Perfect example of Mozilla dishonesty and arrogance

Perfect example of Mozilla dishonesty and arrogance

NOTE: I'm responding as an individual, not in any official Mozilla role, and in fact I missed many of the discussions when all this started since I was busy on a work project. It's late and I hope I don't repeat myself too much...I'll probably regret saying anything at all in the morning.

Being very careful not to be tempted into flaming:

To call my efforts a "Trojan Horse" means nothing in real terms, but sure sounds gosh-darn sneaky and malicious. If you had something real to accuse me of, you would have. That you stoop to such slurs is another example of the dishonesty that is rampant among the Mozilla team.
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Yet again you assault my integrity with dishonest statements. At the time I became involved, Mozilla HAD been ignoring the Firebird projects complaints.

The Mozilla staff (& drivers) are not being 'dishonest' in this. While I was not directly involved in any of these issues (I was busy with other paying work at the time), I am quite sure I've seen no one being dishonest on the Mozilla staff. I've seen some hyperbole and flaming just as you're using hyperbole and flaming here, but most of the mozilla staff have kept that to themselves, and not made public attacks on anyone. Most private grousing was in response to being mailbombed and nastygrams, and in the presumption that somehow we were either out to get smaller projects, or didn't care about hurting them.

On the contrary, I've seen a lot of Mozilla people trying to find a resolution that would work. Blizzard's interview, if you don't read it looking for something to pounce on, is another instance of attempting to clear the air and calm things down.

I personally guarantee you no one wanted to step on the Firebird database or it's google ranking. (This does bring up an interesting aside: it appears what incensed some people more than any trademark or possible user confusion was the possible loss of "I'm feeling lucky" ranking on google.) I personally had never heard of the firebird database before all this; and "firebird" is generic enough that I never would have thought I needed to check except for browsers. (As I said, I didn't take part in the decision.) But I do know that the motives and emotions (and internal conversations) ascribed here by you to the Mozilla team are not correct. You may choose to call me dishonest too if you wish, but doing so will not change any facts.

I can also tell you that the Mozilla team was not ignoring the complaints by the firebird database team. I know that after the mailbombing (which happened before anyone had a chance to reply or agree on a response I believe) some were tempted to do so, but they did not do so. That doesn't mean we jumped to a resolution or a response; there were lots of private discussions, and part of those were (I'm sure) to double-check our legal status before responding, so response may have been delayed.

Yes, things happen more slowly than some on both sides might like. Blizzard's "Branding" document lays out a path to get out of this and let us both get back to using our time to develop our products instead of infighting. Honestly we had been using and wanted to continue using "Phoenix", but that wasn't possible legally. This left us in a tough spot, which we thought we could reduce by sticking to a name close to "phoenix". Turned out we were wrong, and that's unfortunate.

If your former "friend" doesn't even want to work with you on such a project, that should be a wakeup call.

He was hired away by Apple to have a very nice position doing fun stuff. He still contributes to Mozilla regularly.

Are the people who work on Mozilla perfect? Of course not. They're heavily over-burdened developers and staff (like most large open-source projects) fighting against an MS product with such high penetration that MS can pretty much ignore or force the standards and we have to suck it up and find ways to be compatible. Yes, in 20/20 hindsight it was a mistake to choose the name (though not legally wrong), and I personally regret that, even though I didn't take part in it. There was no malice of any type, nor do I think anyone thought there would be any problems with the name (boy was that wrong!).

Knowing the Mozilla people, I do believe that a more measured and less hysterical (and less hyperbolic) approach from the start would have gotten at least more sympathetic responses, and perhaps faster action. This is hardly the first time open-source projects have name-collided - we in fact got blindsided ourselves by the Phoenix bit. None of the Mozilla team are acting like bullies in my opinion; I think many Mozilla people thought that there would be no problem with the names co-existing (once they heard of Firebird SQL), as many other projects have done, and so were surprised at the vehemence of the reaction. Again, I wonder how much the Googlization of the Internet affected the level of emotion in the response - it's interesting from a cultural anthropology point-of-view.

There were lots of flamebait retorts and flames I could have used in writing this. I tried hard to stay away from them, because that's not what we need. Flaming and ad hominem statements are cathartic, but they're a very poor way to influence people or promote discussion, and in fact often has the exact opposite effect, causing all parties to dig in their heels.