Latin prefixes belong to the language - Wooden Brain

I appreciate the concern about confusion expressed here. However "omni-" is a Latin prefix that describes the global nature of this application very well:

According to the OED entry on "omni": "Forming compounds in which the first element has the sense ‘in all ways or places’, or ‘of all things’." Also according to the OED, the prefix took off in productivity in English after the 16th century.

The OmniGroup has been around a few years. As much as I like their software and respect their company, not a single release of theirs has any particular "omni" quality. They made omni visible in Mac OS X software, but they cannot brand one of the most productive prefixes in the English language.

OmniGrowl is meant to bring together notifications about "all things" of concern to people's day-to-day lives, so it is our view that the name suits the application.

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Monday, November 05 2007 @ 11:51 AM PST

Not an Omni Group Application - isean1

"so it is our view that the name suits the application."

It may suit it, but I still agree 100% with the OP. Name recognition counts for a lot and the OP is right on target.

That being said I do love Omnigrowl, but to be honest the only reason I even tried it at first is I thought it was an Omnigroup product.

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Monday, November 05 2007 @ 09:27 PM PST

Not an Omni Group Application - tpecorella_dotmac

Sure, he should. And I should register a company name " Group" (note the space), so any application will belong to me.

The policy to think that partial names are a sort of trademark is purely idiotic. The author have all the rights to call this wonderful app OmniGrowl and noone should ever complain or better ask him to change an app name. I'd consider unfair if the request would had made from a company, from a simple user... kudos to the author to not have used the sort of expressions I have in mind, but fyi, they're all involving the body part never hit by the sun.

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Tuesday, November 06 2007 @ 02:19 AM PST

Not an Omni Group Application - skywalker85

I don't think the point is that the developer shouldn't be allowed to use the Omni prefix, but rather that it might be in his best interest to differentiate himself from the OmniGroup to avoid confusion. I agree with that point. Certainly it's not possible to trademark/copyright the Omni- prefix, but they can use it so readily as to make it automatically associated with them like the OP was suggesting.

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Tuesday, November 06 2007 @ 06:57 AM PST

Not an Omni Group Application - isean1

Exactly! tpecorella_dotmac is obviously just being reactionary and not really getting the gist of what is being said. Nobody is complaining about the product or saying that Wooden Brain has any legal precedent to change the name of the product. Wooden Brain makes some nice little utilities, a few I have made use of. OmniGrowl, iDupe and MoveTunes.

The original poster was making the point that OmniGroup has achieved a certain amount of name recognition through the pre-fix Omni in the Mac world. Many folks are familiar with OmniWeb, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniPlan, OmniFocus, OmniDazzle, OmniDiskSweeper, OmniDictionary and OmniObjectMeter.

According to Wikipedia "A brand which is widely known in the marketplace acquires brand recognition. When brand recognition builds up to a point where a brand enjoys a critical mass of positive sentiment in the marketplace, it is said to have achieved brand franchise."

The point made by the OP is that Omni has achieved this level of brand franchise. Legalities aside it is confusing. The point I made myself is I tried it for the first time because I had come upon a download link on another site and just assumed (yes I know what they say about assuming) that it was a product of the Omni Group. A name I knew and trusted.

That is not saying I was in any way disappointed with OmniGrowl.

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Wednesday, November 07 2007 @ 08:04 AM PST

Not an Omni Group Application - blizzaster

I think it is fair to say the OmniGroup has developed such brand recognition, that any Mac shareware user seeing this product's name for the first time will assume it comes from them. I did. In fact, every time it gets updated and relisted, I think it again, and wonder "gee, I wonder what OmniGroup is doing with Growl."

Right or wrong, legal or not, and no matter how the dictionary defines things – that's just the way it is. This product is getting mentally attributed to a different company than the actual developer by the potential user base.

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Tuesday, November 20 2007 @ 08:51 PM PST

Not an Omni Group Application - RoyPDX

It implies no such thing. You may have inferred such because you chose to rely on primitive pattern recognition (which may be handy in a hunter gatherer society) rather than looking any further.

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Thursday, March 06 2008 @ 03:52 PM PST

Not an Omni Group Application - ashkenaz

Wooden Brain is actually performing a service by *weakening* the branding of the Omni- prefix and thereby *strengthening* the possibilities of the English language. Apple was unsuccessful in asserting exclusive claim to the lower-case i prefix and "i" doesn't even have a lexical meaning. We should welcome the Omni-presence of Omni-prefixed applications, if only to preempt the branding of a piece of our shared lexical heritage.

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Tuesday, March 11 2008 @ 01:22 PM PDT