Closed Bug 32218 Opened 24 years ago Closed 21 years ago

Mozilla needs an updated splash screen.

Categories

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect, P5)

defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 194291
mozilla1.0

People

(Reporter: joona.nuutinen, Assigned: kerz)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: DO NOT POST MORE SPLASHES! DO NOT SPAM!)

Attachments

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Current Mozilla splash screen sucks. So, I've brought this up in the newsgroups 
and everyone's been really enthusiastic about this splash screen image. Replace 
the current splash screen with:

http://personal.inet.fi/cool/net/mozilla/hsplash1.jpg
Summary: Mozilla's splash screen should be changed hsplash1.jpg in the URL mentioned. → Mozilla's splash screen should be changed hsplash1.jpg in the URL mentioned.
Summary: Mozilla's splash screen should be changed hsplash1.jpg in the URL mentioned. → Mozilla's splash screen should be changed hsplash1.jpg in the URL mentioned (description).
Summary: Mozilla's splash screen should be changed hsplash1.jpg in the URL mentioned (description). → Mozilla's splash screen should be changed to hsplash1.jpg in the URL mentioned (description).
The webpage is gone.  Quick, someone pull the image from a cache!
Fixed. The image is back on the server.
Marking Fixed.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 24 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Marking Verified fixed.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Not fixed.  The original "fixed" referred to fixing the webpage; Joona wants 
mozilla to actually use the images from the given page while loading.
Status: VERIFIED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: FIXED → ---
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
leaf, the people have spoken... do you know how to fix this?
Assignee: chofmann → leaf
These images are really cool.  I wish we had a splash screeen on linux.
I've commented on splash screens before in n.p.m[xpfe|ui], but I'll make 
the same comments here in case anyone tries to fix this bug...

a splash screen should:
- be light on text. images are not localizable ;)
- not integrate with any particular skin, splash screens are not skinnable.
- not contain loading text, this is overlayed in programmatically if the 
platform supports this (e.g. mac)
- get the dates and version numbers right ;) mozilla.org has decided that 
its first release is "Mozilla 1.0"

That said, some of the images on the page in the URL are cool looking, 
although if I chose I'd pick the first one :) 

Updating QA contact to asa since he handles mozilla specific issues.
QA Contact: leger → asa
Who owns the green mozilla in teh image.  Is that property of Dave Titus or of
Netscape?  Are there any legal issues that we'd have to address to use the
image?  I also like the first one the best (would need to change the 5.0 to 1.0)
OK guys. There is one updated image from #1. Version number is changed to 1.0, 
and a small change in the gradient bars. Also a bitmap version of the image is 
created. They both can be found in http://personal.inet.fi/cool/net/mozilla/new/

Or you can jump right here:

http://personal.inet.fi/cool/net/mozilla/new/msplashc.jpg
and
http://personal.inet.fi/cool/net/mozilla/new/msplashc.bmp
Ben, as owner of the mozilla UI do you want to drop this new splash (image #1)
into the builds
Summary updated. New image information (location & name).
Summary: Mozilla's splash screen should be changed to hsplash1.jpg in the URL mentioned (description). → Mozilla's splash screen should be changed to msplashc.jpg in the URL mentioned (description).
reassign to Ben.  leaf doesn't hack UI.
Assignee: leaf → ben
Component: Tracking → User Interface: Design Feedback
I did two new splash screens (well, one is not completely new). you can see them
at http://www.crosswinds.net/~ggc/

The green lizard is a Netscape trademark and/or copyright "property" and
mozilla.org is *not* free to use it. The current splash screen using it is a
bug, said Mitchell Baker.

Also note that the 5-star looks close to a satanism symbol. (If the lines were
drawn through, it would be one.) Please do not use it anymore.
benb, stars are used all over the place.  my country's flag has 50 of them.  do
you propose an exorcism? 
Chaning the qa contact on these bugs to me. MPT will be moving to the 
owner of this component shortly. I would like to thank him for all his hard 
work as he moves roles in mozilla.org...Yada, Yada, Yada...
QA Contact: asa → zach
Other suggested splash-screens from newsgroup:
http://www.corplink.com.au/~bennettf/mozilla.gif
http://www.crosswinds.net/~ggc/
OK, this bug has sat here for long enough. A splash screen has been chosen, and
we want to get it checked in after 0.9.

Assuming the author of this screen is one of those CCed: can you please make a
new version that says Mozilla 0.9 instead of 1.0? We'll check in the 1.0 version
just before we reach that.

I assume BenG has final say over which splash screen we use. As he doesn't read
bugmail, I'll send him email about it.

