Firebird Database Project Admin on Name Clash 563
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.
Apples & Oranges. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Sounds like a win-win... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm empathetic... (Score:3, Insightful)
More importantly, it will just make all the geek headlines messy. You'll see an update on freshmeat and have to double-check which product it is for.
There is only one Firebird (Score:1, Insightful)
Stupid Name Anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This'll teach em (Score:5, Insightful)
They should have never named it after the car and then expected that nobody would do the same to them.
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Users (Score:4, Insightful)
Whose users are being asses again?
This smacks familiar (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
tyranny of the majority (Score:2, Insightful)
- CmdrTaco, advocating the tyranny of the majority since 2003.
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
How does it hurt them? (Score:3, Insightful)
But why... (Score:2, Insightful)
So why firebird ? I mean why create a controversy even if it's legal.
For 's sake, how difficult is it to come up with a name . Why not just call it mozilla-lite ?
Mozilla is losing mindshare (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Now (Score:2, Insightful)
It's this kind of thing that the concept of trademark was DESIGNED to deal with, exacty: 2 things in the same field with the same name.
Oh, but a browser isn't a database tool? Trademark law recognizes software as a class unto itself.
Just like if someone named their dump truck "firebird". Pontiac could have a fit... it's still a vehicle, even if the use case & market is different.
So... as a community, how do we solve the issue?
Firebird name recognition (Score:2, Insightful)
dan
Re:Users (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not the Firebird(DB) users, they have a legitimate problem with something which is going to confuse their potential clients, and possibly damage their projects/businesses. All because noone on the mozilla team could think up anything more clever than "Firebird".
I mean, jeez, cant they just say "Oh, Firebird is taken... Lets call it Miata or Boxter or Webmangler".
I don't think so (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, while it's true they are two completely different applications, they are both software that you run on your computer. That's too close for comfort. What does "Are you using Firebird?" mean exactly (could be database, or it could mean the browser).
With that said, when you use something so obvious as Firebird for the name of your application, you damn well better get a trademark or something because you should just assume zillions of others will think of using the same name. This was a mistake the database people made, for sure.
So, I think the Phoenix group is probably legally safe, but the nice thing to do would be to pick another name. I know they don't want to do this because it means more lawyer fees and coming up with yet another name. I dunno... They don't have to do this and it doesn't look like they are. In which case if I were the Firebird database people then I would come up with another name and trademark it (as painful as that may be). It's not like it was a database being used by 100's of thousands of people and they will now all be confused by the name change.
Why fight so hard to keep the name? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sounds like they're just whining (Score:5, Insightful)
"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.
the database people are right (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do I feel like... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:tyranny of the majority (Score:3, Insightful)
IMO, there's a small group of users [b]from both projects[/b] being asses, and the rest of the people are going "Christ, get over yourselves, one's a browser the others a database."
Re:I don't think so (Score:2, Insightful)
There's a real possibility of confusion there, and the Moz folks probably ought to get moving if they want to be good neighbors.
For those who insist on using the car analogy: do you think GM would sit by if Ford introduced the all-new 4WD Ford Firebird SUV?
Re:Apples & Oranges. (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you ever type that into Google if you were looking for the "Firebird" car ? No, you wouldn't.
You would however type that in if you were looking for an installer to the new firebird database server version that the Interbase/Firebird folks have been working on for months and months now.
A month ago, you would have gotten a direct link to the IBPhoenix page which has download links to that server. Now you get : "Phoenix and Minotaur to be renamed Firebird and Thunderbird". Great.
This free, open source software project doesn't have the $$$ for sponsored links. After a couple of months, their site 'll be buried in Phoenix links in Google.
Great show of respect from the 'fellow' open source crowd...
As a user of both pieces of software.. (Score:5, Insightful)
FirebirdSQL was born from Borland's utter mismanagement of Interbase. The only reason they didn't kill the product outright is because of the great user community. Only a determined and personally involved user community has salvaged the interbase code from years of neglect to a very respectable open source database system. Firebird
is the leading developer of the interbase code today, eclipsing borland's own efforts in many areas. It is every bit as competitive a system as mysql and postgresql.
