"Open source cannot win if brother cynically steals from brother…"
"A slap on the face of the open source community"
These are strong words spoken by two open source groups clashing over a
sensitive issue–branding. There is an interesting spat brewing in the open
source community over of all things–a name. It began when Mozilla announced
that it would be replacing its browser of the same name with a smaller lighter
version.
In what it thought would also be a brilliant branding move, it announced that
the product revamp would be accompanied with a branding and name revamp. Mozilla
is a torchbearer of sorts among open source browsers. One of the Davids’ along
with Opera, which is trying to put up a fight against Microsoft IE’s Goliath.
The new lighter version it finally announced, would be called Phoenix.
That seemingly innocent and irrelevant act, however, led to a spate of
controversies. To begin with, AOL-Netscape that works very closely with Mozilla
shot down the new name saying that another browser called Phoenix First View
Connect already existed.
Mozilla then decided to rename Phoenix as Firebird. In an official statement
the Mozilla organization said, "after months of discussion and further
months of legal investigation, we’re finally comfortable moving forward with
new names. The new name for the Phoenix browser is Firebird. The documentation
and product strings will be updated soon." Mozilla might have hoped the
matter would rest there. Unfortunately, it did not. The second new name in turn
sparked a howl of protests. The first protest came from the FireBird SQL
database, which, like Mozilla, is an open source project. It promptly reacted
with an announcement denouncing the name change. "We of the Firebird
project are devoted to our branding. We are dismayed that Firebird was not
contacted before Mozilla’s decision was finalized. This breach of principle
has occurred in the heartland of open source, where we are all supposed to be
above such things."
The company also took umbrage at what they thought was Mozilla’s don’t-give-a-damn.
"The attitude adopted by Mozilla’s vocal proponents of the change, in
essence ‘if they don’t like it they can sue’, is contrary to the generally
accepted core values of the open source community. It reflects poorly on a
community that voices strong opinions when corporate entities employ similar
tactics. If open source is to win, we can do without brother cynically stealing
from brother," it said in an announcement on its site.
Firebird’s chief appeal to fellow fanatics was–"Mozilla’s decision
to go ahead with the name, FireBird, is a "slap on the face of the open
source community". And typically, the open source community rallied around
the underdog with a slew of protest message up at sites varying from Mozilla’s
own home page to slashdot. To begin with Mozilla stuck to its guns and Asa
Dotzler, Project and Release Manager, Mozilla said that no one could confuse a
database with a browser. However, Firebird database supporters argued that
having a browser and a database with the same name in the same space would
confuse the market, especially as browsers and databases are often used in the
same applications.
But the protest messages wouldn’t stop. They will eventually of course when
the issue is sorted out. But question is, will such infighting tarnish the image
of open source? "The Open source movement has always been a radical
community who are passionate about their work. The community has been a bit far
removed from the real-life issues like branding and copyrights.
There has to be a balance", says Gopi Garge, Network Services
Consultant, ERNET and open source aficionado.
"Overall, I would like to see this in a positive light. These problems
were just waiting to happen–and there is a lesson to be learnt here. The open
source community needs to learn to handle such issues carefully, in mature
manner", adds Garge Mozilla now seems more circumspect about the episode.
It’s site now says, "When referring to Thunderbird or Firebird before
or during the 1.4 release cycle, make sure to use the project name with Mozilla
pre-pended as ‘Mozilla Thunderbird’ or ‘Mozilla Firebird’ instead of
Mozilla alone or Firebird/Thunderbird alone. Firebird and Thunderbird are
project names and they are transitory." The open source community is just
finding out–there’s a lot in a name!
S Chinmayee
Special report by CIOL