Whether it's a namespace collision or not, it's uncool of them to steal the name of Apache Spark, which was an influential project in machine learning, and must have helped generative AI get to where it is today.
- Adobe Spark https://express.adobe.com/page/dRGX7a5xjEnh5/
- Meta Spark https://spark.meta.com/
- Spark Mail https://sparkmailapp.com
- Spark New Zealand https://www.spark.co.nz
- Chevrolet Spark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Spark
- DJI Spark https://www.dji.com/support/product/spark
- Spark Racing Technology https://www.sparkracingtechnology.com
- Capital One Spark https://www.capitalone.com/small-business/credit-cards/spark...
- Spark Therapeutics https://sparktx.com
- Spark Energy https://www.sparkenergy.com
The one that I think Apache Spark is similar to is GitHub Spark, because they're both developer tools, and AI adjacent.
Apache Spark. GitHub Spark. Brand-name Spark. I think that's fine.
BTW the trademark: https://spark.apache.org/trademarks.html
Whenever you see the raised TM symbol, that’s claiming trademark status but not necessarily registered trademark status. The R in a circle is restricted to registered trademarks.
You can see here that Apache’s trademark for Spark is unregistered, but that doesn’t make it invalid (at least in the US and the other countries I alluded to): https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/list/#unreg_s
Fun fact: it’s also possible to register trademarks with US states, but that’s almost always worse than doing so federally with the USPTO, and federal registration is valid nationwide. State-level trademark registration is mainly a historical artifact predating the federal trademark system, but it’s still technically available.
We felt like there was sufficient difference between the two products, that there wouldn’t be any confusion. Especially with the target audience that GitHub Spark ultimately intends to reach.
That said, we plan to validate this during the Technical Preview phase. Since we absolutely want to be respectful of Apache Spark, and its impact on software.
When GitHub Next asked for this, there was already pressure in place for ASF to give that to them, because they're locked into GitHub, so it may not have been given entirely freely. You can say that you're confident it was, but to me it seems impossible to know for sure. I don't know if it was or not. It might be that they would have decided to give it freely but the thought of their relationship with GitHub came to mind while they were considering it. In any case, it's a big ask, because if this takes off, soon the phrase Spark Application that another commenter mentioned will be ambiguous.
GitHub Next is 18 people (inclusive of all roles), which seems appropriately-sized to be called a “team” (certainly in a large engineering company).
But apologies if that came off as misleading.
The way Cloudflare has Departments on their jobs page fits my mental model of it. One is Emerging Technology and Incubation which sounds similar to GitHub Next. https://www.cloudflare.com/careers/jobs/?department=Emerging...
On the GitHub jobs page, there isn't such a selection, but in autocomplete there are two results for team and none for department or group: https://www.github.careers/careers-home/jobs
The vocabulary isn't infinite. And within that finite number there's an even smaller set of words you would use for a product. And within that there's an even smaller set of words that are a combination of some of all of pleasant/short/applicable/relevant.
And Spark is a choice because the icon of choice for all things AI-related seems to be the sparkles emoji.