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Ingres Database 9.3 releasedIngres Database 9.3 releasedPosted Oct 7, 2009 19:19 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767)Parent article: Ingres Database 9.3 released
> "As the fate of MySQL is currently in the hands of the European
> Commission, open source community developers and our global business > customers and partners are seeking a more stable, reliable open source > database," said Deb Woods, vice president of product management,
Is that a typo? Shouldn't it be "Deb Woods, Queen of Marketing Droids at Ingres Corp"?
Seriously, though, despite MySQL's status as FOSS Database poster child, PostgreSQL, Ingres' kindred competitor, is the one to beat. The MySQL *projects* handle their user base very nicely and are in no immediate danger. Certainly not from the EC. And, in fact, the EC is looking out for MySQL's welfare. Perhaps a little too enthusiastically, regarding the official Sun branch.
This reminds me a bit of IBPhoenix's publicity stunt when they attacked Mozilla some years ago. Sometimes this sort of nonsensical stunt actually works. Firebird Database was unknown before. But after their Mozilla attack, the articles about Firebird DB really started flowing. Though to this day I still turn a jaundiced eye to that bunch, and to the then Queen of their Marketing Droids of the time.
But it is interesting to note that the press release does not mention PostgreSQL at all.
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Ingres Database 9.3 released Posted Oct 7, 2009 19:39 UTC (Wed) by deltaray (guest, #51384) [Link] But it is interesting to note that the press release does not mention PostgreSQL at all.I wouldn't mention it either if I were them. They are trying to keep their customers and potential customers from knowing about PostgreSQL.
Ingres Database 9.3 released Posted Oct 7, 2009 19:59 UTC (Wed) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] Firebird (the database) existed well before Mozilla wanted to use the same name, and just because you didn't know about it doesn't make it unknown. Mozilla's stubborness in the case to insist on using a name that was already in use was surprising to watch. (And the lack of research when picking the name: google "firebird open source")(Should I put a disclaimer here that I used to work for Sun/MySQL and now work with MariaDB? Doesn't seem to have any relevance with my comment :-)
Ingres Database 9.3 released Posted Oct 7, 2009 20:12 UTC (Wed) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] Thank you for the disclosure, and not it does not seem relevant to me. But I do agree with your observation about the um, stubbornness of Mozilla and how a simple google could have avoided the whole issue.
Ingres Database 9.3 released Posted Oct 7, 2009 21:40 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
Well... I'm not exactly a fan of Mozilla Corp when it comes to heavy-handed trademark issues. But in that case, it was IBPhoenix acting in a heavy handed way.
Even in retrospect, it is hard to know who to root for. But none of that changes the fact that IBPhoenix's marketing department managed to pull off a major publicity coup, relatively speaking, by exploiting the situation. And I have no doubt that they knew exactly what they were doing at the time.
Ingres Database 9.3 released Posted Oct 7, 2009 22:45 UTC (Wed) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link]
The other publicity that helped people notice Firebird (though perhaps not
in the way that was intended) was the fact that in 2001 someone spotted that both it and the earlier Borland/Inprise Interbase (v4.x, v5.x and 6.x) databases had a compiled in back door account. :-(
http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2001-01.html
Ingres Database 9.3 released Posted Oct 7, 2009 20:13 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
Yes, you're off-base talking about Firebird this way. You didn't know about it before, but I did. The Mozilla crew's behavior and attitude were disgraceful. They seem to have learned from the experience, though.
Me, I'm a little bit surprised to learn Ingres still exists.
Ingres Database 9.3 released Posted Oct 7, 2009 21:57 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
> you're off-base talking about Firebird this way. You didn't know about it before, but I did.
Well... wasn't that integral to the point I was making? You and a few other people were focused upon Firebird. The rest of us weren't. I think I was aware of it, peripherally, back before. But after the fracas... everyone paying any attention in this neck of the woods knew what Firebird was, whether we respected their actions or not. And whether we respected Mozilla Corp's actions or not.
