Helen Borrie wrote:

> At 03:34 AM 18/04/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>
>
>> [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.
>>
>
>
> The IBDI news mirror isn't a newsgroup, per se - it receives mail as
> a subscribed member of this list. If you have access to email (and
> what Mozillian doesn't?) you will get more direct access by using
> the mail interface. You can set your account properties to No Email
> if you wish.
>

Thanks, I've set things up for email. I was wondering why my original
post (news://news.atkin.com:119/3E9EC640.6000009@...) made it
to the newsgroup, without my having at that time been a
firebird-general subscriber.

>> 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.
>>
>
>
> Not out of line at all. But it *would* help us if you would tell us
> what your role is in your project.
>

Why don't you read http://www.mozilla.org/mozorg.html, which leads
pretty directly to
http://www.mozilla.org/about/stafflist.html#Staff-Members. I'm a
founding member of mozilla.org.

> Because we are all dismayed and completely nonplussed by what has
> happened, it would be really good if someone with no axe to grind
> could explain to us *why* it was so important for you to use our
> name that you just took it.
>

"It" wasn't your name. "Firebird" by itself is a word used in many
names. Trademark law is clear, but beyond the law, we weren't being
legalistic bullies -- we genuinely thought no one would confuse
Mozilla Firebird with Firebird SQL or Firebird the RDBMS project. I
still don't think anyone looking for a database known by the Firebird
name will be confused.

I can't tell whether the problem here is hurt feelings, or concern
about google page rank, or dilution of "brand" in the open source
project name(-part) space -- but it seems to me the concern is not
about reasonable expectation of confusion.

I'm writing here only to try to convey that mozilla.org staff weren't
acting with malice aforethought. Yet we have been accused of that,
and worse, without anyone enquiring what went into our decision.
Perhaps Asa's early messages set some of you off. I can't speak for
him, although he might have been set off by messages he received.
That's all water under the bridge, anyway, even if people are still
sore over it.

> If I don't get a reply from Asa to my message inviting him to put
> his point of view to the Firebird Admins, I will post it here. The
> content of that message is "old hat" to the Firebird community but
> it could be of concern to your understanding of the issue...
>

I'm sure Asa is flooded with emails. If you would like me to ask him
about this, I will, but please mail me directly.

> Also, I bet that, if you wanted us to come up with some seriously
> good alternative names, rather than joke ones, we could do that for
> you. We have, over the years, had some great debates about marks
> and symbols here.
>

That could be very helpful. But until there are better feelings and
fewer hostile emails flying back and forth, I would like to hold off
on name searches.

>> To repeat, mozilla.org did not set out with advance knowledge that
>> there would be any problems. Unwise, obviously; willful, no.
>>
>
>
> Brendan, you cannot be surprised at the outrage or the "wilful"
> appellation. You (or some people you know) decided to take the mark
> that we have struggled to establish. Nothing about our project has
> been easy and we don't have the benefit of a moneyed organisation
> behind our efforts.
>

We aren't exactly moneyed.

You can't impute ill will to harm or "take" without evidence. Since
we've neither harmed your project, nor taken its name in full, I
continue to be surprised. But I was ignorant of all of the
difficulties you had with Borland; Doug Chamerlin was kind enough to
recount some of the details to me in a private e-mail. That explains
a lot of the furor, even though I don't think it excuses the
ad-hominem arguments and the imputation of evil motives.

Again, I'm here to assure everyone who will believe me that we weren't
callously trying to steal Firebird as an exclusive name for anything
software. We were more than a little fried by the legal hassles that
led to our having to rename Chimera Camino, and Phoenix Firebird. We
hoped we were in the clear, finally, and we were over-focused on the
legal hurdles.

I've apologized already for not consulting the leaders of your
project. I can't (and won't, at this stage, with flame-mail still
flying) offer to change names again. But I would appreciate it very
much if you and others would accept my testimony about what went into
the decision, what our motives were. For my part I won't bother you
any more, after this message, with expressions of surprise or
counter-outrage .

