Yep, it’s true. “MySQL Toolkit” technically infringes on MySQL’s trademark. I haven’t been given a mandate or cease-and-desist order or anything, but as Marten Mickos (MySQL’s CEO) told me, anything that starts with the word “MySQL” sounds like it comes from the company, and this project doesn’t come from MySQL.
Suggestions are welcome. I’m totally uninspired. “Toolkit” was the best I could do when I named the project to begin with.
Technorati Tags:Marten Mickos, mysql, MySQL Toolkit, naming, sql, trademarks
Toolkit for MySQL? MyToolkit? All the best in the renaming!
Swedish Army Knife!
How about “Dolphin Toolkit”?
Xaprb Toolkit for MySQL though!!! :-)
Well, I am sure that no one can object to it being called “The Schwartz Toolkit for MySQL”… And you can always later claim that the name really was a reference to the SpaceBalls film and not any other reason.
Just keep it simple. Call it MineSQL. Not like we’re all into correct English.
Data Dream
DBA Dream
xaprb’s toolkit for MySQL? :)
It’s an unfortunate side-effect of the way Trademark law works. Much like Sun owns the TM for Java and Microsoft owns the Trademark for Windows (you’d have heartburn calling something JavaBuilder, or Windows Toolkit), you can easily fix this by calling it Toolkit for MySQL. The distinction is subtle, but that’s the way TM law works. Or you can come up with other name and use the “…for MySQL” suffix with no problems.
And if you own a Trademark if don’t defend it, then it risks becoming a generic term, which then leads to many problems.
–Zack
Is it the actual string of characters M-y-S-Q-L you can’t use, or is the phonetic sound as well? If it’s just the characters, I’ve got a couple of ideas.
* MaiSQL Toolkit
* MySequel Toolkit
* MeSQL Toolkit
If you don’t like those, how about these
* MyT SQooLkit (an anagram, pronounced “Mighty Skewl Kit”)
* MyTs QooLkit (an anagram, pronounced “Mighty’s Cool Kit”)
* MyTai
* YourToolkit
* MyCLI (pronounced My Climb without the “mb” )
myToolkit/myToolbox: The Missing MySQL toolset
From personal experience I can say that naming is a pain in the … ahm, difficult! :(
If you can tell us how to pronounce it, then I would recommend using something that you have already claimed as your own: Xaprb!
How about: Xaprb ToolKit or XaprbKit
Maybe you can persuade Marten to make MySQL Toolkit an official MySQL project? Then you wouldn’t need to worry about the name :-D
How about “TheKit”? No terribly inspired, but better than just “Toolkit”.
how about MyToolkit?
MyToolkit
I can’t remember what things are named like this, but I was reading somewhere about how people are renaming their stuff to be My[name] rather than MySQL[name]. You doing the same would just make it easier to recognize that it’s for MySQL, but without using their trademark in any way.
BySql ToolKit? B for Baron. Has a similar ring to it.
How do you solve your MySQL problems? BySQL ToolKit!
Although, I came up with this, I here by grant the use of it to Baron for the use naming his toolkit. If, he should not use it. I reserve the rights for my own nefarious purposes.
One more vote for
“… Richie Sevrinsky:
“Dolphin Toolkit”
CLI Toolkit for MySQL
I think a lot of community projects are going to face this problem, so coming with a consistent strategy will help all projects.
I recommend ‘My MySQL Toolkit’. Just by adding the ‘My’ in the front we achieve two things.
1. Obviously get away from trademark infringement
2. ‘My’ also signifies the community aspect (like our). (I always thought My in mysql meant that until I found out it came from Monty’s daughters’ name) oh my!!
Hi Baron,
Lots of suggestions here already, but I couldn’t help but chime in. We’ve all seen your progress with this awesome project, and recently you’ve expressed some growing pains for MySQL Toolkit. Have you thought about encouraging community-driven development to spread the load that you shoulder? If so (and I’d love to help test/bugfix/patch) the project’s name should probably be scale-able. Xaprb Kit is accurate and gives you credit where it’s deserved. But it might be harder to get other developers on board if that’s a goal for you.
Wow, 21 comments before I even got a chance to respond…!
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. To reply to just a few of them:
I don’t want to make this part of the official MySQL distribution. Can you imagine how long it would take a get a bug fix out into the world? As much as I try for quality, the last release, which removed a bunch of code and replaced it with modules that are unit-tested, has some new bugs in it. I want to fix those and release them rapidly. Also, there’s a lot to be said for being independent. It lets me contribute to MySQL’s community without feeling the need to censor my opinions. No conflicts of interest.
My initials are B.S., so I thought … but then it looked like some other person already named something MyBS. Of all the rotten luck.
I have no problems with trademark law and I’m not complaining. My only regret is that I didn’t think of this in the beginning.
I was thinking it’d be nice to choose an easy-to-type prefix that’s short and unique so you can tab-complete at the command-line.
I don’t want to name it after myself, as tempting as ‘xaprb’ is for tab-completion (it’s not easy to type, though… rats). I work on it, I hold the copyrights to the code, etc but I don’t ‘own’ the project. One of the reasons I put it on sourceforge instead of self-hosting or using another ‘forge’ is that I want it to survive me if I decide to become a monk, or get tired of it, or whatever.