Gerv
New version of the Splash screen is on it's way. I'll post here when it's done. 
I think I'll make a couple new ones also, but in the style of the old one.
Feel free to make a couple of new ones, but _please_ make the one you post here 
the same as the one given, or (at least) that used to be given in the URL. If 
that's the one people wanted, and it's been agreed on, then we shouldn't mess 
with it. And I like it ;-)

Gerv
OK, has this splash screen been floated in all the popular places? (Little 
details like splash screens and throbbers are emotive things and my 
experience with changing them in the past without asking anybody has 
led to me being flamed ;) 

A note however: the progress text that appears on mac while the app 
starts is displayed in white. Copying smfr for comment. 
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED
I was under the impression that this bug was the result of a discussion, and 
that the screen that used to be in the URL (where did that go) was the winner. 
Is that not correct?

(I should note in passing that any screens featuring the green lizard may well 
meet substantial resistance from inside mozilla.org.)

Gerv
Okay! The updated version of the image is ready to rumble. It can be found at 
http://personal.inet.fi/cool/net/mozilla/new2/msplashc.jpg

I tested it with white text also, should do fine. Getting this in to Mozilla 
would mean alot to me!
Can you raise up the "version 0.9" so it's the same distance off the baseline as 
the "Mozilla"?

I take it it's exactly the same size as the other one... 

As long as you are sure it'll do fine with white text...

Gerv
Changes made. What do you think? Ready?
Who is sanctioning this splash screen? Was it decided by some form of popular 
vote? (I happen to like it less than the corrent splash.)

As for Mac, we draw progress text over the bottom part of the image, so there has 
to be sufficient contrast in the lower stripe to allow either black or white text 
to stand out.
> Changes made. What do you think? Ready?

Nope - still 1 pixel too low and 1 too far to the right. And yes, you can tell. 
:-) 

> Who is sanctioning this splash screen? Was it decided by some form of popular 
> vote?

Good question, and one I asked above :-) However, as endico@mozilla.org will 
attest, the current one using the green lizard is definitely a bug, and from 
that point of view replacing it with anything with our proper mascot on is 
better. And this one's reasonably slickly done.

As a sidenote, I think that, in general, a popular vote is a bad way to decide 
anything like this :-)

I rather thought from comments above that Mac could only do white status text - 
great. Black would be very useful on this image.

Gerv
I thought people complained about our use of the star. [Personally I like the 
star, and I like the proposed art]

Could the version use the same font face and color as mozilla? And it looks 
like the top triangle is not wide enough to line up with its matched sides 
(mostly stretch the left side, but also slightly stretch the right side).
Please don't check this in. We don't want the mozilla.org trademark to
be MPL'd which means for now, the red mozilla can't be checked in to the 
tree. Mitchell is in the process of making a way to work around that,
but until that's done, please don't check in any mozillas. Yes, there are
already some mozillas checked in to the tree but don't check in more. The
current splash screen is just fine the way it is for now.

In addition, I don't like the image. I don't like the railroad tracks,
I don't like the photography. The splash screen shouldn't have the
version number in it. Including the version number in the splash screen
would mean that it would have to be updated at every milestone and that
kind of thing would never happen. I'd rather not use the star any more.
The image is low res and mozilla's teeth are half filled in. The bottom
section doesn't contrast well enough with the white lettering on mac.

Someone should try making one based on this image.
http://mozilla.org/projects/svg/images/svgmoz.png

So maybe there shouldn't be a version number, but I've seen the majority of 
people liking my image. I didn't have the layered file anymore, so I had to edit 
the existing JPG. I didn't notice it to bee too different. Let's not rush with 
this...I really do hope, that we can blast the current splash - it gives an 
amateurish image of the project (not saying this image would do much better). 
This bug was all about getting a better splash for Mozilla, and I'm working on 
some new images (if this one is too radical).
Note that while I don't care for that image, I do appreciate the effort you're
putting in to this. The splash screen should follow the style of the rest of
our artwork. It would be nice to try something based on this image....

http://mozilla.org/party/1998/mozilla.gif

given the licensing and copyright issues surrouding the mozilla icon, as well as
the color controvery, it is strongly suggested that as long as mozilla 1.0 will
appear under the mozilla public license, that *no* dinosaur icon appear in any
part of the application.

since the use of term "mozilla" itself is presumably within legal boundaries, it
would seem most appropriate for a splash screen to use only the word "mozilla"
with a generic background, using either the block-form font used in the 1998
party ad (see link above), or the fiery font used in the current splash screen.

as for the issue surrounding the use of the "red star" and the possible satanist
and/or communist implications, it seems that without appropriate *objective*
research on the subject, no firm decisions should be made.


regardless, these issues need to be decided before an official 1.0 splash screen
and/or icon configuration can be determined.  two separate bugs regarding the
legalities behind the dinosaur icon and the red star controversy should be
opened; this bug should be marked dependent on them.
The legal status of the green lizard is irrelevant. Even if we were legally 
allowed to use it, staff@mozilla.org are adamant that the red lizard is 
mozilla.org's logo. End of story. No, I mean it. _End_ of story. I don't care if 
you think he's cute.

