--- In Firebird-general@yahoogroups.com, "Martijn Tonies"
<m.tonies@u...> wrote:

> Brendan,
>
> You know what I really find annoying ...
>
> Asa saying things along the lines of "it's legal -
> get over it". Asa trying to drag in open source and
> other projects that have actively died over 3 years
> (the BBS project),

The Firebird BBS project certainly was not dead with you "took" "its"
name (quotes mine, I'm not accusing you of anything; I'm satirizing
the accusatory style popular when the shoe is on the other foot).

> are obscure very old computer
> games, or low profile IDEs (as a subproject) of some
> kind of open source project registered at SF.net in
> 2002!

Asa may make mistakes that annoy you. But the fact is, you haven't
got a trademark on Firebird in the domain of all software, and the
claim that people will be confused is unconvincing.

I'm much more sympathetic to the claim that mozilla.org will be stuck
having to use the "firebird" program name, so that when people launch
or run that program, they'll see it -- and that this dilutes (rather
than confuses) the meaning of the open source brand you've built.

I agree that's a problem, or actually several problems. I'm working
with staff@... to do something about it. But I'm here to say
that until the hate-mail abates, we aren't going to make much progress
on the substantial issue.

/be