>>> 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.
>>>
>
>
> Not least because, when we began to use the Firebird name, nothing
> in our space - open source, cross-platform - was using it. Most of
> the "Firebird" products/software cited by Asa were not using the
> name then. It's not a problem that a small company took the name
> for its commercial accounting product; nor that a minor game
> project last year tacked it onto its thing. The Firebird BBS is
> Taiwanese; and a minor BBS project doesn't impinge on our space at
> all. They might bump into problems if they tried to get their stuff
> onto an OS distro where we were already positioned, but it doesn't
> seem likely.
>

This is the point we didn't consider. We knew enough trademark law to
believe we were not going to end up having to change again on account
of some accounting software company (or BIOS software company) sending
their lawyers after us. But we didn't think that in the world of open
source projects, a name such as Firebird couldn't be used for
different things in different contexts.

BTW (adding this as I'm reposting to yahoo groups by hand), we are not
going to collide on the name Firebird in any open source distro. We
use only "mozilla" for the program name, and we need to keep using
that program name.

>> 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?
>>
>
>
> Can you explain to us, exactly as you understand it, what difference
> it makes calling it a codename? You have a website at
> http://www.mozillazine.org/forums/index.php?c=4
> which quite clearly demonstrates that you are using our mark for
> BRANDING your product.
>

You must be behind in reading your email. I believe it's been pointed
out to you that http://www.mozillazine.org is independent of
http://www.mozilla.org We ain't they.

I don't know why you call it BRANDING, either. McDonalds and Kodak
are brands. In open source, Mozilla and Firebird SQL may be brands
(I've been to a lot of open source conferences, and I would say that
"Firebird" by itself is not a singly-owned open source brand).

As opposed to such brands, the Mozilla Phoenix project code-name was
an alternative to "Mozilla" the browser and email (and other
components) suite (sometimes called SeaMonkey, but rarely these days),
and it needed a new codename. It's not something we market to
end-users. We have no product marketing people (that's surely a part
of the problem we've had with code-names). We're just trying to
distinguish our own apples from our own oranges, using a name people
involved in Mozilla will recognize, in context, as denoting the
standalone browser project formerly known as Phoenix.

>>> 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."
>>
>
>
> OK, but now Asa Dotzler is telling us that this is Mozilla's
> attitude. He says "we are comfortable about it". He continues to
> be comfortable about it, despite the vehemence of our dismay. What
> else can we read into that?
>

Which came first? The vehemence or Asa's hardening heart? I have
seen the "friendly fire" metaphor abused to describe what mozilla.org
did. If you take that on its face, it means we blundered, not that we
acted with malice to steal a name. It's true we blundered, although
we have not killed or harmed anyone or anything. So why in the world
is it right to respond to friendly fire by shooting back with all
barrels, and calling the press, and bringing in the air force to bomb
us with emails?

If I have the sequence wrong, and some less than total-war response
was ignored before you escalated, please point me to the message that
was sent to staff@..., drivers@..., or
brendan@....

If Asa seeming defensive or stubborn offends you -- well, we are all
showing those traits, you included.

>> All actions of this sort are negotiable
>>
>
>
> Good. Can you tell us whether the question of the impact of the
> change on our project was of concern to anyone on your committee?
> And, if so, how the matter was dealt with?
>

I wrote about that already in this group. Haven't you been reading my
messages here?

We simply didn't think anyone would confuse Mozilla Firebird for the
Firebird RDBMS. I don't think anyone will, but that doesn't excuse us
from our failure to contact you, in case we were missing something
else (open source "brand" dilution, hard feelings, google page rank,
or something that hasn't come up). Again, for my part, _mea culpa_.
Can you hear what I'm saying, please?