How exactly will opening a bug about the red star help? This subject has been 
done to death in the newsgroups. mozilla.org is not in the business of making 
political statements and, IMO, if we drop the red star because it has "communist 
overtones" we are doing just that. Also, bear in mind for a moment that people 
from all over the world contribute to Mozilla - quite possibly including some 
people who live in communist countries. 

We need a simple splash screen based on the red lizard. I like 
the orange train one but others don't. Fair enough. endico@mozilla.org has 
already suggested a good source for the graphics. Let's get on with it :-)

Gerv
my reasoning regarding a further examination of the "red star" issue is based on
the fact that a lot of passionate argumentation has been made, but very little
actual research has been done.  is the red star associated with particular
religious and/or political identities?  if so, *exactly* where and how?  are
those associations still valid currently?  who are the people making these
associations, and how are they represented in the potential user/developer base?

on top of that, your point that dropping the red star would be a "political"
statement is flawed.  preserving the icon could present mozilla as making an
equally significant political statement, however inadvertant that may be.

it should be fairly clear that mozilla would be making a political or religious
statment if certain, more blatant icons were used - the crucifix, the clockwise
swastika, the star of david, and so on.  but without an accurate assessment of
the potential unintended relevance of an icon like a solid, bold red star, it
should not be incorporated into a 1.0 release.

(p.s. - the 1998 moz party image endico linked to uses an orange star with a red
background, which may be more acceptable without ruining the general idea.)
This discussion is spamming too many people. We should move to a newsgroup.

> is the red star associated with particular
> religious and/or political identities?  if so, *exactly* where and how?  are
> those associations still valid currently?  who are the people making these
> associations, and how are they represented in the potential user/developer 
> base?

All of this is totally irrelevant. In the same way that if you are buying tights
in France, Microsoft is just another brand that you might consider, the current
Mozilla logo is known to be the Mozilla logo in the techie world. The fact that
it stands, or stood for, something else elsewhere is irrelevant. 

For some reason, Americans particularly seem to have a cold-war hangover
obsession with Communism as a great evil. Communism would be the ideal system of
government if humans were perfect - but we aren't, so it isn't. 

Mozilla is contributed to by people from all around the world, with many
differing political viewpoints and ideologies, and who follow a variety of
different religions. Saying "we are changing our logo because we think it stands
for Communism and Communism is nasty and we stand for truth, justice and the
American Way" may well be deeply offensive to some of those people.

> on top of that, your point that dropping the red star would be a "political"
> statement is flawed.  preserving the icon could present mozilla as making an
> equally significant political statement, however inadvertant that may be.

You can't "inadvertently" make a political statement. And, even if you could, if
any political statement would be made by having the star as Mozilla's icon, it
has been made long ago. It's been our logo for three years now.

Also, if you consider the orange star less offensive, when does orange become
red? Do you get more and more annoyed the more red it gets? 

Gerv
hear hear!

What Gerv said, three times over.
in order to be a little more proactive, i've put up two very rough ideas for
splash screens. 

http://www.northwestern.edu/people/ratman/mozilla1.jpg
http://www.northwestern.edu/people/ratman/mozilla2.jpg

neither of these include the red star icon.  the first one actually doesn't
include any icon at all, and the second one has the commie mozilla peeking in
from the side.


these are not final products, but are merely a demonstration of the fact that
the visual effect produced without the red star is not all that different from
one that includes it.


as for the use of the red star, i think there are too many questions and random
(and possibly invalid) assumptions being drawn for there not to be a filed bug
on the issue blocking this bug.  unless i'm beaten to it, i'll try to do so in
the near future.
I have to say that both of these images would give an amateurish image of the 
project. The current splash screen is on the same level with these. I'd like to 
see _professional_ or at least more finished looking image to kick Mozilla's 
ego. Maybe I'll have to make more propotions based on the red saurus. This bug 
is more than a year old, and the splash screen made back then may not be the 
best possible option we have right now.
to provide clarification - the two images i referenced are provided only as
examples of the visual effect of not including any icons (or limitedly including
the dino icon) in the splash screen.