Personally, I think that RDBMS's are RDBMS's and browsers are browsers. and that the whole thing could have been worked out politely. But that, apparently, did not suit either party's self-interest. I think less of both parties for it all.
Ingres Database 9.3 released Posted Oct 8, 2009 1:20 UTC (Thu) by sitaram (subscriber, #5959) [Link]
> Personally, I think that RDBMS's are RDBMS's and browsers are browsers. and that the whole thing could have been worked out politely. But that, apparently, did not suit either party's self-interest. I think less of both parties for it all.
Hmm that is true if you assume that the person googling for your product will bother to add at least the word "database" after the name, if he tries it without and gets a plethora of hits for the browser.
Marketing droid or not, I wouldn't make that assumption.
I'm the author of a little known piece of software called "gitolite", and one of the reasons I chose this name among all the other alternatives I could think of (gitman, gitadmin, gitamin, and a dozen other combinations) was that this word got me exactly 3 results, and none of them in English.
I'm not selling anything, it's GPL, and the whole thing is less than a few hundred lines and expected to remain that way -- it's pretty much feature complete and "done" now, yet I bothered to do that.
That's the world we live in I guess :-)
Ingres Database 9.3 released Posted Oct 8, 2009 12:34 UTC (Thu) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
> Hmm that is true if you assume that the person googling for your product will bother to add at least the word "database" after the name, if he tries it without and gets a plethora of hits for the browser.
Uhhh... so? You think Firebird DB is going to lose users because it's too hard to type "database"? I've found most RDBMS admins to to more tenacious than that. ;-)
Firebird vs. Mozilla Posted Oct 8, 2009 1:23 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] I was not "focused on Firebird", but I had met and was impressed by the Firebird developers. They were using the name first, and the Mozilla people swooped in and tried to muscle them out with no better justification than "Eff you, we're big". It doesn't matter whether you have any practical reason to care about Firebird (which I didn't, and don't). The IBPhoenix people were right, and Mozilla were wrong, full stop. In the end, Mozilla ended up using a much better name that suggested an excellent logo, and they learned something, and Firebird was able to keep their name, so the outcome was entirely good. It's not clear whether the Firebird database is used any more than it would have been, but that's incidental.
Firebird vs. Mozilla Posted Oct 8, 2009 11:53 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
Traditionally, as I'm sure you know, a trademark is only applicable in a certain domain. 'Using the name first' doesn't grant exclusive control over that word forever, except perhaps if the word is entirely made-up. There are plenty of companies and products which have the same name as each other, and as long as they're not competitors, or in sufficiently similar domains that there might be honest confusion between them, there's no problem.
It seems however that 'things related to computers' is one domain now.
It's silly that two entirely unrelated software products can't have the same name, as if the field of 'software' were similar in breadth to, say, 'washing machines'. I think this is going to have to change as people realise that 'software' isn't all one thing - otherwise we'll run out of words.
Firebird vs. Mozilla Posted Oct 9, 2009 11:28 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
If so: what are:
* GRUB
Firebird vs. Mozilla Posted Oct 12, 2009 10:31 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
Not trademarks?
Firebird vs. Mozilla Posted Oct 8, 2009 12:40 UTC (Thu) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
Asa was being an ass. Helen was being an ass. But it was pretty obvious that Helen was looking for a slingshot assist from the local FOSS Jupiter. I was wondering at the time if she might not go after GM next.
Personally, I think Firefox was a stupid name. But like "Oldsmobile", we get used to terrible names and don't really think of them as being terrible after a while.
Firebird vs. Mozilla Posted Oct 8, 2009 13:24 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]
The outcome wasn't *entirely* good: Mozilla picking a brand-new name meant that they could then trademark it, and stop people distributing modified versions unless they also change the name of the program, which may be a necessary evil but is not entirely good.
If they had stuck with the name Phoenix, we wouldn't have any of this Iceweasel/abrowser nonsense.
Firebird vs. Mozilla Posted Oct 8, 2009 13:25 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] If they had stuck with the name Phoenix,Or Firebird, even.
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