Since 2000, I've been maintaining GraphApp, an open source GUI portability library. Although named GraphApp on the web site, it was always supposed to be part of a larger portability library providing other services, which is why its header file is named app.h, why it compiles to libapp.a under Linux and app.lib under Windows, why the FAQ mentions "App" as the name of the intended work, and why one of the first things you do when making a program with my library is you create an App struct using the new_app call.
Leaving aside the question of whether the term is now generic, what protection do Open Source developers have for the names they choose for their tools, which have been in use for years?
But you're only talking about Red Hat's employees' futures and jobs. Instead, they should consider how many companies use their distribution, and consider all _those_ companies' employees' futures and jobs first.
> "when your a company with peoples futures and jobs on the line often its not a good idea to expose all of the details"
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success. -- Christopher Lascl