Jamis Buck got a cease and desist letter about SwitchTower, his deployment management software. It seems that another company (I’m not linking to them, because I don’t want to give them the publicity) has used the name for teleconferencing software and thought application deployment was too close to their niche.
That left Jamis in a bad spot. Fighting what looks like it might have been a frivolous complaint would take time and money, while changing SwitchTower’s name would take time and cause pain. Jamis and the other developers decided that the time and pain was a lower cost and set off to find a new name. They finally settled on Capistrano.
While I’m glad that Jamis was able to make a change and avoid any costly litigation, I’m also saddened that the Ruby and Rails community has been hit with what looks like legal bullying. Shame on the bully, and bully for Capistrano.
I'm sure it's not that they thought it was too close to their niche, it's that they thought it was higher in google results than their product, and they've got lawyers.
Dav,
I don't doubt that you're right. I was shooting for sarcasm, and obviously missed the mark.
Whatever. Jamis probably didn't realize there was another app called SwitchTower. Probably benefits both parties that it was cleared up before it became commonplace.