With decency, they could at a minimum have acknowledged his existence, creations, influence, and inspiration.
Also, if you could see who downvoted you, you could perhaps start a little war, so I don't think that such a conversation system would be better.
Because mkempe is accusing Project Jacquard of appropriating a historical figure's name for their own gain. Somehow, it seems mkempe figures that the act of paying homage cannot be done without a citation or fair use disclaimer.
It's one thing to suggest adding a note about the historical Jacquard, another to take umbrage at an innocent name. I really don't think that sort of response should be encouraged.
Otherwise, I suppose someone should tell Project Euler that they need to explain who Euler is on their homepage.
Likewise, if you've heard of Jacquard or his invention, then the homage here is obvious as well. Neither case requires a footnote explaining the reference.
It's advertising and manipulating people's semantic networks for fun and profit, nothing else.
Joseph Marie Jacquard was a genius and Google should not use his name without proper acknowledgement. Shame on Google, and on downvoters.
The other programming languages you mention I don't know as much about -- Python users do seem to be regularly paying homage to Monty Python, so I'm quite happy with their intellectual and cultural honesty.
As for Turing, how could it ever be acceptable for someone to name a product after him and not explicitly mention him, his work, or his importance?
I love computers, software, and the people who made it possible, from Jacquard to Turing via Babbage and their heirs, friends, emulators, and more. I include a number of Ancient Greek philosophers in the lot. We have a responsibility to honor history and our ancestors; Google should, too. It's not a difficult proposition. Not doing it is unbecoming.
1) it's just a google search away :)
and
2) it will be mentioned by many articles and comments on the web, exhibit A being your comment :)
Anyway, I think you are both over-reacting and being needlessly negative. I mean, really, Jacquard is not the most marketing friendly name, they picked it because they love his work and now we're all talking about him so relax everyone.
Seriously though, do you actually believe scientists at Google or even managers want to cash in on an obscure scientist when they already have adword and adsense? How would that make any sense? This was obviously a tribute, come on. There may be tons of reasons to criticize Google but this is not one of them.