I adore Calckey/Firefish. It's amazing software, but these are both pretty bad names. lol
I guess Firefish is better, because it sounds like software you'd want to use and not something you have to put up with to file a tax return, but also... why?
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Yeah... They're definitely 0-2 on naming...
It's not just specific to Clackey, but I really hate when sites hijack the right-click menu, either to remove options, or to modify it for "theme". I get that it looks pretty wrt to the site's theme, but seriously, leave browser controls the fuck alone.
You can hold shift while right-clicking in Firefox to bypass any custom right-click code and always show the browser's native context menu.
At least I think it's shift. Might be alt.
Calckey was a bloody awful name because it was hard to say and difficult to know how to say.
Firefish fixes that but is honestly quite generic.
Either way, I wish them the best.
The name is way too similar to the Firefox trademark and could create the impression that Firefish is associated with Mozilla. I suspect some lawyers are currently in a huddle trying to figure out how to send a Cease and Desist letter that won’t completely piss off the community.
(Trademark law, at least in the US where Mozilla is headquartered, requires organizations to actively defend their trademarks. So just ignoring Firefish would be risky, even if they don’t actually mind the similarity.)
What's the reasonable extent of their trade mark? Anything involving "Fire" + "animal" ... or "animals" starting with "f"? Actually, now that I think that through, "fish" alliterating with "fox", and the non-trivial amount of "fox"/"furry" love on the platform does make this seem like a less trivial issue.
But still ... it seems to be in the space of similar but not trade mark infringement no?
Good question! Whether it’s actually infringement is a legal judgment I’m certainly not qualified to make. 🙂 But my understanding is that it hinges on whether a court thinks a “reasonable person” could be confused. For example, a clothing brand called “Firefoxy” would probably be in the clear since Mozilla isn’t in the clothing business. And maybe even a clothing brand named “Firefox” might be okay! For example, Apple Computer and Apple Records (founded by The Beatles) coexisted nicely for a long time until Apple Computer started getting into the music-selling business. I forget how it got resolved (maybe a licensing agreement?) but The Beatles’ music wasn’t available on the iTunes Music Store for a looooong time while that dispute was going on.
Firefish is an online service and software package, the very space Mozilla operates in, so there’s at least a case to be made that reasonable people might incorrectly assume it’s from Mozilla. It’s come up many times in this discussion already, and we as active Fediverse users are already pretty well informed about this!
Yea it might fall into the "similar, but not really infringement, but similar enough to cause some headaches especially for a very small volunteer run social media platform" territory.
Thanks for the response!!
https://mas.else.social/@choyer/110746384528095273
Someone checked and there's already an existing trademark for Firefish in software specifically, at least in Europe. Apparently they make HR solutions of some sort.
https://jobs.firefishsoftware.com/about-us/meet-the-team.aspx
Wow, if they haven't already cleared this with the existing company or lawyers, this is embarrassing.
Wouldn't you do a quick search as an early step in any branding exercise?
Hopefully it doesn’t cause any issues
Wow checking out the site now, Calckey/Firefish looks great. Is this meant to be another Fediverse replacement for Twitter?
Replacement yes, but also its own thing that doesn’t really care about replacing Twitter. I like to think of it as kinda a fusion of MySpace and Twitter.
MySpace...that's a name I haven't heard muttered in years...
Will Tom be my friend?
I've heard it compared to Tumblr
Not a tumblr user, but AFAIU, the post length or lack of character limit kinda tracks, but on the fediverse character limits like twitter and mastodon are much more forgiving basically everywhere else, so I'm not sure that's a major factor. Plus, the colorful graphics and theme customisation and UI options are a big part of firefish/calckey, and I'm not sure that's a thing on tumblr.
Any recommendations for good instances to try?
I'm on calckey.social ... now probably firefish.social (as in they're making the change today).
It's the main flagship-style instance. But they've been having performance issues for a month or so that aren't fatal but not ideal. There's a good chance the move to the new server (ie firefish.social) will fix all that but I wouldn't guarantee that.
Other than that I'm not really sure. blahaz.zone seems to be run well. the admins of infosecexchange and mastodon.world also run instances, but I'm not sure how they're going. So, firefish.social is probably the best recommendation ... though there are actually a number of instances out there!
Cool! Thanks - I'll check them out.
Fire... fish? Okaaaay...
All these federated services suffer from similar well-publicized problems, but Calckey appears to offer one of the nicer user interface schemes so far. Though unrelated, maybe the rebrand can help build mindshare for Firefox.
Also not a fan of the new name sorry. like others said it sounds too much like trying to be firefox
Probably a good choice. Calckey sounds like an unmaintained spreadsheet software project. Firefish is better, if a little generic.
Yea ... it seems to be the fundamental issue with the new name. "Fish" is just a way too generic and and boring or unappealing word, idea, food, smell, industry, practice etc.
The logo is awesome, but I'll probably always cringe just a little everytime I say "fire-fish" ... sorry to say. Honestly interested in whether I'll every adapt to the name.
Otherwise, for those using or thinking of using mastodon but who've never seen firefish nee calckey ... go check it out, you've never seen microblogging done quite like it
Did they come up with the new name in some kind of software name generator? Sort of like the hip hop name generator that Donald Glover used to come up with Childish Gambino?
I really like the new logo. I thought calckey was some type of speed typing thing lol
I like that they've read the memo about fediverse projects being named after animals, but firefish doesn't fit. They should have gone with Coelacanth or something like that... but easier to spell.
I don't like it. I did sign up for an instance though just to poke around. Seems nice! Not sure if I'll use it over Lemmy / Mastodon combo though. My attention can only go so many directions.
I absolutely love Firefish as a platform. They’ve made something really special. The name Firefish is awful though. I hope they take everyone’s feedback and rebrand again (though I’m sure that’s a massive undertaking)
I like the new name.
I wonder what the overlap of Calckey users and Beehaw users is.
That'll be me 😏