Great leaping turtle-frogs, Mozilla’s gone and done it again. They’ve changed Firebird’s name to Firefox to avoid confusion with the open source Firebird database project. After originally changing the name of the browser from Phoenix to Firebird in April of 2003 and ignoring the flood of criticism over the naming conflict, Mozilla has waited just long enough for the Firebird name to sink in and propagate itself and now they’ve decided, almost a year too late, that stealing the Firebird name wouldn’t be nice. Brilliant.
Luckily, they’ve at least chosen a name that nobody seems to have used for a software project recently. Aside from a fire extinguisher manufacturer, a bad movie, and a classic video game based on the bad movie, nobody else seems to be using the name.
But just in case another name dispute crops up, I’ve compiled this short list of alternatives. I recommend a name change at least once every eight months to keep people on their toes (and to get free publicity on weblogs written by crotchety geeks who have nothing better to do than complain about the marketing habits of free software projects):
Suggested Alternative Names for the Mozilla Browser:
- Fireant
- Firebeaver
- Firecat
- Firecow
- Firedonkey
- Firefire
- Firefish
- Firefly
- Firehorse
- Firehound
- Firemonkey
- Firepanda
- Firepants
- Fireplatypus
- Firewhale
I wonder if they’ll change the name of Thunderbird to Thunderfox. Microsoft wouldn’t know what hit them.
“Gee whiz,” Bill Gates will say, “we never thought of naming our products after video game characters! Quick, somebody call Nintendo! Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are now Mario and Luigi! We’ll show those open source bastards!”
Comments
Uh-hu.
I hear a lot of whining and not a lot of MozUpdating.
Re: Uh-hu.
I can't test MozUpdate until Mozilla's FTP site stops being swamped. Hold your horses, punk.
And they've broken MozUpdate again
Sigh. I finally got through to several mirrors, and it looks like they aren't distributing zipped Windows releases anymore. The only Windows download available is their crappy installer. MozUpdate has been defeated.
Done
Fixed. Enjoy.
Re: And they've broken MozUpdate again
According to a post by ben I saw linked, he'll be putting up a .zip of .8 in the near future, but it won't be offically linked anywhere on the website. So keep your eye on the ftp dir.
Re: Done
You sir are a King among men.
Re: Done
I would even go as far as to say that this calls for a reward. Ryan, I think I'll buy you one of these!
Arcade memories...
We had this one in the cafeteria at Karup AFB. I spent quite a bit of money on that one, and got pretty good at it, too. Those were the days... :o)
Re: Arcade memories...
I am good at X-Men vs. Streetfighter. This is why I am very sad that Marvel is stopping their ongoing collaboration with Cap-com.
Re: Arcade memories...
I never was any good at those kung-fu fighter style games. Looking back at which arcade games had me obsessed at one time or another, it's fairly evident that the concept of controlling machines that blow stuff up has always held the greatest appeal to me. There was of course the occasional 3rd person shooter, breakout or racing game, and I even experienced a short stint of Double Dragon at one point, although I never got any good at it. But as long as it's fun... :o)