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It wasn't Firebug, that was a developer tool extension. It was first Phoenix which hit trademark issues, and then Firebird which hit trademark issues, which t

It wasn't Firebug, that was a developer tool extension. It was first Phoenix which hit trademark issues, and then Firebird which hit trademark issues, which then became Firefox.

Foobar8568 2y ago
From what I remember, Firebird was more related to the database open source project which was a fork of InterBase, so at that time it was relatively well known due to its roots with IB.
guessbest 2y ago
Maybe it hit trademark issues, but the reason I remember from slashdot was that phoenix was already a semi-popular open source project in the debian repository, so firefox had to be named from phoenix to mozilla-phoenix. But firefox at the time still named phoenix just ran so much better on windows than linux, it was funny.
- simcop2387 2y ago
  Both Phoenix and Firebird were over the naming and trademark clashes: For firebird, https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/mozilla-holds-fire-in-naming-fight/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/mozilla-holds-fire-i... and https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozillas-firebird-gets-wings-clipped/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozillas-fir... in this case it was AOL Time Warner that owned the Firebird trademark for the database. 2) For Phoenix, https://web.archive.org/web/20070914035447/http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=ibp_Mozilla0 https://web.archive.org/web/20070914035447/http://www.ibphoe... the main reporting on it seems to be lost but wikipedia still backs it up
  - asadotzler 2y ago
    Phoenix was because of a challenge from Phoenix Technologies, the BIOS maker. Firefox was because of concerns about stomping on a small OSS project, the Firebird Database. I was responsible for all of this at Mozilla. Happy to answer any questions.
    - jordibc 2y ago
      Thanks for clarifying! FWIW, I wasn't there, but that matches exactly what I remember from that time (I did follow all the different renamings in detail).
- asadotzler 2y ago
  No. Phoenix Technologies, the BIOS maker sent me an email telling us they made a BIOS web browser and our name would confuse things. Under advice from our legal support, we agreed to change the name. We changed to Firebird and the OSS database project bombed my inbox (and Mitchell's too) for a week with hundreds of nastygrams and though we were in the clear on TM, we didn't want to stomp on the little OSS project so we changed again. I was at the whiteboard when Jason Kersey of mozBin, mozillaZine, and later Chrome fame came up with Firefox. We had two columns of names, forces of nature and animals and were pairing them up.
  - dataf3l 2y ago
    was waterduck considered?
    - blackenedgem 2y ago
      Stormcow
      - Bluestein 2y ago
        Tornadocalf
    - grishka 2y ago
      Technically, all real-life ducks are waterducks. Except when they're temporarily airducks.
  - RexM 2y ago
    Did you also come up with Sharknado in this whiteboarding exercise?
  - amandasystems 2y ago
    You had me at “BIOS web browser”
    - 9point6 2y ago

It wasn't Firebug, that was a developer tool extension. It was first Phoenix which hit trademark issues, and then Firebird which hit trademark issues, which then became Firefox.

Foobar8568 2y ago

From what I remember, Firebird was more related to the database open source project which was a fork of InterBase, so at that time it was relatively well known due to its roots with IB.

guessbest 2y ago

Maybe it hit trademark issues, but the reason I remember from slashdot was that phoenix was already a semi-popular open source project in the debian repository, so firefox had to be named from phoenix to mozilla-phoenix. But firefox at the time still named phoenix just ran so much better on windows than linux, it was funny.

simcop2387 2y ago
Both Phoenix and Firebird were over the naming and trademark clashes: For firebird, https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/mozilla-holds-fire-in-naming-fight/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/mozilla-holds-fire-i... and https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozillas-firebird-gets-wings-clipped/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozillas-fir... in this case it was AOL Time Warner that owned the Firebird trademark for the database. 2) For Phoenix, https://web.archive.org/web/20070914035447/http://www.ibphoenix.com/main.nfs?a=ibphoenix&page=ibp_Mozilla0 https://web.archive.org/web/20070914035447/http://www.ibphoe... the main reporting on it seems to be lost but wikipedia still backs it up
- asadotzler 2y ago
  Phoenix was because of a challenge from Phoenix Technologies, the BIOS maker. Firefox was because of concerns about stomping on a small OSS project, the Firebird Database. I was responsible for all of this at Mozilla. Happy to answer any questions.
  - jordibc 2y ago
    Thanks for clarifying! FWIW, I wasn't there, but that matches exactly what I remember from that time (I did follow all the different renamings in detail).
asadotzler 2y ago
No. Phoenix Technologies, the BIOS maker sent me an email telling us they made a BIOS web browser and our name would confuse things. Under advice from our legal support, we agreed to change the name. We changed to Firebird and the OSS database project bombed my inbox (and Mitchell's too) for a week with hundreds of nastygrams and though we were in the clear on TM, we didn't want to stomp on the little OSS project so we changed again. I was at the whiteboard when Jason Kersey of mozBin, mozillaZine, and later Chrome fame came up with Firefox. We had two columns of names, forces of nature and animals and were pairing them up.
- dataf3l 2y ago
  was waterduck considered?
  - blackenedgem 2y ago
    Stormcow
    - Bluestein 2y ago
      Tornadocalf
  - grishka 2y ago
    Technically, all real-life ducks are waterducks. Except when they're temporarily airducks.
- RexM 2y ago
  Did you also come up with Sharknado in this whiteboarding exercise?
- amandasystems 2y ago
  You had me at “BIOS web browser”
  - 9point6 2y ago