual property, so we must ensure that we have clear provenance of
	Eclipse trademarks as well. </p>
	<p>The Eclipse Foundation is currently going through the process of re-writing
	its trademark guidelines to include Eclipse project names as trademarks of the
	Eclipse Foundation. As part of that process, we have learned that there are
	complexities regarding the assertion of clear ownership of the Mylar name. After
	much research and discussion --- including discussion by the IP Advisory
	Committee of the Board of Directors --- we decided that the best way forward was
	to change the name of the project.</p>
	<p>We understand the marketing and technical issues to the Mylar project,
	community and adopters related to this name change. We have not taken this
	decision lightly, and we all wish that this change did not have to happen or
	that we had discovered the issues earlier. The popularity of the Mylar project
	has been growing very rapidly, and this is the best decision for the project, as
	well as the overall Eclipse community and ecosystem.</p>
	<h3>Why would Eclipse not use the name Mylar if the product is not in the
	software domain?</h3>
	<p>In most cases, trademarks are restricted to a particular field of use and
	related areas. However, Mylar was invented and registered as a mark in the
	1950s and has been a well-protected mark. Mylar is a mark coined by its owner
	--- as opposed to an English language word that was adopted as a trademark.
	Therefore, its owner may have a very strong claim against anyone who uses Mylar
	in any sense, including software.</p>
	<h3>How can its owner have invented the word if it has been a surname since the
	1600s? </h3>
	<p>A company can assert trademark rights in a mark which happens to be someone's
	surname. The strength of the mark is a function of whether that surname is a
	real word, and whether that surname is already being used as a trademark, by the
	surname holder or someone else. In this case, there is no evidence that Mylar
	was used as a trademark by more than one company. Thus, there is a good argument
	to the strength of that mark.</p>
	<h3>Why did you not choose a less disruptive name like Milar or Myl-r?</h3>
	<p>We considered a large number of possible options. But since we are going
	through the process of changing the name it made the most sense to change it to
	a name which has no obvious encumbrances. Under trademark law, there are
	possible complications with those names based on the possibility that they may
	be perceived as confusingly similar to Mylar. We like the Mylyn name, its
	connotations, and the fact that it was created by the projects committers. </p>
	<h3>Was it possible to keep the package or plug-in IDs as org.eclipse.mylar to
	minimize disruption?</h3>
	<p>No, Eclipses projects must align their names with the name spaces they use.
	The right time to do this for the Mylar project was just prior to the Europa
	release when adopters had to port from the Mylar 1.0 to the Mylyn 2.0 APIs. We
	do appreciate that there is a significant possibility that this change will be
	disruptive to users and adopters. We are making sure that this change is well
	publicized to the community and are taking technical steps to make the switch as
	painless as possible. </p>
	<h3>I redistribute/repackage/reuse Mylar. How does this affect existing
	products/services/tools that include the word Mylar?</h3>
	<p>As you migrate to the new version of Mylyn shipping with the Eclipse Europa
	release in June 2007, you should ensure that you update your product
	documentation to reflect the new name.</p>
	<p> </p>

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