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Phoenix and Minotaur Get New Names

Posted by timothy on from the but-not-new-icons dept.

blazerw11 writes "Phoenix and Minotaur have been officially renamed to Firebird for the browser and Thunderbird for the mail client. Interestingly, they're both named after cars I often see in my neighbors' lawns. At least these cars were pretty fast before they were put up on cinder blocks. Personally, I like the names and the browser is great. I'm writing this with one of the last Phoenix Nightlies."

12 of 485 comments (clear)

  1. Chimera renamed to Camino by krisp · · Score: 5, Informative

    You'll also notice that the Mozilla team's MacOS X browser has been renamed Camino. Cars are definatly in style for them.

  2. "Firebird" is also taken by Frater+219 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Firebird is also taken as an open-source project name. It is an SQL DBMS (database system) founded on Borland InterBase. It's actually supposed to be a fast and reliable DBMS -- possibly even more so than PostgreSQL.

    These folks must not have looked very hard if they thought "Firebird" was a name with no conflicts in the open-source world. Firebird SQL is on SourceForge, a pretty obvious place to look.

    1. Re:"Firebird" is also taken by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Naming conflicts in the open-source world was not the issue that forced the Phoenix -> Firebird change: Phoenix technologies,who also produced a browser product, owned the trademark on 'phoenix'.

      As for a quasi-obscure DB? I think that a server side app and a web browser are easily differentiable. You can't download a database to view web pages and you can't do SELECTs on a web browser. And afaik they don't own the trademark. So I really don't think that it's that significant of a change.

    2. Re:"Firebird" is also taken by asa · · Score: 5, Informative

      These folks must not have looked very hard if they thought "Firebird" was a name with no conflicts

      Mozilla's Firebird browser isn't going to be confused with a relational database. Trademark onflicts only arise when there is customer confusion.

      --Asa

    3. Re:"Firebird" is also taken by QuantumET · · Score: 3, Informative

      Because that's not the problem.
      There's a company that makes a web-browser called Phoenix, I believe for embedded systems.

  3. Compress it with UPX by Phantasmo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Use UPX to compress phoenix.exe. I'm running one of the nightlies and I got it to go from 6.6MB to 2.7MB. It's not a lot of space, but it helps, and there's no decrease in speed.

    --

    The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience
  4. Re:Bloody Codenames! by deadsaijinx* · · Score: 3, Informative

    because there was some copyright problem with Pheonix (taken by someone else, don't remember whom though).

    What your talking about though is codenames. Those are supposed to change once the product is released. Excuse me if i'm wrong, but Pheonix wasn't a code name, It was a product name.

    --
    YOU SUCK BALLS!
  5. Re:Bloody Codenames! by uhmmmm · · Score: 5, Informative

    Phoenix was renamed to avoid potential legal problems from Phoenix BIOS.

  6. Re:Request. by Planesdragon · · Score: 3, Informative

    Quit renaming all the browsers! Every time I recommend them to a friend or coworker, the name changes and they get confused. :(

    You don't recommend them very much, do you?

    Netscape was "re-named" to Mozilla--which, in a way, is just publicizing the name it always had.

    "Gecko" has always been the Mozilla render engine.

    "Phoenix" stared out as "Phoenix" as "micro-Mozilla", and we've known for, oh, six months or so that it had to be re-named.

    Minotaur is almost brand'spankin' new--and every mention I've seen of it had "to be re-named to thunderbird" stamped on it.

  7. Re:What about Composer? by netdemonboberb · · Score: 5, Informative

    Composer is available in Mozilla, too. Making it stand-alone is going to happen. According to the New Roadmap, the GRE/toolkit will be the basis for all the stand-alone applications such as the browser, mail client, composer, and any other application created using the GRE/toolkit (which could be anything -- as long as it adheres to the MPL). This has been in the works for a long time. I remember hearing about breaking apart the applications way back in early 2002. The GRE was created not soon after, and now we have it being employed to finally create the stand-alone applications that were once fully integrated into the Mozilla process.

    --

    Volunteer Mozilla developer, RPI Student.
  8. I should shut my pie hole. by teamhasnoi · · Score: 3, Informative
    I just nabbed the last nightliesinstaller that someone was so kind to make. It (20030411) seems to work so far, except you can't drag links to the bookmark toolbar from the location bar.

    And to further prove I'm a retread, here is the page for whiny bitch windows users like me to install a choice of nightlies.

    I'll go stand in the corner.

  9. Re:Firebird, as in... by asa · · Score: 4, Informative

    Honestly, as much as I admire the work these folks do, I have to wonder how one medium-to-high-profile open-source project can decide to use the name of another.

    Mozilla's Firebird browser is not going to be confused with a relational database. Without customer confusion, there isn't a trademark problem.

    --Asa