Apple Goes After Open Source Startup For Daring To Use The Term 'App Store'
from the butt-head-astronomer-store dept
Those of you up on your Apple history may know that the company once had a sense of humor. It once had a project that went by the code name "Sagan," and when astronomer Carl Sagan got angry and sent a cease-and-desist, Apple changed the project name to "Butt-Head Astronomer" or "BHA" (eventually leading to a defamation lawsuit that failed). So with Apple now being the insane company sending out cease-and-desist letters over something they shouldn't care about, perhaps it's time to help people rename the "app store."As you probably have heard, Apple is trying to convince the world that "app store" is not generic and that it holds the trademark on it. This has resulted in lots of people trying to invalidate the trademark, and one lawsuit against Amazon. Rather than taking a step back, Apple has become much more aggressive, lately (even though Steve Jobs has been caught calling other app stores "app stores").
We recently noted that it had threatened the developer organization Wireless Industry Partnership for daring to have a webpage that lists out alternative app stores. Carl J points us to the news that the company is now also threatening the open source startup Amahi with a similar cease-and-desist, for the app store it has for its home web server offering.
While the company is still deciding what to do, it's asking people to suggest potential alternatives:
We’d like it if you submit your suggestion for a term to use for Amahi’s store area, in every language on the surface of the earth, except of course using the term “app store.” Keep them short! We will use one of the top suggestions to name that area of our site.Anyone have suggestions that would fit with the spirit of Apple's response to Carl Sagan?
