Oracle is an incredibly litigious company. Their awful reputation in this respect means that the JS ecosystem can never be sure they won't swoop in and attempt to demand rent someday. This is made worse by the army of lawyers they employ; even if they're completely in the wrong, whatever project they go after probably won't be able to afford a defense.
Edit: Seems I'm incorrect, see below
This personal vendetta will likely end with the community unable to use the term JavaScript. Nobody should support this.
Why would that be the case, if not for Oracle's litigiousness?
1. Oracle is the litigious one here. My favorite example is that time they attacked a professor for publishing less-than-glowing benchmarks of their database: https://danluu.com/anon-benchmark/ What's to stop them from suing anyone using the term JavaScript in a way that isn't blessed by them? That's what Deno is trying to protect against.
2. Deno is filing a petition to cancel the trademark, not claim it themselves. This would return it to the public commons.
It should be obvious from these two facts that any member of the public that uses JavaScript should support this, regardless of what they think of Deno-the-company.
Are there any examples of Oracle using their JavaScript trademark to sue anyone? If they did, that petition would have merit.
Unless Demo was, this feels like a marketing project. And it's working, too, so kudos.
That is why on one level I am surprised by the petition. They are talking to a supercharged litigation monster and are asking it "Dear Oracle, ... We urge you to release the mark into the public domain". You know what a litigation happy behemoth does in that case? It goes asks some AI to write a "Javascript: as She Is Spoke" junk book on Amazon just so they can hang on to the trademark. Before they didn't care but now that someone pointed it out, they'll go out of their way to assert their usage of it.
On the other hand, maybe someone there cares about their image and would be happy to improve it in the tech community's eyes...
In this case the trademark existing and belonging to Oracle is creating more confusion than no trademark existing, so deleting it is morally right. And because Oracle isn't actually enforcing it it is also legally right
Imho this is just the prelude to get better press. "We filed a petition to delete the JavaScript trademark" doesn't sound nearly as good as "We collected 100k signatures for a letter to Oracle and only got silence, now we formally petition the USPTO". It's also a great opportunity to find pro-bono legal council or someone who would help fund the petition
IANAL, but I don't think that wouldn't be enough to keep the trademark.
Also the petition was a "we'll ask nicely first so we can all avoid the hastle and expense of legal procedings", they are now in the process of getting the trademark invalidated, but Oracle, illogically but perhaps unsurprisingly is fighting it.
But yeah, IANAL either and just guessing, I just know Oracle is shady and if you challenge them legally they'll throw their weight around. And not sure if responding to a challenge with a new "product" is enough to reset the clock on it. Hopefully a the judge will see through their tricks.