--- In IBDI@y..., "Claudio Valderrama C." <cvalde@u...> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: markus.soell@b... [mailto:markus.soell@b...]
> > Sent: Viernes 27 de Abril de 2001 7:18
> >
> > Yes. But Firebird wasn't the name of the product.
>
> Did you dig in IB-Priorities and other forums deep enough to
be 100% sure?


No, I did not dig anywhere. It was rather my first impression that
Firebird _is_ the product and so I brought in some critics concerning
the current Firebird website.

Guess what I got told? (by people who have the say in here, e.g.
Helen, Pavel, ..) I was told the I was completely wrong, because
Firebird wasn't supposed to be the product, but rather the name of
the development/build group.


> When I readu you writing "the development unit of the
> community", it seems like you have got superior knowledge than us
the ones
> that are with IB since many years ago. Do you mean the group of
developers
> that created the firebird tree at SF?

See above. Yes, that's what I believe Helen, Pavel and others
explained to me.

> Markus, for the last time: either you push your ideas as
> suggestions and make a difference between your beliefs and proven
> facts or I will start feeling sincerely that you are wasting
> bandwith.

Since you reply here to the product name thread, I guess that's what
you're talking about. Did I present anything as a proven fact??? I
don't think so...

> One thing I dislike from typical companies is the marketing dept
> trying to tell you what to think about that company and what to
> tell your end-user customers about that company, too. The last
> thing we need at firebird is dictatorship. Hence, a poll would be
> needed. Only remember that firebird developers (those that
> touch the FB's source code) have something to say, too. We don't
> want to be like that company that has changed its name three times
> already.

All you say here has been said in previous discussion. Pavel
mentioned to me that it's Firebird active members who have the say
and I acknowledged he is right with this. A new poll was set up here
on IBDI group and removed shortly after. Pavel suggested to create a
new poll on his site. There is no need to repeat things that have
already been settled. It's a waste of bandwidth... ;)

> Firebird has already got some recognition.

Sure. On the other hand the name isn't widely used yet. Since no
major release has been made yet, I suspect the number of peoples
using Firebird in a production environment is still pretty small.
That (and other things) will change with release of 1.0 and that's
why if there shall ever be a new discussion about the name, it's now
the moment to have it.

The suggestion FirebirdSQL comes from the fact that this domain has
been registerd. This was only a few days ago and so this discussion
could not be started earlier. The opinion of a russian fellow in an
earlier message, according to which it was a forced choice (since
Firebird.org was not available) is certainly correct, but changes
nothing to the question.

> The core FB team doesn't need to be marketing-driven; others can
> do that task; a group of people for each task.

Sure. But the name of the product is to be used as the brand and
therefore important for marketing. If you're trying to say that
Firebird members working on the code don't care about marketing,
that's a valid position. But what does it mean? It means to leave the
choice of name to the marketing people, because the name matters for
marketing and not for the code. However, I understand that all,
including code workers like you, are interested in what name the
product shall have.

>
>
> > Therefore Firebird has
> > not been used as a brand, a trademark so far.
>
> To my knowledge, Firebird is not registered as a db engine. But
> you need to find an important reason to convince people that it
> should be changed. As I said, it has gotten some recognition
> already.
>
The suggested change (adding SQL at the end) is a minor one. The
ending "SQL" is certainly not the distinctive part of the name, since
it's used by other database makers (MySQL and PostgreSQL) as well.
Therefore the current recognition isn't lost with this change. When
people hear the name FirebirdSQL, their first reaction will be that
it must be the same like the Firebird they already know.

By the way, it is absolutely impossible that a competitor of Firebird
could for example adopt the name FirebirdSQL. He would violate both
Trademark and unfair competition laws.

As for the reasons for name change, I have given 3 and will not
repeat them here. Anyway, I'm not a community member and so my
opinion doesn't count. I just wanted to point out that if you might
want to reconsidder the name it's now (prior to Firebird 1.0 release)
you should do it.
>
> Personally, I don't see the point in changing it. Having "firebird"
> allows to append any suffix for special related developments.
> Having "firebirdSQL" makes this task awkward.

A good argument.

> Anyway, let people decide... people that want to use firebird and
> enhance it, of course. The rest shouldn't be interested in
> the issue since they will be using IB probably or they wouldn't
> be on a IB/FB forum (except some people that might be really
curious).
>
> C.

Markus