gerald: I for one would *love* there to be a standardised, widely implemented, cross platform way of doing rich applications over HTTP. Given this set of requirements, using XML to describe the interface seems like a reasonable solution; after all XML parsers are pretty standard. Therefore, I agree entirely that a standardised XML UI language that is not specific to one web browser would be *a good thing*. However, the main requirment here is *compatibility*. Compatibility in this sense should mean one can run the entire application in any of the 'compatible' products - so the GUI langauge must be compatible, the scripting must be compatible, the data binding must be compatible, *everything* the client has to do to run the application should work in every one of these 'compatible' environments.

Taking a bunch of products that implement the idea of XML GUI langauges, lumping them together and declating that they are all XUL-engines doesn't acheive anything. If these products were actually compatible or, at least, partially so, you could certianly sit down, declare the overlap of their feature set a "standard" and encourage others to implement that standard. Instead, all you're doing is making confusing noises about XUL having outgrown Mozilla (by which you seem to mean "other people have implemented the GUI description language in XML idea, but not made their implementation XUL-compatible, probably for excellent reasons of their own") and complain at people who try to stop you using XUL as a generic term when it in fact means something very specific. All you're doing is creating confusion and trying to distort reality in the hope that, if you twist the truth enough, a new nicer truth will emerge.

I agree that I can't speak for the Mozilla project - that's why I wasn't doing so.

Some of those "die-hard Mozilla junkies" that posted in the last MozillaZine topic you contributed do speak for Mozilla though, and they said you should stop mis-using the XUL name.

If you think that XUL has long ago outgrown Mozilla, then it shouldn't bother you that the Mozilla junkies aren't cooperating with you.

If you don't want to hear the whining, don't talk about Mozilla's XUL and don't post your news on Mozillazine...

> First, Michael you can hardly speak for the Mozilla project. In your bio page > you state you're just a interested end-user.

Good morning, Gerald. I hope you'll agree that I can speak for the Mozilla project. In passing, I should point out that according to Bugzilla Michael has triaged and resolved 815 bugs, making a massive contribution to Mozilla in that area alone. I would do the same calculation for you but, as far as I can tell, you don't have a Bugzilla account at all.

> Nobody except a bunch of die-hard Mozilla junkies cares about the XUL > (XML UI Language) name hairsplitting debate.

It's not splitting hairs when it creates confusion in the marketplace - you are calling multiple incompatible things by the same name, a name that mozilla.org originally used for its specific XML-based UI langage, and which is a de facto trademark of the Mozilla Foundation.

The Mozilla Foundation cares deeply about your misuse of our XUL trademark, as we have informed you by private email (which you chose to post publically). We request and require that you cease from using it.

Gerv

I worded what I said poorly; I meant there were *some* XUL motors and XUL-related projects on that site, like Luxor, XUL2GTK, and jXUL. I understood about the difference in terminology and agreed that Gerald shouldn't mix things up. My point was that anyone can go write an XUL motor without paying any royalties or getting the Mozilla Foundation's permission if they wanted, so that Gerald's criticism was incorrect.

So any language that's associated with Windows and is a markup language can be called WML?

> Just as an exercise: Who owns the UI trademark? Any thoughts? Wow! I just discovered a new definition of "insanity" I cant see any reason to continue an argument here.

Who made this news post? ;-)

I don't know. Another few excercises:

1.a Who owns the AT&T trademark? 1.b Who owns the American trademark? 1.c Who owns the Telephone trademark? 1.d Who owns the Telegraph trademark?

2.a Who owns the SCO trademark? 2.b Who owns the Santa trademark? 2.c Who owns the Cruz trademark? 2.d Who owns the Operation trademark?

3.a Who owns the CNN trademark? 3.b Who owns the Cable trademark? 3.c Who owns the News trademark? 3.d Who owns the Network trademark?

3.a Who owns the ABC trademark? 3.b Who owns the American trademark? 3.c Who owns the Broadcasting trademark? 3.d Who owns the Company trademark?

Those were easy, they are all names of companies and any numbnut would understand you can not coopt these names because they are officially trademarked. So how about these:

3.a Who owns the FDA trademark? 3.b Who owns the Food trademark? 3.c Who owns the Drug trademark? 3.d Who owns the Administration trademark? 3.b (bonus question): Can you start a Food and Drug testing organisation and start giving out FDA stamps of approval for say "consumer safety"?

3.a Who owns the HTML trademark? 3.b Who owns the Hypertext trademark? 3.c Who owns the Markup trademark? 3.d Who owns the Language trademark? 3.e (bonus question): Can you start advocating a standard Markup Language to structure text and multimedia content for presentation on the Internet? 3.f (double bonus question): Can you expect everyone to play along with your charade?

Right, that's why you cannot go around claiming the XUL name for a XML UI Language. Even if you get away with it, it ain't 'right'.

In short: MUYODA (Make Up Your Own Damn Acronym).

To help you on your way: XUIDL: XML User Interface Description Language. XUIL: XML User Interface Langue OXUL: Open XML Userinterface Language GXUL: Geralds XML User interface Language

Oh, before I forget: Any thoughts?

Thank you.

Those are generic, and nobody is saying that all acronyms are owned by someone. The point is that some acronyms are not generic. XUL is one of the owned ones, and you're saying it's a generic one.

Here's one set: DOS, DBMS, DOM, XML.

Here's another set: IBM, MS-DOS, XAML, XUL.

You mean that acronyms can be used for generic concepts as well as specific ones!

Now that we've grasped the idea of generic v specific, maybe you'd like to tell us why you decided to use the acronym XUL when developing Luxor and the "Open XUL Alliance". Clearly you were aware of the existence of XUL as a specific Mozilla technology; you refer to Mozilla as the "Xul Granddaddy" and state on the Luxor page that "XUL stands for XML User Interface Language and was pioneered by Mozilla". Did it not occur to you that using XUL to mean something other than the Mozilla technology could create confusion? I assume it wasn't a shortage of other acronyms that could be used to describe the same concept - there are dozens of possibilities (e.g. XIL - XML Interface Language, XGL - XML GUI Language, MUIL - Markup User Interface Language, IDLUX - Interface Descriptor Language Using XML, XDUIDL - XML Declarative User Interface Descriptor Language, and so on).

I thought your questions were rhetorical. You and I both know perfectly well that no one owns a trademark on the terms "UI" and "XML" as applicable to computer software of any sort. Further, I don't believe anyone has a trademark on the term "XUL" either.

None of which is relevant to the question I asked. Note that my original statement didn't say that what you were doing was illegal (which it would be if XUL were trademarked). I just said that it was sneaky, underhanded, morally reprehensible, and harmful to the Mozilla project.