Is this actually affiliated with Roger Penrose? Seems extraordinarily rude to use his name otherwise. Was his permission sought? In fact, this may be seen as "passing off" in English law.
Not affiliated with Roger Penrose; we often hear this question about our project name: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36749211 As Nimo mentioned in a response to that linked thread, we're open to suggestions for alternate names if a different one would better suit the project!
At first I thought that he actually had something to do with it!
To simply borrow his name is indeed, I think, in pretty poor taste. The trend of naming unrelated products after scientists and inventors (from "Tesla" and "Nikola," to Theranos' "Edison," to "Ada Lovelace," and so forth,) has become unbelievably low-effort and cringe.
Yes, but his name is the obvious one. If I say "Dyson" and you're in the UK, you think of vacuums, "Penrose" and you think of Mathematical Physics.
I doubt this would come to court. The main problem is the temerity of using the name of a living person in this way. But, they could have sought permission, in which case, all is well.
I'm sufficiently nerdy to think "Sphere" whenever the name Dyson comes up, but I'm sure that to most normal people even "Dyson sphere" will mean one of these rather than a K2 civilisation: https://www.dyson.co.uk/vacuum-cleaners/uprights/ball-animal...
Neither Ada Lovelace nor Haskell Curry is still alive. And Python is in a different category.
It's one thing to use the name of a historical figure, quite another to use the recognisable mark of a living person.
Of course, it could all be being done with endorsement, in which case, my comment is invalid, but otherwise it's incredibly rude and a borderline civil tort.
I also believe that passing off requires a demonstration of a substantial amount of probable damage in the future. The mere existence of a graphical software named Penrose can't do much harm. (If you name a malware after Penrose, that may be the case though.)
