The DeerBear wrote:

>
> Imho, this is a quite "fair" ranking, since practically all of us
> assume "browser" as "web browser" and not as "database browser".

For what I read in another forum, Google tweaked the "Firebird" results
recently to make them more significative.

> This being said, Mozilla's behaviour has been *really* questionable,
> as it has been the one of those in Firebird Lists who decided to
> insult and mail bomb Mozilla's staff members.

I don't know who mailbombed Mozilla people, but the only time I went to
slashdot, I read a message like this "look at Firebird stats, they are a
dead project". Uh? Have you looked at our stats? Dead, us?
http://sourceforge.net/top/mostactive.php?type=week
Currently (17-May 3:30 in my country), we are at rank 18 among thousands of
projects, with a 99.825 percentile. Don't you think it's very brilliant for
a project with a few active committers? And if you want more, you may
consider moving IB-Support to sf.net as well.

Nobody asked to flood Mozilla, but obviously IBP and FB asked developers to
raise their concerns. If some people were rude... well, this is out of our
control. Even if Moz devs were annoyed, the unexpected massive response from
FB's user base cleared any possible misconception that we were a dead
project. Tiny, probably. Economically insignificant, maybe. But useful and
used, nobody could dispute that fact.

> I wrote in public, stating it would have been a shame that a legal
> quarrell arose for the issue.

They wrote their lawyers give great legal advice. However, it's incredible
that these lawyers tell them to put TM after a name that has been in use for
three years, so I don't know how to assess them if they don't do basic
research.
;-)

Recently, most of these Firebird(TM) seem to have vanished from their site.

Why didn't they tell Phoenix Technologies (known to us PC users for their
BIOS)
http://www.phoenix.com/en/about+phoenix/default.htm
that they were using Phoenix Browser as an internal, code name, so Phoenix
Tech was only fooling around? Because Phoenix has money, has strong market
presence, has a trademark to defend, didn't have any intention to change the
name of its own Phoenix Browser, and can hire 100 lawyers if the company
wants to sue anyone anywhere at any time.

Why didn't they call the new codename Oracle? Oracle is db, Moz is a broser,
right? Because Mr. Larry Ellison
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressroom/html/index.html?ellisonl.html
would sweep or nuke them in less time than it takes a security company to
discover a new flaw in Internet Explorer. BTW, did the same Moz lawyers
suggest the Phoenix name initially?

Now, just imagine what would have happened if IBPhoenix was at least the
size of Borland. Hiring lawyers wouldn't be a possibility but a fact
instead. Sometimes, the high likelihood of being able to do something is
enough to deter others from stepping in your path. But if you are a smurf or
dwarf, even the hyenas and vultures see themselves as elephants in front of
you and become arrogant.

> So, please, now let's cut this down to reason, talk all together, and
> be friends again.

Very easy to say. Now, back on the real world. There was a person from the
Debian distro who used Mozilla but didn't use Firebird but another RDBMS
(postgreSQL, not sure) and was asked to mediate, due to an early public
letter he wrote trying to help smooth the dispute. Recently, even that
mediator got involved in a harsh dispute with "Mozillers" and was accused of
being a trojan horse introduced by the Firebird admins (a week after he had
assumed his efforts to make the parties talk were not needed anymore,
because he thought he reached his goal). So, what do I need to tell you? I
never knew this person before, so he probably isn't a Firebird user at all,
as he wrote. The likelihood of being a trojan horse biased towards us is
very low, but not on Mozilla's eyes.

I continue being a Mozilla Browser user, despite what has happened with that
project that I admired.

C.
--
Claudio Valderrama C.
Consultant, SW developer.
www.cvalde.com - www.firebirdSql.org