[For some reason, my original post went through to the egroups.ibdi
news group, but all my replies since have not. I've joined the yahoo
egroup in hope of being able to keep up my side of the conversation.
Please excuse the out-of-sequence replies from my Sent mail folder.

If I'm out of line posting these replies, someone tell me and I'll
stop. I'm still hoping to reach a point where people both sides of
this issue can see how the other side came to its position, without
imputing evil or alleging that great harm has already been done to
either project -- apart from hurt feelings. I hope those will mend
enough that we can then find a remedy that everyone agrees is best.

/be]

Doug Chamberlin wrote:

> At 4/17/2003 08:55 PM (Thursday), Brendan Eich wrote:
>
>> I'm looking for a little consistency and understanding.

And still getting none.

To repeat, mozilla.org did not set out with advance knowledge that
there would be any problems. Unwise, obviously; willful, no.

>>
>> The uproar here is out of proportion to the facts in evidence. Way
>> out. It would help if both sides expressed some understanding.
>> I've done so, belatedly and with an apology. What I get back here
>> is not reciprocal.
>
>
> When the Firbird database name was chosen it was not done with the
> knowledge that any other project was ACTIVELY using the name. That
> decision has been born out in the 3 years of usage because to my
> knowledge no other user of the name has objected and there has been
> no confusion.

Just as there will be no confusion in the future. So why does Mozilla
using Firebird as a codename instead of Phoenix make for confusion in
the future, according to your prediction?

>
> What the Mozilla group did (by its own admission) was choose the
> name with full knowledge that another open source project was using
> the name, as well as other companies/organizations/people, and took
> the position that the Mozilla usage would not cause confusion and
> not harm the existing usage and if it did well, tough luck.

Did you read our minds? Were you there, and I didn't notice? We
didn't say "well, tough luck." All actions of this sort are
negotiable, but being militant to the point of exaggeration, putting
words in others' mouths, won't help start any such exchange over the
names [at least not with me!].

>
> In addition there was no serious effort to alert the Firebird
> database crowd to this decision. Probably because the objections
> were anticipated.

What makes you write the last sentence? It's false, but I'm
interested. Many of the complaints presume similarly. Honest, we
didn't think about objections coming from different-in-kind Firebird
software name-claimers -- I don't know why that's so hard for you to
believe.

>
> I see a world of difference between the two actions. That is why the
> outcry of wrongdoing.

What is why? Are you using your own (wrong) presumption to explain
your own outrage? That's bootstrapping. Please believe me when I say
that we didn't anticipate any of this.

> Furthermore, an apology is one thing - and I fully
> sympathize with the position the Mozilla people are in right now -
> but the REALLY RIGHT THING TO DO is to at least talk about the
> possibility of reversing the decision.

I'm here, speaking for myself, trying to get some kind of calm and
reasonable understanding of what actually went on before mozilla.org
announced its decision. You're far from that understanding, so I am
far from offering (on behalf of staff) to change anything.

The abusive invective and accusations of lies heaped on Asa at the
http://www.mozillazine.org/ forums are shameful -- they don't speak
well of the administrator and other new mozillazine members from the
Firebird RDBMS world who've also made presumptuous, overreaching, and
false claims there.

I've seen some reasonable mails, mostly from non-US domains, go to
mozilla.org staff and drivers, and they deserve a response. But the
flaming and ranting, and the presumption of evil intent, have got to
stop. No harm has been done to your project yet, and any harm is
hypothetical. The harm being done by intemperate reactions, on the
other hand, is real, and it's poisoning the well.

/be