they are not intended as actual proposed splash screens at all.  i pulled them
out of my derriere while i was waiting for the guy from domino's pizza.  i was
thinking "pepperoni on fire".  i'm sorry.
okay, i've been satiated.  here are two slightly less amateurish ideas,
following the same pattern as before:

http://www.nwu.edu/people/ratman/mozilla3.jpg
http://www.nwu.edu/people/ratman/mozilla4.jpg

again, the idea here is just to consider splash screens that don't use the red
star.  from my observation, the only prominent use of the red star icon at this
time is only in the "about:" dialog - only the dino is present in mozilla.org. 
i doubt it will be missed.

p.s.: i made an icon for the above splash screens too, same directory, just
replace the jpg file names with mozicon.jpg or mozicon.ico, depending on your
preference.
I was just wondering why the new splash has to be completely redone? I thought
that the fire breathing moz was cute except for the **** background. I was
looking at some of the images joona was creating, and I thought
http://personal.inet.fi/cool/net/mozilla/gsplash2.jpg was sufficient. I agree
that the first image about the railroad tracks and stuff to me did not resembol
mozilla any way. But does the splash screen really need to be drastically
changed? Or just some minor improvements?
1) red, not green.
2) red, not green.
3) red, not green.
4) dino, not lizard.
5) and not cute!

actually, peering at the unpublicized splash screens in joona's /mozilla
directory reveals a number of excellent potential ones - my favorite is
http://personal.inet.fi/cool/net/mozilla/esplash1.jpg, which neutralizes the
whole "red star" thing altogether.
It needs to be redone because mozilla.org does _not_ want to use the green 
lizzard.
Why shouldn't we have the green lizzard?? I mean, we should be using the same
thing we have been using since Microsoft decided to dump their stupid "e" for
internet explorer on Netscapes lawn, that they defaced and had cute little
mozzie sitting on top of it.
this bug is not about any green lizards.
THIS BUG IS NOT ABOUT ANY GREEN LIZARDS.
ohhh that is soooo nice! I vote for that logo!
(a) it's 1.0 [or pre 1.0] not 5.0
(b) it's not exactly released under NPL, i think.  the code is NPL or MPL

otherwise I really like it.
OK, This is getting old. I am sure that by now, the developers CCd on this bug
are sick of this bickering and spam. Mozilla has many other bugs which need to
be fixed prior to this one. I would ask that comments be taken to the
newsgroups, but I know that not much will get done there either.

The only way we will have a solution is if Mozilla.org holds a contest (similar
to the one for the throbber) to vote for a new splash. At the same time, I'd
recommend that there be a contest for application icons as well. (although I
think that there was mention of those going to a 3rd party design shop.)

Designers should be able to submit proposals with a few rules:

1. Mozilla.org has determined that due to several copyright/trademark issues,
the green mozilla lizard will not be allowed on the splash screen. (Besides,
that lizard has grown up and is now a big red dino.)
2. The picture must be certain dimensions with certain color limitations and
must contain a contrasting bar for status text. Other text should be limited due
to international issues. etc. etc. etc...

Of course, this should all be done once the issues with the red dino/MPL are
worked out. If mozilla goes about it in this manner, we can be asured that it
will be settled quickly and easily. And best of all, we can hope that this bug
will be resolved with a minimal amount of new spam. 
Attached image This should do it
Summary: Mozilla's splash screen should be changed to msplashc.jpg in the URL mentioned (description). → Mozilla's splash screen should be changed to something, who knows what
Just adding my 2 cents but...

-I don't think the star may be took as a satanism thing, as long as the crossing
lines drawing the star are not there.
-The red star may cause bad opinion on mozilla. Some people saw the Mozilla Icon
on my desktop and were wondering if it was sort of communist republics software
-The splash logo need to reflect the spirit of mozilla. For example, Netscape6
is simple, but really powerful.
-The colors should also be taken from the default Mozilla css style... (the new
grey / blue one I think)

I looked all the splash screens. Does the railroad means something ? It makes
thing , go ahead. But mozilla should appear to allow moving in all directions
(exploring the web). Ex:The Netscape Navigator navigation icon were great for
this idea.

The too much simple wouldn't be useful too. In fact, we should really ask to
people working in marketing pictures, or publicity for rules on what to do.

The splash screen is the first impress the user will get on the 'product'. It's
really important.
"as for the issue surrounding the use of the "red star" and the possible
satanist and/or communist implications, it seems that without appropriate
*objective* research on the subject, no firm decisions should be made."