Both products clearly deserve respect and admiration. Anyone who disparages the core accomplishments of either group would be hard pressed to do better.
This makes the current scandal all the more sad. I think everyone who has ever seen a news group or a major mailing list understands the need for good etiquette on the net.
Regardless of the legal issues, it is bad etiquette for the mozilla folks to rename phoenix firebird. Of course the Mozilla folks *can* use phoenix, but it's not very nice. There's plenty of name space for everyone.. Be a good neighbor and pick a non-conflicting name. This is social skills 101, a total no-brainer- Don't alienate people for no good reason.
The Firebird (SQL) users should publicly appologize for advocating such guerilla protest tactics. I saddens me that many people's first impression of this great project will be formed from the emotional rantings of a minority. Do protest publicly, but do so with logic and reason.
I hope this all blows over quickly.
Wait, there's got to be a conspiracy here... (Score:3, Insightful)
This little dust-up makes me think of the clashes we're always reading about: Microsoft v. Oracle, HP v. Dell, and so on. Slashdot readers are continually ridiculing large corporations for their seemingly stupid behavior.
Yet here we have a perfect example of how even a small group of people can do stupid things. Corporations are just collections of people, with their own ideas, egos and goals.
The next time you want to shout at Google for becoming "The Man" just remember that getting even a small group of people to act with grace and common sense can be extremely difficult.
TBFKAP/F (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm still in the process of reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar, more specifically the chapter Homesteading the Noosphere and it seems very applicable to this. The "hacker ethic" would seem to dictate that two open source projects shouldn't share the same namespace. It's not quite the same as forking a project or removing a contributor's name from a project, but given the gift culture of open source, it does dilute (the work made by contributors of) both gifts/projects.
I can see Ann Harrison making that point without actually quoting a not-quite-codified rule. The fact that there is such an uproar over indicates a schizm in the hacker community and possibly the whole hacker ethos.
I like how Ann helps point out that divide by making it a virtual David vs. Goliath between the enthusiast developers and AOL.
Re:To those making the point about the Pontiac F-b (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but they ARE vastly different computer programs. Your comparison of a car & a truck would be like comparing a small web browser to a large web browser; they both do the same thing, in the same space. To make your comparison more apt, you'd have to compare the firebird sports car to a jumbo jet. That's much closer to how different the phoenix browser is from the phoenix database.
Re:New Names (Score:5, Insightful)
bandwagon +=1; (Score:3, Insightful)
Firebird is an excellent mature database that has continually improved since the project formed a few years ago,and is worth considering any time you want support for stored procedures, triggers, and transactions like PostgreSQL, or the ability to deploy on both Linux and Windows like mySQL.
Mozilla is a great project with much more visibility than Firebird. It would be nice if the Mozilla team could spend a little extra time to come up with a name that isn't already being used by an open source project. How hard could that be?
Re:I don't think so (Score:3, Insightful)
Trademarking the name wouldn't have mattered. In the eyes of the law, a browser and a database are probably just as far apart as a car and a plane. Sure, they're the same thing in an extremely general sense, like "software" and "vehicles", but in actuality, they are very different. They are not, metaphorically, sold on the same shelf. They perform completely different tasks for different markets and that means that they can both coexist peacefully.
The only reason people think that trademarks are such overwhelmingly powerful things that give you total control over a name in all areas of business is because of how easy it is to steal domain names and such away from people through third parties that have nothing to do with the law, such as ICANN. In legal practice, trademarks aren't really that broad, and this is a legal matter.
Re:Apples & Oranges. (Score:5, Insightful)
I build intranet websites. I use the Firebird browser to visit said websites. I use the Firebird database to build said websites. The important part: these two components are parts of an overall intranet solution. From the POV of a businessman, they merge into the same thing.
Now, when explaining technology choices to that businessman, I get to dance around "Firebird the database" and "Firebird the browser". When installing software for that businessman, I have to ensure they don't mangle the "c:\Program Files\Firebird" directory.
It's confusing, silly, and avoidable.
Namespace Crowding (Score:3, Insightful)
This is going to be more and more of a problem as time goes on, just because there's a limited supply of desirable and pronouncable names. Plus, the names that are registered trademarks keep getting deleted from the permissible set of assigned names.
If cars and pharmaceuticals are any indication, software should start to use generated names that are still suggestive of desirable traits.
From what I understand, big money is paid to come up with names like Viagra.
To give you an idea of all the pitfalls. I recall hearing that the Chevrolet Nova was less than a hot selling vehicle in the Hispanic market because "no va" means, well, "no go", not exactly the best name for your next car.
Pretty soon the only names left are going to be a.out and install.exe .
Re:Apples & Oranges. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is it only rude to do something like this to a more minor project which hasn't got the same publicity, and when you've got all AOL's dollars behind you?
Picking this name was not the problem. Picking this name *after* doing a name search and ignoring the pre-existing project, *and* copping a "fuck-you" attitude when asked to play nicely, now that's the problem...
Grab.
Re:Well you know what they say about publicity ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Both, although from what I've seen it has mostly been the Firebird DB enthusiasts acting like asses and spurning logic. That's not to say the Mozilla Firebird fans haven't been acting like asses, of course. They just haven't been doing it as loudly in the places I've been watching the 'debate' (mostly the Mozillazine forums).
The whole thing seems like a huge non-issue to me. Plenty of open source projects with the same name have managed to live together in the past, even where one of them is from an open source Goliath. I use JasperReports on top of Apache's Jasper JSP engine, and considered using the Jasper image libraries to generate images for my reports. Did this confuse me? No. Did it confuse me when I searched for documentation on Google? No, because I'm capable of using it. And perhaps I've just missed it, but I don't remember any vehement flame wars about the shared name.
Another name which has been shared peacefully in the past is Firebird. When the Firebird DB project grabbed the name, which had already been associated with, among other things, BBS software, I don't believe there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth. The users and developers of the various previous Firebird applications were happy enough to go on with the same name.
At the end of the day, Firebird is a common word. It has Phoenix associations, which makes it an obvious name for any project rising from the ashes of another. It's the name of a car. It's the name of a software house from the 8-bit days. It's found in dictionaries: Websters lists it as a common name for the Baltimore Oriole, and WordNet adds two other species of bird. The reason the AOL legal department agreed to the name, and one of the reasons the Firebird DB team don't want a court case, is that they don't have a leg to stand on. As Ann Harrison points out, trademarks have to be defended. Firebird the DB has shared that name with more than enough other pieces of software to make it clear that they weren't interested in defending that trademark.
At the end of the day, it's a done deal. AOL have put time and money into ensuring they have a name that works from a legal standpoint. They aren't going to throw more money at the problem just to soothe some egos. For better or for worse, the name has been selected and will be sticking - and it's time for people on both sides to make the most of it, whether they like it or not.
Re:Apples & Oranges. (Score:2, Insightful)
What would be great is if 15 or 20 other software projects also called themselves "Firebird" after Mozilla successfully destroys IBPhoenix's trademark. If that happens, somebody should resurrect every dead browser project out there and name them all "Firebird."
Re:Apples & Oranges. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apples & Oranges. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mozilla should have thought it through... (Score:3, Insightful)
Currently the Firebird database page is displayed (http://firebird.sourceforge.net/)
If in the future I type in "Firebird", click the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button and a Mozilla
page is displayed, then they have done a major disservice to another open source project.
By making it harder to find information about the Firebird DB, they will have eaten into its
potential client base.
Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, this is a very good example to prove exactly the opposite of your argument. There are many car manufacturers that are also in the airplane industry. Even for the ones that are not, does not automatically enable anyone to take their trademarks and use them to name their planes. Saab makes both cars and airplane parts and engines. So does Rolls Royce; and many others. Toyota is/was planning to make an easy-to-fly, cheap plane. I can't take "Saab" or "Toyota" trademarks and use them with my planes names. And, no I can't name my planes "Mercedes", "BMW" or "Volvo" either.
That said, in the article, they address this question - in legal terms, the article says, there is a software category that covers all software. Mozilla could, in theory, apply for and register a trademark on "Firebird" claiming to only use it in a very specific narrow field, but otherwise it is likely to be violating the database project's trademark.
In my opinion, this makes sense. Going beyond the cars and airplanes, if Firebird database project were to produce a database browser and integrated products for web services on top of their database, etc. that would cause more confusion than a simple - "ahh anybody can tell a difference between DB and a browser" - may suggest.
The only reason people think that trademarks are such overwhelmingly powerful things that give you total control over a name in all areas of business is because of how easy it is to steal domain names and such away from people through third parties that have nothing to do with the law, such as ICANN. In legal practice, trademarks aren't really that broad, and this is a legal matter.
Well, trademarks don't give you power "in all areas of business"; as I understand there are defined categories for trademark use and laws on what can and cannot constitute a trademark. This has nothing to do with ICANN and their practices, or domain names even.
This is quite true... but somewhat misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Why should another project pay for mistakes? (Score:1, Insightful)
For example, "Firebird" can be used as:
1. Google search term
NOTE: every web page won't contain the word
"browser" or "dbms" (i.e. page 2+ of articles)
when they happen to contain "Firebird"
2. firebird.sourceforge.net
3. firebird.
3.
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Firebird in any way. I happen to use PostgreSQL for my free DBMS needs. I just think it is highly irresponsible of the browser team to do this especially AFTER the previous naming conflict. Why should a different project be penalized for the irresponsibility of another project?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well you know what they say about publicity ... (Score:4, Insightful)
1. FirebirdSQL uses the name "firebird" for their project at sourceforge.net, so what will Mozilla Firebird use.(so far their are still using phoenix)
2. As Ann says, there is no problem with them using Mozilla Firebird. Why can't the Mozilla Project say we will never shorten the name to "Firebird", as they initially said they would. That way the only confusion would be had during casual conversations.
They can still use "Mozilla Firebird" and "Firebird Browser" name perfectly legally, so why don't the people at Mozilla do the upstanding thing and stop blocking on the issue, and just end the issue (I am very positive that Ann would be very happy with that solution). The Open source community shouldn't have to resort to Redmondesque legal tactics to resolve squabbles.
I just wish they're hurry up and RELEASE... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I hope they change the name, but I'll take it however I can get it.
Gecko? How about Browzilla? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, Mozilla itsef has already inspired several derivated names, such as Chatzilla (IRC), Bugzilla and Crockzilla. So, keep the tradition and rename Phoenix to Browzilla. Everybody will understand that it is a browser and it's a part of Mozilla project.
Same way, call Mail application as Mailzilla. And don't forget about Addrezilla, Linkzilla and Compozilla.
Re:Gecko? How about Browzilla? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you've kinda supported my point here. It's an "engine".. let's call it an "engine". And while it's not strictly for "browsing", it is just for rendering HTML:
From the Mozilla FAQ [mozilla.org]:
"Gecko (formerly Raptor) is the new HTML rendering engine in Mozilla."
All I was proposing was calling it the "Gecko Engine"... And the Gecko browser in turn uses the Gecko Engine.
There's already precedent for this exact model. I mean, picture the "Quake engine". Lots of "non-quake" games use the "Quake engine" and that doesn't seem to throw anyone for a loop... So lots of apps will use the "Gecko Engine", one of them being Gecko the browser....
Re:New Names (Score:3, Insightful)
Second point, how many users do you think are going to be visiting WindowsUpdate when they can't even tell the difference between Mozilla and IE? The mother would be highly unlikely to do such a thing at all, and most certainly not without assistance from the son. So "fooling" this person into using a more secure web browser does no real harm and helps keep her from damaging her computer inadvertently. On top of that, I've seen very few web sites lately that ever say they only support IE. Even if they do, they almost invariably work just fine with Mozilla now.
I can't believe you got modded up for such a knee-jerk, non-thinking whine.