Weekly edition	Kernel	Security	Distributions	Contact Us	Search
Archives	Calendar	Subscribe	Write for LWN	LWN.net FAQ	Sponsors

Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox

Posted Feb 9, 2004 17:02 UTC (Mon) by KaiRo (subscriber, #1987)
In reply to: Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox by rknop
Parent article: Mozilla Firebird becomes Firefox

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

(Log in to post comments)

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.