>> , but being militant to the point of exaggeration
>>
>
>
> Is that not in the eye of the beholder? Sure, your decision is
> under attack and so you feel defensive. Be assured that, if you
> consider our action with regard to it so to be "militant to the
> point of exaggeration" then you are not seeing the point.
>

No, I'm reading what you wrote in mozillazine's forum, and what others
have written. It's an exagerration to say we've harmed your project.
It's a falsehood to say we did so intentionally. Please don't repeat
a falsehood you know to be false.

>>> 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.
>>
>
>
> It is not false. Nobody from Mozilla contacted us. Is somebody
> lying to you?
>

Please re-read the words quoted above. Doug wrote "probably because
the objections [from you guys] were anticipated [by we staffers
@...]". I wrote "[that last sentence is] false." Now you
take me to be saying that "we did contact the firebirdsql.org people
before making our decision". I never wrote any such thing. I don't
think you're reading what I wrote!

To repeat, we didn't *anticipate any objections from you*. If we had,
we would have contacted you. Why is this so hard to understand?

>> 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.
>>
>
>
> It's hard for us to believe that you did it at all!! We even
> thought it might be a joke, at first. It was not for YOU GUYS to
> decide what is OK with us. And there is no way you can pretend that
> the Firebird database project is obscure or even of low visibility.
>

We didn't pretend any of that. Why do you carry on so, as if you know
what we were thinking?

It may be hard for you to believe, but the plain fact is that we went
through a list of projects and companies that were using the
"Firebird" mark, without trademarking it, for different things that
consumers would not confuse. We had lots of other things on our
minds, too, as I'm sure you do. We thought we were finally able to
use names that no one would threaten to sue us over. Our legal
advisors thought so too.

We didn't consider problems other than legal challenges, and that was
wrong -- but we were *not* pretending anything about the importance or
visibility of your project. We were operating on the well-known
principle of trademark law: would consumers be confused by the two
marks. That's it.

I'm sorry we were so inconsiderate of the non-legal issues.

>> What is why? Are you using your own (wrong) presumption to explain
>> your own outrage?
>>
>
>
> No, precisely, our outrage is at YOUR (plural) wrong presumption.
> You didn't ask, you just took. You presumed it was OK.
>

No, you claim evil intentions. Stealing requires _mens rea_. I've
read accusation after accusation of malice, so please don't try to
change your story here. Negligence is not theft, but I would claim
we've done no harm yet, so even accusing us of negligent harm is
excessive.

Anyway, this all spilled over into mailbombing and calling the press
so fast that we never had an opportunity to talk like civilized people
about it. I'm posting here to try to recover some civility, but
you're still seething. Maybe I should back off for a while.

> You are "comfortable" with it.
>

Asa wrote that. If you're angry with him, please try to consider his
position. If you can't, or don't care, then I'm not sure what to say.
I hope you believe me -- if you think I'm lying, tell me, so I can
stop talking to you. I don't deal with liars, and you shouldn't either.

>> Please believe me when I say that we didn't anticipate any of this.
>>
>
>
> I believe you, but the fact that that you didn't anticipate an
> outcry when you just took our mark and sprung it on the world as a
> "done deed" is totally incomprehensible.
>

Why? It's not hard for me to believe; I've been party to much
stupider things. I'm not groveling, I mean that. After enough years,
anyone will have a short list of jumbo-sized blunders and misjudgments
in his or her life to recount.

> And, judging by the reactions of many of your followers in your
> forums, it's incomprehensible to them as well.
>

No, I see people who understand your objection, if not your tactics,
among mozilla.org and mozillazine.org fans.

>> 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.
>>
>
>
> Now who is exaggerating? Asa lied publicly. He claimed we hadn't
> written to him privately.
>

Come on! He said later that he found your message, having missed it
in all the incoming hate-mail. Accusing him of lying about this is
itself a kind of lie, unless you haven't read his followup post
(http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=3082&message=70#70).
Have you not read his followup yet?