The star is not a pentagram (hence Satanism), it is a pentacle - just like
those on the U.S. flag, just like any other star. If it was a pentagram, it
would be pointing downwards (that is, it would be upside down). And the only
Communist association comes from the color red, not the fact that the star is a
star.

As for Mozilla and communism, communism is not the point in the whole revolution
theme. The point is revolution against the Great Satan of Software - Microsoft,
who have tried very hard to kill Netscape, and Mozilla, and failed.

As for the splash screens attached here, I don't see how the railroad tracks
look any more professional than the current splash. At least the current splash
has good colors - the railroad tracks one looks washed out, and railroad tracks
have little to do with Mozilla. If you're going to use a background photo, use
something relevant, or at least something that's not irrelevant. 

Actually I LIKE the current splash, other than the fact that it has a blank
status-loading text field that hasn't been used (Communicator had the same
thing). (Interesting tidbit: did you know that if you zoom way in on that splash
image you can see the author's name in the red background?).

I suggest a MozillaZine contest to redefine the splash, listing specific
guidelines (as Endico outlined above), and pointing to a newsgroup discussion on
it. Also, saying "popular vote is a bad way to do things like this" means that
you don't really care what anyone else thinks. Mozilla has an open-source
community behind it - why not let them vote on it? I only found this bug by
accident - use MozillaZine! That's what it's for!

As to someone's comment that the Netscape 6 splash was a good one, I hate it. It
looks like a bunch of kid's blocks, and the colors of blue they picked were just
awful - and blue is my favorite color. Whatever you do, don't use that as a
template. Mozilla should NOT look like AOL if we can avoid it.

I actually like the last one attached here the best. It's the background I
really like. I'd increase the size of that background, though, to make it more
prominent. Why is the top 1/3 all gray? It looks tacky against the bright
background colors. 
> Also, saying "popular vote is a bad way to do things like this" means that
> you don't really care what anyone else thinks.

This a direct quote, or at least a paraphrase, of a member of mozilla.org staff. 
Everyone always suggests a contest of some sort to resolve any controversial 
issue, as if this is somehow the best way. It's not - it's design by committee 
by any other name, it allows random people with no connection with the project 
to come along and stick their oar in, and it produces something which the 
greatest number of people don't dislike, rather than like.

For example, what happened if there were 8 screens entered, and the winning one 
had 19% of the vote. This could easily happen. How exactly is that a mandate?

Gerv
Please see <a href="http://grafica.mareotis.com/mozilla/versions.htm">this</a>
Sorry for the spam.. but why couldn't someone start a Mozilla splash screen
competition (for example on Mozillazine)? I'd definitelly apply. BUt not until
than, because I've seen a lot of splashes posted recently, but in the end,
nothing came out of it...
--mondo
Please look at: http://www.geocities.com/mozillaman2000/
It has the red Mozilla logo.
Just to throw in my few cents:

http://home.alphalink.com.au/~cltan/temp/splash-export.png

It has the red SVG lizard and the industrial buildings, no star, no subliminal
communism messages, etc. It's basically done on the theme of the www.mozilla.org
graphics. Have a look.

I'm also working on some icons along the same theme in my spare time, but I
realise that probably not everybody likes my style of graphics so I'll keep them
to myself.
Fine, I think it's clear that the green lizard, despite it's overwhelming
popularity is gone, permanently. Even I've stopped beating this dead horse.
Although Mozilla had a few words for me... See the story here:
http://www.alltel.net/~burnt/greenmoz.html

Anyway, I see a REALLY big problem with any splash with the Red Moz logo. Half
way down the page Dawn said this:
 "Please don't check this in. We don't want the mozilla.org trademark to be
MPL'd which means for now, the red mozilla can't be checked in to the tree."

Ok, I can understand this. Of course, a simple edit to the MPL could fix this.
Make the Red Moz image trademark an exception from the license, with limited
rights of distribution. You may use, but not modify, etc. Sure, RMS devotees
will scream in pain at more rights being stripped away (from them that is, it's
ok to screw the developer of rights though), but the MPL isn't GNU anyway, so
who cares. I'd say just exempt this logo from the license. But...

Later in the VERY SAME COMMENT Dawn says this:
 "Someone should try making one based on this image.
http://mozilla.org/projects/svg/images/svgmoz.png"

Now, maybe I was shaken a little too hard as a baby, but it would seem to me
that these two statements are mutually exclusive of each other. How can we make
a splashed based on that image when that is the very image that we're NOT
supposed to use for risk of diluting it via the MPL?

