Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox [LWN.net]

Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox

Posted Feb 9, 2004 17:02 UTC (Mon) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link]

Mozilla Foundation has been in the trademark registering process for Firefox since December, and it's clear that infringement can only happen if you're in the same market segment. A movie and a web browser are clearly different market segments.
From what the Mozilla Foundation was told by lawyers, even databases, browsers, and video viewers are 3 different market segments. And you can only register your trademark for one market segment (or whatever they call it officially).

Robert Kaiser

German Firefox/Thunderbird ?

Posted Feb 9, 2004 19:58 UTC (Mon) by gadeiros (guest, #3929) [Link]

Hi KaiRo.

Are you planning to translate also Firefox and Thunderbird ? Or do you stick with Seamonkey ?
If not, is there any planning by others you know of (mozilla.org ?) to do this ?

Couldn't find a hint on your homepage.

Regards,
Harald Henkel

German Firefox/Thunderbird ?

Posted Feb 10, 2004 13:04 UTC (Tue) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link]

As it seems you understand German, there's this report on my page that basically holds true even now. There are currently projects translating Fir[bird|fox] and Thunderbird, AFAIK both based on my work, and I'm sure they're doing good work. And I'd really hate to disturb them. OTOH, I'll keep the Mozilla German project going on, and I'll translate the primary browser and mail clients of mozilla.org - as long as Seamonkey does exist, it look likely that this stays Seamonkey. If they flip to the stand-alone products as their main products, I intend to flip to those as well.

Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox

Posted Feb 14, 2004 12:42 UTC (Sat) by crankysysadmin (guest, #19449) [Link]

> infringement can only happen if you're in the same market segment. A movie
> and a web browser are clearly different market segments. From what the
> Mozilla Foundation was told by lawyers, even databases, browsers, and video
> viewers are 3 different market segments.

Exactly, so why did they have to jump through hoops shying away from both Phoenix and Firebird? Neither was a web browser.

I agree with the "community" argument to a certain extent, but working out disputes can be taken to extremes, and I wish that the law was laxer on forcing you to defend your trademark. Of course, I also wish brand names and marketing weren't so important to so many consumers in the first place, since they have exactly nothing to do with the quality of a product, so clearly I expect too much.

Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox

Posted Feb 9, 2004 17:06 UTC (Mon) by southey (subscriber, #9466) [Link]

It was released in 1982 by Warner Bros with Clint Eastwood starring and directing. It was based on Graig Thomas's excellent 1977 book of the same name. But, he is a very difficult author to get in the USA.

http://uk.geocities.com/hindgunship/fr_home.htm

Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox

Posted Feb 10, 2004 12:53 UTC (Tue) by the_JinX (guest, #3953) [Link]

You mean this Firefox

The Firefox is a high tech fighter plane built by the Soviet Union. It's faster than any other fighter plane, and is undetectable to radar, and has a new weapon control system that is thought controlled.

Sounds like they are raising expectations with their new name ;)

Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox

Posted Feb 9, 2004 16:57 UTC (Mon) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link]

Well, it always depends what you consider an "error" (BTW, it's the same with bugs: If your app crashes, it's clearly a bug. If you change the design three times because you or someone else didn't like the look, it's not a clearly a bug you fix, though it might be an enhancement or whatever).

I'm not fond of any of those names, not even of the product itself. As many people who lived in the Mozilla community quite some time, I love to stick with the Mozilla Application Suite (code-named "Seamonkey").
AOL/Netscape/mozilla.org went a long way to find a new name after they found out that Phoenix had issues (there already had been a browser called "Phoenix" somewhere), and they secured that "Firebird" had no legal issues. They did not consider, however, that (legally independent, because it's a different kind of software) there was already a not small, but not too public either, open-source project named "Firebird". After seeing that this was a peoblem, though not lagally, they decided to prefix the name with "Mozilla" so that "Mozilla Firebird" would clearly be a different thing. But after a short period, they saw that coming up with a different name again (sigh) was the nicer and more friendly way to go.
It again took the (now already founded) Mozilla Foundation months and legal chacking to find a name they could use (see Ben's blog). And still, the name has smaller issues with registered trademarks in Europe (Germany and Switzerland). From Ben's speaking, it seems they solves those issues in some way, though.

It really seems damn difficult to find good names today - to quote the Firefox name FAQ: "We've learned a lot about choosing names in the past year (more than we would have liked to)."
I hope this still will not make progress in good projects stagnate or stop, just because they have to consider one name after the other. And I don't think we want to end up with "The browser created by Ben Googer, Dave Hyatt and a few others" or something like that as a project name because shorter names are too hot. [Mozilla] Firefox, the browser formerly known as Mozilla Firebird, the browser formerly known as Phoenix, has shown us a good example of how hard it is to find a suitable name for a big project these days.

The more important thing is something completely different though:
A new release of Mozilla Firefox, and that 0.8 release can be considered the currently best cross-platform stand-alone browser available, and one of the best browsers available for Linux and even Windows. Spread the word and make some of your friends enter open-source with a more secure browser than the default on their OS might be.
(And if they want/should migrate Mail as well, consider newly released Mozilla Thunderbird, or the Mozilla 1.6 "Seamonkey" Application suite that includes browser and mail)

Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox

Posted Feb 9, 2004 18:32 UTC (Mon) by sphealey (guest, #1028) [Link]

They did not consider, however, that (legally independent, because it's a different kind of software) there was already a not small, but not too public either, open-source project named "Firebird". After seeing that this was a peoblem, though not lagally, they decided to prefix the name with "Mozilla" so that "Mozilla Firebird" would clearly be a different thing. But after a short period, they saw that coming up with a different name again (sigh) was the nicer and more friendly way to go.

If you mean the word "saw" to be short for "was beaten bloodly by the Firebird and general FOSS communities, but like most people in the tech world was absolutely unable to admit to an error", then I agree with your post!

sPh

Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox

Posted Feb 9, 2004 18:41 UTC (Mon) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987) [Link]

if they were beaten bloody, they'd better not have changed the name at all, as that's not how to do communication.
If they would have been less flamed but instead the projects leaders (drivers) were contacted by Firebird database project leaders, I bet they'd even had reacted faster and more friendly.
Even people in the Mozilla community who don't like the now-called Firefox browser too much felt like the Firebird databse people wanted to start a war aginst us, and probably won't think of using that product because of some stupid feelings that arise when you feel getting attacked by someone you didn't even know before.
With peaceful communication instead of wars, we'd probably live more happy together now and had resolved those issues faster.

Robert Kaiser
(being no official of mozilla.org in any way, only a small contributor and leading the German l10n project of the Mozilla)