> At least five Firebird admins wrote to him privately on Monday.
> Apparently he just deleted all the mail, since last night local
> time I got a request from him to resend my original mail.
>

Why do you assume he deleted all the mail? Why not ask him why he
needed a resend?

You should allow for delays and lost messages when dealing with
someone who is being mailbombed.

>> 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
>>
>
>
> Actually, I don't see that there is "presumption of evil intent".
> There's definitely very clear evidence of arrogance, callousness,
> arbitrariness and just plain old lack of professionalism.
>

I'm sorry, no: accusing us of stealing imputes evil. Such an
accusation is enough to keep a fight going where cooler counsels would
prevail, even if you were still heaping all those other charges on our
pointy little heads :-/. It may be that the Mozilla staffers who
finalized the Firebird decision were thoughtless and inconsiderate;
I've admitted to those faults on my own behalf. Piling up the other
charges, when you and others on your side have misbehaved too, is just
uncalled for, and it will make the fight go on, for bad reasons.

> It was a very dirty trick
>

See? Imputation of evil. You are not arguing consistently.

> to take our mark with no permission or explanation, it was worse to
> ignore our private messages
>

They weren't ignored, and if Asa didn't reply on Monday, why did you
conclude he was ignoring you and launch a war on such short notice?
Why didn't you contact staff@..., or any other email address
@...? What if Asa had been on vacation? You're not playing
fair, and you did not follow good standards for contacting a
multi-person organization, or for escalating a concern that could have
been addressed without all the insulting invective and accusations of
dirty tricks and theft.

> and it was just plain stupid to let it get to the height it has
> without doing something very promptly about making amends.
>

You have escalated. In any situation like this, it takes two sides to
have a war. We have a war. I'm calling for peace. You seem to want
unconditional surrender, after having done harm to feelings and
reputations with your words. I'm here to say we can't negotiate
without a better understanding of one another's positions and
histories. I won't bother you further if you simply can't understand
our bad decision ("incomprehensible") or if you insist on calling us
names over it ("arrogant, etc."). I'm waving the truce flag here,
now. Please wave back .

>> , have got to stop. No harm has been done to your project yet, and

any harm is hypothetical.

>>
>
>
> We don't "got to stop". If your people seriously want to get around
> the table with our people, then that has "got to start". Why?
> Because it is your crowd that is doing all the "presuming" and you
> do owe it at least to yourselves to try to understand our outrage.
> It is simply inadequate for you to go on presuming it is OK and
> being "comfortable" about it when our concern is so serious.
>
> Do you think we WANT to be sidetracked with this when we are already
> up to our ears in the work of getting a release out? Please please
> please give this much more thought than is evident so far.
>

I haven't been initiating hostile email campaigns and press calls.
You and others on your side have. I can't make you stop. I'm asking
you to stop. You're telling me you want to stop, but our
"presumption" (a done deed, in the past) is still making you. Getting
around a table (virtual, presumably) won't happen while you are still
shooting at us.

>> The harm being done by intemperate reactions, on the other hand, is

real, and it's poisoning the well.

>>
>
>
> Don't delude yourselves that our reactions are intemperate.
>

I'm not deluded. Your reactions are (still) intemperate, and they're
not going to lead to peace soon. I want peace, though, so I'm still
writing. But I don't have time for this point/counter-point style of
exchange, and I don't think it is fruitful for very long. I'm happy
to let you have the last word, if you want to reply to this message.
I hope you will believe me, in any event, and find it conceivable that
I personally believe that we staff@... were inconsiderate in
not contacting you. And that I'm sorry for that lack of consideration.

> It is justified outrage in the face of a foolish
>

Foolish, or evil/dirty/arrogant/etc.? Please, make up your mind.

> decision that threatens to spoil the hard efforts of our people over
> what has been a journey of blood and tears.
>

Thanks to Doug, I have a small idea of that journey's pains. My
sympathies are struggling to rise above my visceral reaction to your
intemperate words and tactics. Can we call it even, and try to get
around a (virtual) table?

/be