And another point. The font. Aside from being very ugly, it's not free, nor
open, nor even shareware. It's 20 GPB, or about $28 US (at current exchange
rates). Now, even though it's licensed for up to ten people per license,
bringing it down to US$2.80 per user, we still have to worry about distribution
and collecting that US$2.80. I suggest not making this font manditory for splash
screens (really for ANY graphic in Mozilla, but that's a bigger windmill to tilt
at) and using a free/open font (Ray Larabie is my personal fave).

I would be glad to approach Ray about designing a font specifically for the
Mozilla organization and project. I've spoken with him before, and he's used
some of my ideas for fonts in the past. I'm sure he'd love to give it a whirl.
If anyone wants the font, email me: netdemonz@yahoo.com. BTW - I'm constantly 
updating the splash screen at the url I posted earlier.
Please send links to all splash screens that should be considered as
replacements of the current one to pali@pali.sk . Thank you. I'm about to
compile a list of all images, so that drivers@mozilla.org & staff@mozilla.org
could choose a replacement that will be used in the tree & milestone releases.

--mondo
Don't send splash screens to drivers or staff, as I'm sure they don't care. 
This bug is blocked by 28028.  Until that is resolved, no more comments in this
bug please, as it is just noise.  All discussions and prototypes need to be done
in .ui, not here.  I am taking this bug from ben, as discussed, and futuring it,
as well as cleaning up the summary and priority/severity and moving it to B-G.
Assignee: ben → kerz
Severity: normal → trivial
Status: ASSIGNED → NEW
Component: User Interface Design → Browser-General
Depends on: 28028
Priority: P3 → P5
Hardware: PC → All
Summary: Mozilla's splash screen should be changed to something, who knows what → Mozilla needs an updated splash screen.
Target Milestone: --- → Future
*** Bug 93093 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Blocks: 93093
Since this seems to be the repository for splash links, what the hell. Everyone
lovs a little spam.
http://www.geocities.com/mozamp/mozsplash.html
This is the one and only location for my splashes, so check every couple months
for new ones. the ones that used to be there are gone, because they suck.

Any word on the lawyerspeak for the Red Mozilla dino design?
So now that the license thing is finished with, can this be sent to
drivers@mozilla.org? I really think both this and the icons are important for
the release of 1.0.




BTW -
My ?final? splashes are available here:
http://www.geocities.com/mozillaman2000/
The license change was to change the existing license on source files.  Nothing 
to do with images.  Nothing has been resolved.
A clarification: the license problems with the mozilla.org-identifying images
are indeed separate from the ongoing license changes in the code tree - but
those license changes do involve images in the code tree as well.

Mitchell is working on the mozilla.org-identifying images licensing issues.

Gerv
I'm starting an effort to formalize an effort to revise the parts of Mozilla's
appearance outside themes, such as the icon suite, the installer, the splash
screen, and the Profile Manager dialog.

I've started a web page with some initial ideas and bug links at
[http://greg.tcp.com/mozilla/ui/Outside/introduction.html]. I welcome any and
all comments on it.
Why has nothing happened?

Clearly everyone is in agreement that the current Splash Screen as Kerz mentiones
Sucks really bad.

Quite a few very nuce alternatives are available, why not implement on of them?

I expecially like the first one here;
http://digilander.iol.it/mozillaart/oldstuff/index.html

Just my 20 millidollars...

I really like the splash screens at http://www.slater.ch/moz/ - I've currently
got the "I love Moz" one in my tree, and it makes Mozilla look far nicer
overall. Is there any chance of a new splash screen this year? This bug is
nearly two years old! Even if it's a temporary replacement, with a vote coming
later, at least update the current one, it's horrid!
It should go without saying, but we are waiting for a resolution to bug 
28028 (which has been marked as a dependency). Go vote for that :-)
btw, all you have to do is use a bitmap image called: mozilla.bmp  

-which is the filename you need to use and place it in your mozilla.org/mozilla
nightly directory, and walla.
walla? What's walla? I think you mean "Voila" (French, you know).
Attached image How about this one?
This bug has to be fixed before 1.0
This bug should be blocking bug 103705
A splash screen like Netscape 6.2 would be nice. That one gives a very
proffesional impression. And to my question. Does the browser HAVE to have a
splash screen??
Bennet: no offence, but that splash screen looks satanic. Especially with the
point on the end of the tail.
What does everyone think about this one?
Somehow it looks a bit revolutionary to me. 
Attached image A simple alternative.
Actually I rather like <A
href="http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=59142&action=edit">59142</A>
- it's just a little too "busy" for me. I disagree that the splash screen
should be entirely theme-independant. A consistent interface is a better
interface; with a splash screen, you really need to make some kind of visual
link between the "loading" image and the eventual item else the average Joe
hasn't got a clue what it was.
<P>Take the background M, the interface screenshot, and (maybe) the lizard out
of the 59142 splash screen and I'd vote it a winner. 
<P>Perhaps a separate bug: why is the mac version the only one to show loading
progress?
Matt, I think MACS do that on its own (OS fills in the loading proceedures,) but
it would be nice if this could be seen on other OS.

