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."

Comments

bad for the community

[Ashish Kulkarni]

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.

Heres an Idea

[KingKire64]

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

Can you give this a rest so they can sort it out?

[ManxStef]

Oh my God, I can't believe this is still being posted to Slashdot, can people not see how detrimental posting articles like this is to the resolution of this issue on both sides?

Condensed version of events:

• Mozilla is forced to change the name of their Phoenix browser due to threat of litigation from Phoenix BIOS corp.
• Mozilla devs decide amongst themselves, with very little (if any) public consultation, to change the name to Firebird. They ARE aware of the Firebird database project, but collectively (between about ten to twenty of them) "can't see any naming conflict", and can't be arsed to even e-mail any of the Firebird database project admins to ask if it'd piss them off.
• Asa announces on MozillaZine that Mozilla's changed its name to Firebird(TM), and this is final, full stop, quit your whining bitches, we've asked our lawyers and they say it's fine.
• Public dismay from the Firebird database admins, developers and users, who feel that the Mozilla organisation has just "pissed on their chips", and insulted them by taking their name (read Ann Harrison's interview and you may understand why they acted the way they did, wrong as it was) - regardless of whether they actually have a claim to trademark "Firebird" or not.
• Firebird database admins post a "rallying call" on their website, along with far too many Mozilla developer e-mail addresses. Stupid move.
• Firebird DB devs and users e-mail these addresses, some maybe with the misguided opinion that this'll help, followed by a whole deluge of idiots and trolls (who probably don't use either projects' software) who start mailbombing these addresses.
• Story gets posted to Slashdot (with author bias towards Mozilla as the author probably likes Moz/Phoenix but hasn't heard of Firebird), fanning the flames further and resulting in tons more mailbombing to both sides.
• Both sides get really pissed off with each other due to the mailbombings. Mozilla ppl dig their heels in because of ridiculous amounts of spam they've been getting, and the Firebird database people are taken aback by the scale of the response and the (really) stupid mistake of posting all the Moz team's addresses, while still feeling helpless that a big project's just stomped on them pretty firmly.
• MozillaZine continue their biased reporting (fair enough, they are MOZILLAZine after all!), and Moz team members "shut the f*ck up" posts in response to any wails of dismay forum posts from Firebird DB admins make sure that this continues for weeks. Lots of users without any knowledge of either project chip in with tons of stupid names, lots of IANAL but I'm with whichever side I'm biased towards, even more "but Firebird stole it from the Firebird car so they can STFU" posts, plenty of "not going to be confusing" and "Mozilla you b*st*rds, give the name back - if Microsoft did this we'd all go round and kick them in the nuts!" and general ranting ensues.
• Several more online news sites post up stories, practically all with extreme bias one way or the other.
• MozillaZine's forums get hammered, MySQL falls over - ironic ;) Their bandwith bills have gone sky-high so the forums stay down. Lots of complaints from MozillaZine people blaming this on the Firebird database camp, yet more friction.
• A non-biased mediator (Jonathan Walther, a contributor to Debian) gets briefly involved to try and find some common ground between the warring parties, resulting in a very frank and honest interview with Ann Harrison posted up on MozillaZine. Other than this Jonathan does really play much of a part, but he makes for a good character to slot into any news reporting that goes on. More ranting on both sides.
• LOTS more ranting on both sides.
• Mozilla.org responds by posting the Mozilla Firebird Branding Strategy, which clarifies that the new name is "Mozilla Firebird" NOT "Firebird(TM)", and that it's just a codename like SeaMonkey is a codename