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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."

19 of 485 comments (clear)

  1. a great compact browser by eenglish_ca · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Pheonix is a great browser for me cause I am stuck using P2 233 with winnt in my comp sci class with no ie installed. The only issue is that I have to store pheonix on my personal drive which is a max of 48 megs. The pheonix I use is 12 megs which is 1/4 of the space. Conclusion: Pheonix is a great light browser performance wise but it has to be more compressed in terms of size still.

    --
    Checking out my form of escapism.
  2. Request. by numbski · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love the Mozilla herd, but please do me a favor...

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

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    1. Re:Request. by Fnkmaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Okay, howzabout you ask everybody with a vaguely related product to stop threatening the Mozilla project with lawsuits, then they'll stop renaming their browsers.

    2. Re:Request. by LetterJ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Here are the beginnings of such a HOWTO

      If the name you're thinking of is directly pulled from a scifi or fantasy source, don't bother. These sources are WAY overrepresented as naming sources in software. Not only are your chances of coming up with something original pretty small, most of the names of characters and places in scifi are trademarked and you run the risk of being sued.

      If the name you're thinking of comes straight from Greek, Roman or Norse mythology, try again. We've got more than enough mail related software called variations of "Mercury".

      Run your proposed name through Google. The fewer results you get the better. If you get down to no results, you're there.

      Don't try to get a unique name by just slightly misspelling something. Calling your new Windows filesystem program Phat32 is just going to end up with users getting frustrated looking at the results of "fat32" in a search engine.

      If your name couldn't be said on TV in the 50s or 60s, you're probably on the wrong track. This is particularly true if you would like anyone to use your product in a work environment. No one is going to recommend a product to their co-workers if they can get sued for sexual harassment just for uttering its name.

      If your product name can't be pronounced at all, you'll get no word of mouth benefit at all. Similarly, if no one knows how to pronounce it, they will not be very likely to try to say it out loud to ask questions about it, etc. How do YOU say MySQL? PostgreSQL? GNU? Almost all spoken languages on Earth are based on consonant/vowel syllables of some sort. Alternating between consonants and vowels is a pretty good way to ensure that someone can pronounce it.

      The shorter the better.

      See if the .com domain is available. If it's not, it's a pretty good indicator that someone has already thought of it and is using it or closer to using it than you are. Do this even if you don't intend to use the domain.

      Don't build inherent limitations on your product into the name. Calling your product LinProduct or WinProduct precludes you from ever releasing any sort of cross-platform edition.

      Don't use your own name for open source products. If the project lives on beyond your involvement, the project will either have to be renames or your name may be used in ways you didn't intend.

      I'll put this up at phpgeek.com to build it up more.

      --

      The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
  3. Bloody Codenames! by mungeh · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why do software (and hardware) developers feel they need to change the names of their products when they finish them? Just to confuse us? Please there must be someone who can clarify this! I see it time and time again, paticularly with CPUs: Clawhammer, Sledgehammer, Northwood... Not to mention Longhorn, *insert some other codenamed thingy here*

  4. Unity in the product line by El+Cubano · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think this is good. It will give user a theme they can identify with (especially if all the mozilla derivatives follow the convention).

    But I guess they already had a theme going with fantasy creatures to begin with. I wonder where it will go.

  5. Firebird, as in... by frostman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...the Database?

    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.

    It's not like there aren't other good poetic variations on the Phoenix theme.

    --

    This Like That - fun with words!

    1. Re:Firebird, as in... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

      Ok, what's with you boneheads who keep bringing up trademarks??? Did the original poster mention anything about trademarks? What about a modicum of respect? What about when (Linux or BSD) distributions have to choose a unique package name for installed software? Who gets "firebird"?

      Seriously, what would you think if MySQL renamed itself to Mozilla? Huh? Would you just shrug it off and say "well, no trademark is violated, so no big deal"? Or would you feel a little bit insulted?

  6. Re:Umm... by Monkey-Man2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, what's up with that. Did they not do a google search in their investigations? Or are they not concerned about conflicting names with another OS project? It even beats out the car on a search.