But I would like to know what the backup plan is if we can't decide on a new
splash when 1.0 is shipped. Is the splashscreen just going to be removed until
one is decided or what? We are getting pretty close to the wire on this one, and
we can't wait for the last minute debate to pick one when it is time to ship.
(Of course you guys know this right?)
Attached image another splashscreen
i will soon be losing my web account, so my splash screen suggestion from
comment 43 is now attached here.  once again, we can temporarily bypass the
issue of image rights (bug 28028) by eliminating potentially
copyrightable/trademarkable images.  given the time frame involved, this is the
best solution.
>Matt, I think MACS do that on its own (OS fills in the loading proceedures,) but
>it would be nice if this could be seen on other OS.

I'm not sure what you mean by "OS fills in the loading proceedures", but it's 
nothing special that the OS is doing. We just have some platform-specific 
resources for the Mac splash screen that add a text field with the default text 
of "Loading...", and update that from XPCOM observer callbacks.

And, please, "Mac", not "MAC". It's not an acronym.
I made the Z a bit softer.
Attachment #67943 - Attachment is obsolete: true
What's the deal with this bug?

Why can't we update the splash screen? 

http://personal.inet.fi/cool/net/mozilla/hsplash1.jpg
http://personal.inet.fi/cool/net/mozilla/new2/msplashc.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/mozillaman2000/
http://digilander.iol.it/mozillaart/oldstuff/index.html [my favourite !!!!!]

are all great. Why are we debating with endless people submitting their own,
personal pride and personal sentiment asside, inferior and tacky designs? 

> Why can't we update the splash screen?

This bug is blocked by bug 28028.
Can we have some action on this please?

Let me come back to Ben Goodgers list of what a splash screen should be:
- be light on text. images are not localizable ;)
- not integrate with any particular skin, splash screens are not skinnable.
- not contain loading text, this is overlayed in programmatically if the 
platform supports this (e.g. mac)
- get the dates and version numbers right ;) mozilla.org has decided that 
its first release is "Mozilla 1.0"

I'd like to add another two:
- Contain only official Mozilla imagery
- Not contain copyrighted material

The current splash screen does not fit these two new rules (the green mozilla is
copyright Netscape, and if they wanted to sue Mozilla.org then they would
probably win ;). The red mozilla is the official Mozilla.org mascot/logo).

The splashscreens located at
http://www.slater.ch/moz/
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~cltan/temp/splash-export.png

do fit all these rules (or could be easily modified so that they did).

Legally, using the green mozilla is probably a 1.0 blocker (although removing
the splashscreen would solve that).
http://www.slater.ch/moz/

any of these get my vote.
<qa ignore>
Please do not use this bug to vote for your favorite splash screens. If you have
created a new splash screen which conforms to all the above rules, then post it
to netscape.public.mozilla.ui to get some opinions on it before posting it here.
Frank, is there any news on an image license?  This will have to be cut from 1.0
if not.

All: please don't post splashscreens or your feelings on splashscreens in this
bug.  Do that in npm.ui.

adding mozilla1.0 keyword and targetting for 1.0 for now.  If there's no
movement on a license, we'll try and get something generic in.
Keywords: mozilla1.0
Target Milestone: Future → mozilla1.0
Another note:

Splash screens should NOT have hardwired version numbers or dates. Those will be
put in programmatically.

Some of the aforementioned splash screens break that.
my understanding of bug 28028 blocking this bug includes the fact that if the
"official" red dino image was included in the code/splash screen, the issue of
copyright protection and the mpl would be problematic at best (see comment 32).
 the images at

http://www.slater.ch/moz/
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~cltan/temp/splash-export.png

both include the red dino, and the former page includes an "invalid" copyright
claim.

once again, given the time frame involved here, if licensing cannot be
straightened out in time for 1.0, this bug should be a 1.0 blocker and a splash
screen devoid of any potentially copyrightable images should be used, such as
attachment 36096 [details], attachment 68788 [details], attachment 68888 [details], or the image at
http://www.slater.ch/moz/splashscreen7.gif.
Nice to know that people can't read basic english!

