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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."

18 of 485 comments (clear)

  1. 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:in related news... by Mipmap · · Score: 5, Funny

    I moderated you to flamebait - because, well, Pintos are flamebait (and so is IE)

  3. "Phoenix" joins the Browser Relocation Program by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    After numerous attempts on it's life by the Microsoft mafia family, Phoenix is being given a new name and identity an an undisclosed website in the hopes of protecting it.

  4. 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.

  5. "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 Scaba · · Score: 5, Funny
      You can't download a database to view web pages and you can't do SELECTs on a web browser.

      Speak for yourself.

    3. 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

  6. In other news... by chunkwhite86 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Evolution(tm) Mail client will be renamed "Camaro", while the Abiword is skipping the subtle but amusing titles and jumping right into it with their latest release, codenamed "WhiteTrash"

    --
    I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
  7. Why... by numbski · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why oh why did the Macs get stuck with the sawed-off station wagon anyway? :P

    --

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

  8. 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
  9. In other news... by EricHsu · · Score: 5, Funny
    Composer was renamed El Dorado Convertible, Chatzilla was renamed Dart Swinger and Camino, of course, remained unchanged.

    In another surprise sequence of events, GCC was renamed GNU Caprice Classic and Emacs was renamed Pontiac Catalina.

    Apparently as part of an prior agreement, the Chevy Tahoe was immediately renamed the GNU/Chevy Tahoe.

    - Eric

  10. Re:Bloody Codenames! by uhmmmm · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  11. Car Names. by SpamJunkie · · Score: 5, Funny

    First is was [El] Camino, now Firebird and Thunderbird? Damn. Mozilla people need to get out more. I can see my mother right now "I can't read my email in Firebird" and I'll say "Thunderbird" to which she'll respond "Whatever"

    Joy.

  12. Re:Bloody Codenames! by chunkwhite86 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Northwood... Not to mention Longhorn

    These names are getting cruder and cruder... Pretty soon we will see the new "Largenuts" northbridge and the "Bigcock" processor to go with it.

    Maybe it's just me that's getting cruder? ... Nah.

    --
    I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
  13. 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.
  14. (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