Anyone who wants to help, by the way, is welcome to do so :-) No need to wait until I get carpal tunnel syndrome!
I was only just mentioning the ‘mysql…’ domain name today as an infringement, and MySQL seems to be cracking down more on this (or perhaps people are being more public).
It rather sucks, so any domain name that has mysql at the start of it is effectively open for a cease-and-desist order.
Where do you draw a line, when do domains that contain mysql start getting effected.
My suggestion would be for MySQL the company to host and provide a incubator for MySQL community projects. So he is my vote for MySQL the company to create mysqlcommunity.com and then you can get toolkit.mysqlcommunity.com
This provides one banner for all tools, a one stop shop.
That doesn’t give you an answer to the name, “Toolkit for MySQL” just isn’t the same as “MySQL Toolkit”
I think you have done more then enough for the MySQL community that people will get behind a Xarpb Toolkit or a BToolkit etc.
Best of luck, I know I have reconsider some domain names now!
What about “Enter Sakila”?
I also like MyToolkit…
good luck!
So glad I was one step ahead of you in securing that totally cool name MyBS! ;)
I fact it is so cool that someone else actually got it just before us, so we may be making a call for a new name for the BLOB streaming engine ourselves soon! :(
Baron, I don’t think you should worry about the fact that Xarpb is a reference to you.
But if you think it is too difficult to type, what about xapkit?
ZERO hits on google!!!!
This post should be the first one… :)
Paul, I have a new name for the blob streaming engine: My Paul McCullach Streaming. MyPMS! Perfect!
Thanks for the useful suggestion Baron, but I think MyPMS is going seriously in the direction of personal cult/ego trip! :O
Meanwhile, back to another important matter: I hate to disappoint all fans of MyToolkit (of which I am one) but, like all good names, its taken! :(
Now to demonstrate that nicknames are good for this kind of thing, if you were Brian Aker then I would suggest: KrowKit! Hee, hee, … :P
Also zero hits on google!
Damn I’m good at this! At least as long as I am not trying to name my own stuff… hmmm
how about XMKit or XMToolkit?
I’m sure you can guess what it stands for ;-)
Just name it “Toolkit for MySQL”. Its makes it clear what it is for, and people searching for MySQL Toolkit will find it.
I don’t understand why you would name it in such a way that it obscures what it does and what its for.
Ah, naming…
A good name is memorable (therefore not generic) and yet easily pronounced and written (therefore not exotic).
A good name is descriptive of form and function, yet not overly specific in its descriptiveness, in case it changes later.
Trademark law may restrict your descriptiveness further.
Good luck on balancing those two continua!
Well. Stuff which is for MySQL but does not have Trademark issues may start tent do change mysql to my - mytop, phpmyadmin etc.
mytoolkit when ?
Just call it “Oracle”
:)
mytoolkit or Dolphin Toolkit work….
So, there are 2 problems here — the first is the possible infringement, the 2nd is the fact that you want it to be memorable. I think XapToolkit is nice, but you have to make the decision whether or not you want the purpose to be at least hinted at by the name.
“Toolkit for MySQL” isn’t infringment, but it’s hardly memorable (”MySQL Toolkit” isn’t really memorable, either). Why not OurToolkit or OurSQL toolkit? Technocation, Inc. is a heavy user of ‘OurSQL’ but they’ll grant you rights, just talk to me about it…. ;)
Whatever you name it, make sure the “subtitle” is something like “productivity tools for MySQL administrators and developers”. Think of what you’d want if you were looking for this stuff but weren’t aware of the toolkit.
cf, google search for “mysql check replication integrity” and you don’t see the toolkit, but “mysql check replication integrity tool” and it’s on the 4th link down. But still, you want your toolkit high up. Google search for “mysql toolkit” and what comes up first? MySQL’s migration toolkit.
Similar to having “mysqlcommunity.com”, if you’re interested we could buy oursql.com — $900 is the current asking price, but I’ll see what I can do about getting that domain name. It might only take a letter from an intellectual property lawyer, such as http://bakoskritzer.com/ (my brother’s law firm). Sadly, oursql.net and oursql.org are also taken.
What would really be awesome would be a root domain of sql, and then we could have www.my.sql !!!!
whoops, got sidetracked — XapToolkit is good, but vague. Tools like Zmanda are also vague in name, but they do enough Google Ads work that if you search for “MySQL Backup” they show up as a sponsored link. Tools like SQLyog at least hint at what it does in the name. So that’s a decision for you to make. You may end up with something like XapToolkit: Xaprb’s toolkit for MySQL.
Of course, thanks to this discussion now I can at least pronounce your nickname: Zap-rib.
How about “IsaToolkit”?
You know, as in, “it IS A toolkit.”
Joke.
:)
XaprbKit sounds ok.. phpmyadmin isnt that memorable either but since its widly used … its become a standard..
or XaprbMyKit…
our hosting company sent me a mail yesterday that we can use mysql toolkit to connect to our databases… lol so i fired up the browser and went to mysql’s site to search for mysql toolkit to download.. couldnt find it… it does kinda sound like an official MySQL product
nvm see you changed it lol… maatkit