“Open-source developers say they have changed the name of a podcast application after pressure from Apple Computer’s lawyers. ‘iPodder Lemon’ was a free application distributed under the General Public License, or GPL, that allows users to manage their podcasts–audio and video programs downloaded from the Internet to an MP3 player,” Karen Gomm reports for CNET News.
“The product supports more than 15 languages and has a built-in directory with thousands of podcasts feeds. It will automatically download new podcasts when they become available.” Gomm reports. “The developers say Apple’s legal team asked the open-source group to drop the name of the software as it suggested a connection to the company’s flagship iPod device. The developers have changed the name of the product to ‘Juice.'”
Full article here.
Garth T. Kidd, one of iPodder’s, er… Juice’s developers writes in his blog, “I’d rather not waste energy lambasting Apple’s lawyers for correctly pointing out that the first four letters of iPodder happened to exactly match one of their registered trademarks. As I mentioned at the time, it’s not like Apple could safely ignore us. Unlike satire or criticism sites, we’d created a product. It handles music. It puts things on iPods. On the Mac, it even looks shiny like iTunes. I don’t think we’d have lasted a day in court if we’d tried to fight. Fortunately for us, Apple’s lawyers were polite – almost to the point of being apologetic – and entirely reasonable. I’s not appropriate for me to go into the details of our arrangement, but I can say I don’t feel hard-done-by. Sure, I wouldn’t have minded not having to change our name, but that couldn’t really be avoided.”
Full article here.
Juice is free. More info and download links here.
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