request for review: hobbit

[Chris Ricker]

On Wed, 11 May 2005, Michael A. Peters wrote:

> On Wed, 2005-05-11 at 15:47 -0400, Chris Ricker wrote:
> > Anyone interested in reviewing hobbit?
> > 
> > <http://www.oobleck.net/kaboom/fedora/srpms/hobbit-4.0.2-2.src.rpm>
> > 
> > hobbit's a GPL'ed replacement for the server component of Big Brother. It 
> > works with the Big Brother client (non-free), or with the free 
> > hobbit clients which are under development, to monitor server / 
> > application / network / etc. status
> 
> Just a note - a company I used to work for had a webapp server that we
> wanted to call Gandalf, but the lawyers wouldn't let us because
> apparently the Tolkein family was legal happy or something. I don't know
> if hobbit would have the same issue, were hobbits something Tolkein took
> from lore, or is the name his invention?

The name has been used elsewhere (ie, the Hobbit Sinclair derivative 
computer which was developed in the Soviet Union and sold for a time in 
the UK without action from the Tolkien estate), including in usage which 
pre-dates Tolkien; see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbit_%28Denham%29> 
for some discussion about this.

It does appear that "hobbit" is trademarked, though. Whether the trademark 
would extend to an acronym name for a computer program, I don't know. 
IANAL, etc. Thoughts?

thanks,
chris