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Firebird Database Project Admin on Name Clash
CapnKirk writes "Ann Harrison weighs in on the "Firebird--database or browser?" name clash. Her take on things: our users feel threatened. We're responding to their concerns. AOL lawyers said it's ok, so the Mozilla team isn't interested in negotiating, but that's ok because we've gotten a lot of publicity and name recognition. And no, we don't plan on going to court." As always, a small group of users are being real asses about the whole thing. Yay.
I really don't understand why the ferocity of their defense of the "Firebird" name.
One is a database.
Another is a browser.
It's also a car.
Unless, like I read in another post... it's all about publicity to just get the "Firebird" name out there.
Ah well.
-brain
C'mon, "Firebird"? Come up with something better, all of you!
Those database people should've never named their program the same thing as the browser
They should have never named it after the car and then expected that nobody would do the same to them.
Jason
ProfQuotes
This reminds me of the disputes over domain names. Like whether Nissan motors vs Nissan computers has any more right to nissan.com than the other.
I believe in the first come first serve. Mozilla needs to find a new name.
If ignorance is bliss, you must be quite happy. Many of us who actually develop against multiple databases for a living are actually familiar with Firebird the database. I think that the Mozilla people are doing a shitty thing and that they should back off and find another name. The people behind firebird have done some decent work, now why don't the rabid /.'s back off and show some respect for a solid open source project?
I've always been a Mozilla advocate. Mozilla's support for Web standards, tied with its open development cycle, powered by the remarkable bugzilla system made it immediately appeal to me. The legendary competition with MSIE is also a significant factor.
But I've really lost faith in Mozilla since this Firebird naming issue came up. It's not that I feel some kind of cameraderie for the Firebird-db people, but out of my own selfishness. If Mozilla can appropriate the name of a prominent Open Source project's name, what's to stop it from doing so again? Perhaps my project is next on the chopping block? Backed with the lawyers of AOL, I have started to fear that the Mozilla project could come to threaten my Open Source project. Perhaps they'll chose to rename their IRC client next?
When users apt-get install firebird, should they get the browser or the database? The only thing the "Firebird" name change is going to achieve is the dangerous precedent for an environment which encourages the free-for-all name grab; I know Mozilla advocates have stuck to their guns in the past on important issues, but they really need to give up the "Firebird" name. Please direct your guns towards the people who break Web standards and perpetuate broken software, not fellow Open Source projects, especially not for something as trivial as a stupid name. Life's just too short.
I'm not sure that "Mozillazine" is a place to get much decent coverage of the situation, but...
"Whining"... neither of us heard anybody's tone of voice, so this almost *has* to be projection. Perhaps what you really meant was that they didn't have a reasonable complaint? I can easily believe that they don't have a legally actionable complaint, but that doesn't keep the browser team from having exhibited very poor manners. Was it that they didn't bother to check that there was another project using the same name, or did they just not care?
When a corporation acts like this, I consider them a bad citizen, and usually consider boycotting their products. Since I wasn't using Phoenix anyway, this isn't going to have much effect. But being in a legally defensible position doesn't translate into being a decent group of people. And OSS project or not, I find myself quite dubious as to the ethical standards of those in charge of determining the name. OSS goes a long way, but it doesn't justify everything, and claim-jumping (the closest analogy I can come to) is one thing it doesn't justify.
If this turns out to be Mozilla rather than just Phoenix, well: "I've been wondering how one would hook a bayesian filter up to K-Mail, and I guess that I'll have a chance to find out. And thank you for having introduced me to Bayesian filters before turning to the dark side.", but for the moment I'm going to assume that it's only the Phoenix project that's involved. They're the only ones legally required to change their name.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
...if some small, yet popular open-source project had its name stolen by a large, monolithic software company's product that we'd be all over the larger company's ass about this?
They have a trademark. It's "Firebird." They haven't registered it, but it's still a legal, defensible trademark.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
You are right in many of the particulars of the case, while, I think, being somewhat wrong in your conclusions.
First of all, they started calling their system software releases 'MacOS Number' at MacOS 8. The moniker had been used before then; though 7 was still officially 'System 7', a lot of people referred to it as MacOS 7 or 7.5 or whatever, because 'System 7' couldn't be used unless you had a context... it's too broad. Likewise it's not patentable.
Second, the Macintosh operating systems after 7.x were always called, not Mac OS9, but 'MacOS 9'. The dramatic majority of sites, based on a little check I just did via Google, do indeed call it that way. In fact, if you run a search for the following on Google, the top 8 sites you get are sites that talk about the OS-9 operating system, not the Macintosh in any way, shape, or form.
"OS 9" "OS9" -"MacOS 9" -"Mac OS9"
So, the pages that talk about OS-9 are, by and large, pages that talk about OS-9. In fact, I, as a Mac programmer and sysadmin, have very rarely heard of people calling MacOS 9 'OS-9'... I can't think of a single instance. When people are talking about it without bringing up the Mac beforehand, it's always 'MacOS 9'... when you're already talking about the Mac, it's almost *invariably* just 'nine'. As in, "Well, it runs under ten just fine, but it just crashes to the desktop when you try to run it on nine. I even tried it on nine-two-two.'
Ultrascience did indeed sell OS-9 for 68000-based Macintoshes. However, by the time MacOS 9 came out, Ultrascience had discontinued their product quite a long time hence, so there was no danger of their being harmed.
Finally, I have not read the decision, but as I understand it the judge didn't have to claim that there would be no confusion. What he needed to claim was that that Apple's trademark was sufficiently different from OS-9 that such confusion was unlikely to occur, OR that the two products were in sufficiently different categories that they did not compete with one another.
Personally, I would have to say that anyone who needed OS-9 would be able to understand the difference between the two, and that therefore the judge was absolutely correct. Especially since OS-9 was treading on pretty thin ground as it was... it is hard to see how 'OS-9' was defensible, in a lot of ways. It is, and was, a generic industry term IN THE INDUSTRY IN WHICH IT IS REGISTERED, followed by a number that sounds very much like a version number. It would be kind of like me suggesting that I should be able to make 'OS/2' a trademark... oh... wait... uh, a better example might be 'DB/2'... oh, no... uh...
It's just dumb. It's like... say you open a restaurant called 'Sam's BBQ'. It's popular, and you open another one across town called 'Sam's BBQ 2' Only you find out that someone else has a trademark on 'BBQ-2'. Taking a common and accepted generic term and adding a number to it is a questionable way to create a trademark. At best.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.