a link to an article or web site you find interesting related to software development/engineering (indirect relationships are ok)
Link: https://deno.com/blog/deno-v-oracle
a paragraph or two about what you find interesting about that article
Deno.js is a JavaScript runtime, developed by Ryan Dahl, who also created Node.js (Notice Deno is just a rearrangement of the letters in Node). Deno has entered into a court case against Oracle, a megacorporation owned by Larry Ellison who invented the first commercially viable relational database. When Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems in 2010, it also gained ownership of various trademarks and IPs such as Java and JavaScript. Well, Ryan Dahl, the activist developer that he is, does not like that, and so on November 22, 2024, his company began litigation to take down the JavaScript trademark.
Two things stand out to me about this article.
Primarily, I am most intrigued by how this case's outcome will shape the idea of public domain in tech. Giants in the industry almost always excercise their right to privatize IP for profit. But these technologies have become so commonly adopted and contributed to by the public, forks becoming open-source etc., that it is hardly IP anymore.
Secondly, if Deno succeeds in winning this case, this will be an incredible underdog story. As of 2025-01-25, Oracle has an unfathomable market cap of $513 Billion USD (Which has enabled Ellison to purchase and own 98% of one of the Hawaiin Islands, Lānaʻi, for just $300 Million USD). In comparison, Deno's evaluation is just $25.9 Million USD, 21 of that being recently raised through a Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital. It is completely within Oracle's abilities to win this case, simply because of the size of their purse.
remember that this will be public
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Use Markdown syntax to make it look nice
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I would be greatly relieved if the JavaScript specification changes it name "ECMAScript", which sounds like a completely different programming language used in the 1980s.