Perfect example of Mozilla dishonesty and arrogance [LWN.net]

Perfect example of Mozilla dishonesty and arrogance

Posted May 15, 2003 13:58 UTC (Thu) by asacarny (guest, #11228)
In reply to: Perfect example of Mozilla dishonesty and arrogance by msutherland
Parent article: Christopher Blizzard of mozilla.org Speaks on the Firebird Naming Conflict (MozillaZine)

"Oh wait! Firebird is meant as the *project* name for the former Phoenix. Mozilla Browser will be the *product* name. Sorry for the confusion, but we needed to have some name for Mozilla Browser in Bugzilla. And the naming of Firebird in the Mozillazine forums, FireBird(TM).... well, that's just a typo. We never said this before because we thought it was obvious when we first announced the name Firebird, after 6+ months of everyone waiting, that Mozilla Browser would be the true name."

I have been following the Mozilla project for some time. In its earlier stages, webpages and "fan" sites used the name SeaMonkey quite often. As the project has progressed, we now usually see people calling it Mozilla with SeaMonkey mentioned only rarely.

I see no reason why the Firebird name should not experience the same fate. The roadmap outlines changes in Mozilla under the hood, and not ones that should confuse the user. As a result, the names for each component in Mozilla's next major production release must be comparable to those of the previous release. Using the names "Mozilla Thunderbird" or "Mozilla Firebird" would not make sense to a user who usually clicks the "Mozilla" icon to start his or her browser.

Is it just me, or is all of this common sense? It doesn't take a roadmap for me to realize that product names can't go changing with every upgrade.
Adam

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