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Help Us Raise $200k to Free JavaScript from Oracle | Deno (deno.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/deno@programming.dev
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cross-posted from: https://gregtech.eu/post/19465107

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12 comments in c/programming@programming.dev view that post
[–] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But this case is bigger than JavaScript. It’s about whether trademark law works as written, or whether billion-dollar corporations can ignore the rule that trademarks cannot be generic or abandoned. “JavaScript” is obviously both. If Oracle wins anyway, it undermines the integrity of the whole system.

If the law costs $200k to enforce, then the law already doesn't work as written.

Anyway, good luck Deno! We're all hoping you win this.

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    • [–] 28 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    In a sane world Oracle would be laughed out of court, but Larry Ellison is a major political donor who's been cozying up to the Trump administration, so who knows if the facts actually matter anymore?

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    • [–] 20 points 1 year ago

    [Oracle] denies that “JavaScript” is a generic term.

    Sure, sure Oracle, no one uses it in a generic way. Side note, today I learned that Oracle owns the trademark.

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    [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    I support the idea but is it really that important? It's just a name. Call it ECMAScript if you're worried. JavaScript if you aren't.

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    [–] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

    I'm for saying "fuck JavaScript" and moving on to something more sane. Even visual basic for the web would make sense. LUA for the web, or even Python, but fuck JavaScript.

    I say let oracle have it. Let the language die.

    Anti Commercial-AI license

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Microsoft tried to add VBScript to Internet Explorer in 1996, and the ghost of it lurked around in IE until it was old enough to drive. It never caught on.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    VBScript did catch on originally, though. When IE had over 90% market share, it was nearly as popular as JavaScript was. It only dropped in popularity when other browsers became more common. Back then, most scripting was just to enhance the page, and the page still had full functionality without it, so a lot of developers just didn't care about making it fancy for the 5-10% of other browsers.

    "AJAX" (XMLHttpRequest) was originally an IE-only, VBScript-only feature. It was originally implemented using ActiveX, which only VBScript supported originally.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago*

    I'm hoping that more DOM and BOM APIs become accessible in WebAssembly without having to go through JavaScript. There's a few frameworks that let you build web apps in other languages (like Blazor for C#) but they still need some JavaScript to interop with the browser, and going through a translation layer (WASM to JS to browser) adds some overhead.

    Even visual basic for the web would make sense

    This is exactly what I did for a few years before switching to JavaScript: VBScript. It was pretty common back in the early 2000s when Internet Explorer had 90%+ market share. The few remaining Netscape users would just get a page without scripts. There's a lot of features missing in VBScript that exist in JavaScript though, even basic things like closures and first-class functions.

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 1 year ago

    It would be really hard to coordinate such a huge move. And JavaScript is the most used language in the world, "letting it die" would mean making a whole lot of software die.

    This lawsuit isn't just about JavaScript, it's also to keep the integrity of the courts.

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    • 1 comment in c/javascript@programming.dev view that post
    [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I hope they win, but Oracle have a lot of money and a lot of lawyers.

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    1 comment in c/hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se view that post
    [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Why not switch to its official name anyway? ECMAScript

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