• 𝖕𝖘𝖊𝖚𝖉@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Originally called Phoenix, since it was Netscape Navigator, reborn.

      But Phoenix Technologies disliked that, so they renamed to a descriptive name for the same immortal bird – Firebird.

      The Firebird database people would have none of that, so after a few-months gap between 0.x releases, they found the closest thing they possibly could which was not trademarked. It had nothing to do with the original name idea, fire being a weak link.

      And we’ve been stuck with that stupid name for two decades.

      • eric5949@lemmy.cloudaf.site
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        1 year ago

        It’s kinda crazy the whole reason we have Firefox is a company was crushed by Microsoft and said “fuck it, shit’s open source now.”

      • earthquake@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        There was a satirical addon back in this day that would change the Firefox name every time you opened it to like WaterHippo or SunJackal to make fun of this.