Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla's Joy Of Naming
An anonymous reader writes "Thought the Firebird naming conflict was over? Think again! (If you thought, "What naming conflict?", go to the back of the class and read Slashdot's, previous coverage.) MozillaZine has got an exclusive interview with Christopher Blizzard, mozilla.org staff member, Red Hat employee and author of the Mozilla branding strategy. It's one the first official statements from mozilla.org (Mitchell Baker published a letter that she sent to the Firebird database project admins a few days ago). As well as the interview, MozillaZine also takes a look at some of the more recent media coverage of the conflict, which is overwealmingly biased in favour of the Firebird database project (who still haven't adequately explained how it was different when they picked the same name as the older Firebird BBS). Compare and contrast with MozillaZine's interview of Ann Harrison of the Firebird database project."
Such a conflict is bad for the image of the open source community. Sadly, it has reached the stage where no one can back down because of bruised egos...And hence it'll be settled (if ever) after a lot of shenanigans.
I'm sure it is greatly interesting to those involved, but to me this is rapidly approaching tabloid material...
Nothing's going to change. Nobody's going to back down. Further, it doesn't really matter.
Isn't this just going to cause confusion? Many people currently refer to the browser component of the 'Mozilla Application Suite' as the 'Mozilla browser' and changing the name of Firebird to 'Mozilla Browser' will just confuse things even worse than they already are.
w eek as a separate application.
People tend to think Mozilla='Mozilla Application Suite' and they tend to think of Phoenix/Firebird/Mozilla Browser/whatever-they're-calling-themselves-this-
I'm confused just talking about it.
as
My journal has hot
Since these name (Firebird, Thunderbird, etc.) are only codenames from what i understand, why not drop the codenames and use the names that the final product is going to go buy: Mozilla Browser project and Mozilla Email project. Its impossible to recomend anyone to use a great product if the name changes twice a month!
My 2 cents
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
Just call it 'Mozilla 2.0' and call it good.
There's no rule that says you have to add features with every release.
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
At my college, RIT, there have been changes to the names of things in the recent past. "Physical Plant," our janitorial service, became "FMS." A bunch of apartments called "Capstones" are now called "University Commons."
You know what? Everyone calls them "Physical Plant" and "Capstone."
Everyone I know still calls it "Phoenix." I still do.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
My general approach when looking for a name is to Google all possibilities until I find one that returns 0 hits. If it isn't in Google then it doesn't exist - so is safe to use. Until I wrote this message 'Phyerburd' would have been an example. It's also interesting in that then any time you searh for that word you can be pretty sure that most the hits in Google relate to your use of the word. An easy indicator to watch your growth by.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
yeah, it's publicity. in fact, ann -did- say it was publicity: because they figured this had happened by accident, because, as you pointed out, they're not popular ... and no-one would be careful not to name their project 'firebird'.
... i'd like to see your qualification of that. i've come across talks by (of all people) microsoft, where interbase/firebird (same thing, except firebird is open-source, free, and not stinky) is listed right along with oracle, db2, sybase, etc. (and you won't find any mention of mysql or postgresql there.)
... fifteen years? a little more? it's quite full-featured, growing constantly, and currently undergoing a C to C++ conversion so adding features will be even faster in the near future.
... but on slashdot, everyone uses a browser. and if they code ... they're quite likely to have just picked up "php and mysql" at their local bookstore, and never looked for a -real- database. (isn't it sad that, even as good as postgresql is, and -known-, people still favor mysql? geeks, of all people, should know when they see a hack-job.) so instead, from now on, with the slashdot crowd, firebird will be known as "that evil database project that tried to keep mozilla from using its name!" ...
... work on firebird now. you can thank ann and jim for the work that brought you a fully-capable database without the bloat of oracle.)
however, as to the postgresql part
interbase has been around for, what
if it hadn't been for this stink over naming, firebird would have stood a good chance of publicizing their milestone releases (1.5 and 2.0) through slashdot. in fact, there might have been a lot more people picking it up and saying "hey, cool!"
maybe interbase stands a chance (not really -- all the original coders who made interbase possible
and yes, i -am- proud to use firebird in a production environment. it's fast, it's solid, and it does everything (almost -- i've got a few feature requests in) i want it to do. check it out! (and call it whatever you like!)
No kidding. sheesh.
:
It's not like one dilutes the other. They are not competing products. Even remotely. One does not affect the other.
Heck, Just plugging in Firebird on Google, the top 10 hits are
3- related to Firebird Database
1- Related to the Pontiac Firebird (!)
2- Firebird Raceway
1- book company
1- design company
1- gem company
1- arts & music.
Hey, the browser didn't even make top 10!
So, maybe they(Database boneheads) should go after the racetrack, pontiac, the book company, design company, gem company, and the a&m company too.
This is just so silly.
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
Condensed version of events: