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Christopher Blizzard of mozilla.org Speaks on the Firebird Naming Conflict (MozillaZine)Christopher Blizzard of mozilla.org Speaks on the Firebird Naming Conflict (MozillaZine)Posted May 14, 2003 23:35 UTC (Wed) by BrendanEich (guest, #11194)Parent article: Christopher Blizzard of mozilla.org Speaks on the Firebird Naming Conflict (MozillaZine) Jonathan Walther writes: "Firebird was a growing brand that ranked at the top of the Google listings. Mozilla's actions destroyed that search engine goodness, possibly for quite a long time, seriously diluting and confusing their trademark, and reducing the value of the hard work they put into their product." 1. FirebirdSQL.org has no tenable trademark claim on "Firebird" in all software and electronics (category 9). 2. No one is entitled to Google page rank. If you want to buy a placement on google.com results pages, put your money to work, not your mouth. 3. The value of FirebirdSQL doesn't fall or rise with Google page rank, anyway. If it did, the project would have worse problems than any name confusion (among whom? novices who don't know whether they're looking for an RDBMS, a browser, or a car?) could cause. 4. I posted to the firebird-general group well before any "mediation" by Mr. Walther, apologized for my part (I'm a founding and still active member of staff@mozilla.org) in not contacting anyone else using Firebird as a name-part in the open source world, and promised to work to preserve Mozilla as our primary brand (some FirebirdSQL fans among the many who mailbombed everyone associated with mozilla.org were misled or confused into thinking mozilla.org was changing its name to firebird.org). I also pleaded repeatedly for civility and a sense of proportion, and was shown some in reply -- which was a first in all the mailbombing, flaming, and drama-queening of the week before. The last thing this sorry episode needed was someone posing as a neutral mediator, relatively late in the game, and then showing his utter lack of neutrality. Thanks for nothing, Walther. /be
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Mozilla.org == Sorry Bunch of Lying Bastards! Posted May 18, 2003 12:22 UTC (Sun) by msutherland (guest, #11201) [Link] Trademark registration is not required for trademark validity. Use in trade is sufficient. Trademark registration, by itself, doesn't establish the validity of a mark, but it does move the question into Federal courts.Firebird is in the process of registering the mark "Firebird". The Mozilla group will have opportunity to explain to the US Patent Office their various quaint and creative reasons what Firebird isn't a valid trademark for a database but is for a browser. Then the venue will shift to Federal court. The issues aren't subtle or difficult to master. Firebird has been using the trademark uncontested for three years. They're really nothing left to be said but determine damages. To further add to my complete disprespect of the Mozilla community.... 1. Mozillazine taking the Firebird name and appending a (TM) to it in their forums. In their flawed arrogance, they thought they were being cute. I look at as them acting like a bunch of backward ass nitwit twirps. Lucky for them they recently became endowed with the brains to remove it. 2. In a failed effort to save their sorry faces, they later claim that when they announced their name change from Phoenix to Firebird that they had meant at that time, and all along, that the Firebird was just the 'project' name... and that the 'product' name was Mozilla Browser. That, of course, is load of vile bullshit for several reasons..... Here's the announcement: "Asa Dotzler writes: After months of discussion and further months of legal investigation, we're finally comfortable moving forward with new names. The new name for the Phoenix browser is 'Firebird'. The documentation and product strings will be updated soon. In addition to securing Firebird, we've also got the OK from those contributing legal resources to use the name 'Thunderbird' for a mail client. Hopefully this will be the end of naming legal issues for a while." http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=3075 A. There is absolutely no mention, not even a remote hint, that the name Firbird is simply a project name. In fact, the supposed 'product' name, Mozilla Browser, as you can see, is not even cited. B. If Firebird was meant as a 'project' name... then there is no requirement to 'run it through legal' C. Asa Dotzler was even specifically asked what the *product* name would be by a community member: "SUBJECT: Product Names http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=3075&message=44&state=reply Asa's reply.... "SUBJECT: Re: Product Names --Asa" http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=3075&message=54&state=reply
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