Page 2 - Open-source etiquette. Is Mozilla wrong to use Firebird name?

It is a big deal wannabe. It basically amounts to theft of the name, whether intentional or not.

-EDIT, haha I started the second page, I don't get to do that very often

-Eclipce

I for one care about it. I think its rude and very inconsiderate. They really should sit down and think of a name instead of stealing another projects name.

http://www.google.com/search?q=fire...8&start=10&sa=N

being it in the same field doesn't make it any worse.

obviously firebird can't sue mozilla, they would've already.

it's just rude, but no theft involved.

how many of you will confuse them tho?

I don't think we will, but with more consumer-aimed Linux-based OS shipping with lower-end systems such as those WalMart sells, n00bs might get confused if they ask for help and someone says firebird and they do a search on google and find the database instead

This is lame, lame, lame. They couldn't come up with another freakin' idea? They can justify it however they want, but it's the height of lameness and is going to cause a lot of people confusion, no matter how clear they think the separation is.

I don't think it's going to punish anyone but the end-users of the various projects, and shows that the phoenix team has an arrogant disregard for users and other open-source projects.

Bad show.

Yes, the arrogance is what bothers me. I haven't yet seen one of the Mozilla people approach this in a nice way. Just look at all the answers given in the talkback section of Mozillazine.

In fact it is not only arrogant disregard for the Firebird DB people, but it is arrogant disregard for those of us who try to develop web-based applications. It will lead to unnecessary explanations on our part, whenever our customers or users have questions.

I, for one, am never, ever going to use the name Firebird when talking about the Mozilla browser. It is already enough torture just to try to explain to people that Mozilla is the open-source basis for Netscape. That alone confuses them enough, and requires me to spend a ridiculous amount of time explaining how the browser can have two different names, and well... they're the same, but not really, and Mozilla is kinda better, even though Netscape has the big company name. I have been pointing my customers at the Mozilla website to download the browser, along with these explanations. Now, I'm going to have to qualify my explanation even further: well, it's Netscape, but it's Mozilla, but the browser part is called Firebird, and the email part is called Thunderbird... and...

People don't want to have to think about this stuff in that way. Mozilla was doing fine with the integrated browser/email project. Even if they use Firebird/Thunderbird, they should just call it Mozilla.

update: there is now a large melee on Slashdot about this.

I am going to start a discussion about this on the private XL tubes...

The IT quote of the day goes to a person from the Firebird database group. It's nice to see they're still able to keep their sense of humor about it all. It made me laugh.
See the interview here:
http://www.mozillazine.org/articles/article3097.html


PS - To give some context the above quote was in response to accusations from Mozilla supporters.

It's like somebody parking really close to your car in the parking lot. Yeah, it's legal, but is it right? Can I use my car the way I want to, or do I have to crawl over the console to get into it?

Netscape has made some bad decisions in the past, mostly related to feature sets in their mailers and browsers.

This one is a bad business and bad neighbor decision.

Actually, its not legal. It's only legal until someone says something. Even a fileing for a trademark through the PTO can be (and has been in the past) revoked based on the same grounds as this current situation. The only thing that is shakey is the fact that Firebird has no (or is no) legal entity - the project group that is. But, mozilla is no legal entity niether, so both groups have limited grounds under them - which should (and will) result in a legal fault for the mozilla group.

Also Firebird is supported by the little company that was started by Inprise/Borland. It really doesn't get much support. Mozilla is supported by Netscape which is part of AOL Time Warner, a very large company. The AOL legal team will be able to fight this in the courts so much longer than Firebird will be able to support.

Justice may be on their side but we all know the legal system all depends on who has the most money.

This is exactly what the Project Admin of Firebird said.

Jonathon Walther of the Debian group is attempting to mediate the dispute and wrote a letter to Mozilla.org (click here).

Either there was a really big misunderstanding or Mozilla decided the Firebird arguments might have some merit and decided to be the good guy. Either way, section 5.3 and 5.4 of the following document (revised today) seem to indicate that "Firebird" is a codename only and that the final product will not bear that name (click here).

I hope this is true.