    --
    This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
  7. New graphics needed by netdemonboberb · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now we need someone to design some really cool graphics.
    http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cg i?id=202059

    --

    Volunteer Mozilla developer, RPI Student.
  8. Firebird and Thunderbird? by Bewray · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Frankly I liked Phoenix and Minotaur much better.

    But if they were going to change their names to the new "old car" motif, why oh why a Firebird and a Thunderbird? If they called one of them Stingray, I wouldn't be bitching. Not that a 'vette was a great car, but because the name is so much cooler. I know Stingray is probably taken, but so is Firebird, so :P thbbbt.

    Even then, why name them after middle of the hill production cars. If the apps are supposed to be bitchen, use the names of bitchen super/muscle cars. The obvious: Superbird, Cobra, F1 (as in McLaren). Or, the not so obvious: Pantera, Barchetta, and Silver Shadow. Or you could even mix the two and go with the likes of Tuscan, Cerbera, or Tamora.

    --
    My spoon is too big!
  9. (It would help with branding + IE war) Re:Request by otisg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, I agree.
    Not only would your friends know what you are talking about, but so would mine and everyone elses. When you say Internet Explorer, everyone knows what you are talking about, right?
    I think people behind Mozilla should learn and adopt this simple 'trick' from Microsoft if they want Mozilla/Phoenix/Firebird to become more popular.

    I would love to see the percentage of visitors using Mozilla go up in my access_log, and the percentage of IE go down. Both Mozilla and Pheonix deserve it.

    --
    Simpy
  10. Re:Why not Volvo XC90 or something? by zurab · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Volvos are more classy than Thunderbirds

    Maybe, in the past, but new Thunderbird looks very nice, and is very classy. I'd take that over most Volvos.

  11. Re:moto? by Coelacanth · · Score: 2, Insightful


    Not a good idea. You're much more likely to have a "fatal exception" on a motorcycle.

  12. A plea for (phoenix|firebird)-i586 binaries by Boiotos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Phoenix is a lightweight and fast browser, so it's ideal for boxes built around the last generation of processors, like K2s, Pentium Pros, etc. (Or is that the generation before last?)

    The bummer is that both milestone and daily builds are -i686 binaries. Someone else filed a bugzilla ticket on this in December. I guess we can just vote for it and hope that the mozilla.org folks find the time to do a -i586 build, too.

    1. Re:A plea for (phoenix|firebird)-i586 binaries by Greg+W. · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To hell with builds! I want a document that tells a Mozilla newbie like me how to compile this monstrosity myself! Because I'm sitting here on an HP-UX 10.20 system, and last time I saw a pig, its aerodynamics left a bit to be desired.

      Come on, people, just one little 800 byte HTML file?

      cvs -d :pserver:foo@bar/junk login
      password is "foobar"
      cvs -z3 -d :pserver:foo@bar/junk co phoenix
      cd phoenix
      CC=/where/I/put/gcc-3.2 ./configure --disable-gronkler-engine
      make

      If you can't build this thing in 10 steps or less, how the hell do you ever expect it to be useful? Or is it supposed to be a "rite of passage" build system, like nethack's? And if I can't build it with gcc, then fuck it. I am not going to track down version 3.78.123-a-9q of proprietary HP C++ compiler #74 which requires a codeword to install.

      (Sorry if I sound more bitter than usual. But the mozilla developers are truly on a different planet from the rest of us. Even filing a bug is a major chore, which has a serious impact on their QA. They should take a hint from Debian: apt-get install reportbug; reportbug.)

  13. Re:in related news... by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Of course, nobody outside the US has a bloody clue what you're talking about :-)

    Oh, wait - Triumph made a motorbike called a Thunderbird back in the sixties. I seem to remember calling it the thunderbox, though - it really wasn't up to the standard of many of their other bikes.

  14. Thanks for the NEW Naming Confusion by syntap · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One thing open-source projects should NEVER do is rename their product to the name of ANOTHER open-source project.

    In this case, they've given it the same name as Interbase's open-source flavor.

    I mean, it's plainly there on SourceForge... not like it couldn't have been researched.

    http://firebird.sourceforge.net/
    http://www.ibp hoenix.com/

  15. Firebird already taken by g8oz · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The name is already taken by an open source database project.

    See http://firebird.sourceforge.net. Geez, how rude.