Firebird vs. Mozilla

Posted Oct 8, 2009 1:23 UTC (Thu) by ncm (guest, #165)
In reply to: Ingres Database 9.3 released by sbergman27
Parent article: Ingres Database 9.3 released

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 (subscriber, #51576) [Link] (2 responses)

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] (1 responses)

If so: what are:

* GRUB
* KVM
* Sparse

Firebird vs. Mozilla

Posted Oct 12, 2009 10:31 UTC (Mon) by nye (subscriber, #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] (1 responses)

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.