Slashdot Mirror
Firebird Name Debate Enters a New Stage
An anonymous reader writes "As many readers will know, mozilla.org was asked to change the name for their standalone browser, Phoenix as another browser had the same name. After months of discussion, the new name was announced as Mozilla Firebird. Despite the new name being approved by AOL Legal, supporters of the FirebirdSQL database were quick to object (though the name is also used by many other people). A coincidentally named supporter of FirebirdSQL, IBPhoenix, put up a slightly immature request for their readers to participate in mass posting campaign targetting mozilla.org developers' email accounts, newsgroups and even forums at independent sites such as MozillaZine and Slashdot. FirebirdSQL's official site later reiterated this message. However, IBPhoenix have now declared this shock-and-awe stage of their campaign over, heralding it a success. Their second stage calls for a more focussed email protest at just two of mozilla.org's members: Mitchell Baker (mozilla.org's leader) and Asa Dotzler (announcer of the name change). In addition, they ask their readers to move away from 'derogatory messages' and to show more 'courtesy'. Unsurprisingly, the beleaguered admins of affected sites such as MozillaZine have welcomed this change of direction. This is getting very interesting!"
It's not very interesting. ^_^
A tad 'sad', combined with a little 'why'.
Thank fucking Jesus dying on a cross, getting thrown into a cave, and rising again in a few days that you mentioned this.
A community bickering about namespace is not new. Linux is not even in the picture and it's surprising how oblivious the responses have been.
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
IBPhoenix have now declared this shock-and-awe stage of their campaign over, heralding it a success.
"We where not expecting this attack at all", stated Mitchell Baker of the Mozilla team. "In fact, we didn't even know we where under assaulted until it was over. I got like, four emails myself and I think a couple other members of the development team got one. At first I thought they where trying to sell me Viagra or something, but as it turns out they where actual pissed at us for naming a web browser the same name as their database."
Later today the Mozilla team unleashed a massive counter offensive consisting of email filter, newsgroup filters, and submitting a story to slashdot.org with links to InterBase web servers. "We figure by this time tomorrow InterBase should be fully neutralized by 'The Slashdot Affect' stopping their waves-- err, wave of emails and general greediness over the name 'Firebird'."
"The database firebirds fear that the Mozilla/Phoenix project gets much more attention and thus the default meaning of "Firebird" will become "the browser", requiring that the database references be explained, which ruins the name for them."
Do you really think that 99% of computer users have a clue what Mozilla is, or have any idea what a relational database is?
The name "Firebird" has widespread recognition as a Pontiac automobile and Joe User will never hear the word and think of a computer program.
The real loser here is whoever decided that "Firebird" was a good name for a relational database back in 1999.
How uncreative can you get?
Adversive
My cat's breath smells like cat food.