First of all, I'm not involved in neither the FirebirdSQL projecet, nor
with Mozilla.

We're all aware of the naming conflict. We're all aware of the mistakes
that have been made.

From my point of view as an outside observer, I've begun to see a
dangerous pattern in the naming conflict. If the two projects continue
along the current path, I see nothing but stalemate, a lose-lose
situation.

Let us now shoehorn a paralell to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I
understand the analogy is far from perfect, but it's surprisingly
accurate. Sure, you can poke all sorts of holes in it, but I'm trying
to use the analogy to apply a paralell from history. History repeats
itself, but never exactly the same way. Let us see if there is anything
that history can teach us.

- Mozilla Firebird has the support of AOL/Time warner.
- Israel has the support of the United States.

- In contrast FirebirdSQL has the support of some, but not as many as
Mozilla by a long shot
- Palestine has support by the arab states surrounding it, but we can
see from various wars in the middle East that Israel quite effectively
had the upper hand in the battle.

- Mozilla Firebird recently changed its name because it was driven from
its previous name, at the price of FirebirdSQL's turf.
- After WWII, Israel was created as a jewish state, at the price of
Palestine's turf.
(All right, the analogy isn't 100% here, Mozilla COULD just change
their name again, unlike Israel who can't move, but given the
confrontational nature of certain members of the Mozilla team, we could
for a moment assume that Mozilla won't give up Firebird's name without
a fight.)

The current politics seems to be that both parties are in favour of a
one-state solution effectively. Mozilla (Israel) seems to want to
dominate the name Firebird (albeit temporarilly) with no compensation
given to FirebirdSQL. FirebirdSQL is responding with understandable
outrage at this as are the Palestinians. Hopefully, the Firebird
conflict won't lead to suicide bombers and loss of life -- in this
conflict, it's PR that's at stake, not lives.

On the other hand, the arabs wanted to drive out the jews into the sea
when Israel first was declared. FirebirdSQL wants Mozilla to completely
dump their trademark. Same thing. Mozilla will most likely prevail if
they want to, after all they have the largest army of lawyers.

Now, to the solutions. There are four possible solutions:

- Mozilla changes its name again.
With the statements coming out from some members of the Mozilla
development team, it seems that this may not happen. After all, "it's
only a codename". OTOH since it's only a codename, it should be easy to
change. (The same as Israel pulling out.)

- FirebirdSQL changes its name.
Not bloody likely! After all, why should THEY move because Mozilla
decided to stomp on them? (The same as Palestine pulling out fully.)

- Both change their name to honor the authors of Firebird BBS
This is probably the most ethically sound outcome, however, it would be
a PR disaster for both projects. (A two-state solution. A compromise
where both parties get the smaller part of the cake.)

- None change their name, but the temporary name sharing is used to
boost PR.
Ah. This solution I like. Here, FirebirdSQL has everything to benifit
from temporary sharing of the name with the Mozilla project. Both
projects link to each other on their web sites, giving well needed PR
for FirebirdSQL. I must admit, I myself first heard of the FirebirdSQL
project as a result of this naming conflict. You can't deny that this
conflict has in the short term acted as a PR boost for the FirebirdSQL
project. The PR boost probably won't last if the conflict is dragged
out any longer, rather it would backfire. (This solution would be the
equivalent of Israel colonizing another planet or a new continent,
bringing all their cultural heritage with them, but in the transitional
period, there is a mixed-government solution in place mixing Israelis
and Palestinians in the same government, living in the same cities, all
singing and holding hands. The Palestinians would of course get
assurances that the Israelis would pull out after ten years (half a
year to a year in internet time).)

Of course, the last solution is not feasible in real life, where people
LIVING in a certain place is important, but I think it's doable in this
software project.

I'm sure this idea is flawed in some way, but I think starting a
dialogue to salvage the pieces of this PR disaster, and build new PR
from the pieces, is the best course of action.

As an added benefit, the world would see the best of the cooperation in
open source project methology, rather than the usual quibbling and tree
forkage that gets the most attention. This could ultimately be a small
victory for Open Source PR as well -- a success story highlighting the
cooperative nature of Open Source where two projects set aside their
minor quibbles and decided to cooperate.

--
Per von Zweigbergk <pvz@...>