Ratman, take it to a news group!
Mitchell is the person to ask about image licenses (though I would be glad to
help her with this if she wants to go forward with it). In any case, I think
having a set of generic images (for splash screen, throbber, about page, desktop
icons, etc.) would be a good idea; I recommend that you proceed with that.
i'm working on the generic images
Moving Netscape owned 0.9.9 and 1.0 bugs that don't have an nsbeta1, nsbeta1+,
topembed, topembed+, Mozilla0.9.9+ or Mozilla1.0+ keyword.  Please send any
questions or feedback about this to adt@netscape.com.  You can search for
"Moving bugs not scheduled for a project" to quickly delete this bugmail.
Target Milestone: mozilla1.0 → mozilla1.2
back it comes.
Target Milestone: mozilla1.2 → mozilla1.0
*** Bug 130551 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Just a random, useless comment, but I favour the very styly and simple factory
backdrop and red lizard. http://mozilla.org/party/1998/mozilla.gif would be
great,  perhaps without the "free the lizard" text, and mayhap rearrenged to be
landscape. I'd definitely like to see that one land, after these
licensing/trademark/et cetera issues are resolved!
Attached image a splash screen
hi everybody!
this is another splash screen. I hope you like it as I do :-)

bye
Francesco De Francesco <fdefrancesco@iol.it>
please post new splashscreens and comments on splashscreens to the newsgroups
ONLY, not this bug. netscape.public.mozilla.ui
sorry. I can't view newsgroups however: i've troubles with my ISP (tiscalinet.it).

could I publish my pics on a website and give you a link?

bye all
Francesco <fdefrancesco@iol.it>
That, again, has a hardcoded version number.

Endico: Can you please post a spec on the newsgroup and in this bug and the icon
bug of requirements for splash screens and icons? Thank you.
This one is non-theme related. Using standard mozilla artwork.

Its clean, professional, and easy to look at. It follows a standard style, and
won't become dated. The mozila text can be moved up to accomidate a version
number, or whatever else is needed.
well, what about voting for the best ones?
i think, that < http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=75935&action=view
> is still the best one, only the font for "mozilla" looks ugly (its simply not
fitting into the picture).
the only alternative (for me) would be <
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=36038&action=view >, although it
has too little space for build and loading-info (i think).
in reply to comment #112

> only the font for "mozilla" looks ugly (its simply not
> fitting into the picture)

do you know where can I find an hi-res (preferably clean) picture which includes
the word "Mozilla" in the original font? must I repaint it from scratch?

bye
Francesco <fdefrancesco@iol.it>
I like the two available here better than any of the ones in this bug:
http://digilander.iol.it/mozillaart/oldstuff/index.html
 [ reply to http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32218#c113 ]

hmm, i could only identify the font, if that helps...
the font is called "Revolution", published by AGFA-Monotype.
for more information see <
http://www.identifont.com/identify?19+mozilla+4KG+3A6+6V+9M+1Z+20V+20Z+2ZF+97+9J+33I+773+1TR+2E+J+9Z+76Y+9T+M
>, i hope it helps.

(you could take either the "mozilla" from the starthomepage, or from there by
assembling the characters to "mozilla".

 - but i rather thought of taking a more professional looking font, like
Helvetica Neue or similar fonts.

if you need any information concerning fonts, send me an email.
Attached image yet another splash
hello everyone!
for everyone interested (and especially in reply to comment #112) I built
another splashscreen using the Revolution font. It uses a loading bar too.

Please tell me (in private e-mail too) if you like it or if you think I should
use a sans-serif font instead (as Benjamin Schallar, comment #115, said).

thanks for your support
see you soon
Francesco <fdefrancesco@iol.it>
Please do not post splashscreens or comments on splashscreens to this bug. 

I have setup a website for discussing the splashscreen of posting your creations
at http://www.lemnet.com/mozilla/
If you do not want people to post splashscreens or comments to this bug, than
perhaps you ought to pick up the pace on resolving it.  This bug has been open
with no resolution or even movement toward resolution in OVER TWO YEARS!  This
is not only unacceptable, it is shameful.

The people are getting restless as is clear by the flurry of activity that
surrounds this bug every time a new post is made to it by some bright guy with a
new splashscreen.  We want to replace the unspeakably ugly splashscreen we are
currently saddled with.  What is so hard to understand about that?  ANY CHANGE
WOULD BE FOR THE BETTER!  

Do not presume to say "this is not the place" when it is clear that every other
place is ignored.

I say keep the comments and the attachments coming.  Ignore these pleas to take
this discussion "off line" and something may actually get done about it. 
Josh, and everyone...

I'd advise you all to please consider the way bugzilla works. It is a massive
database of attachments, summaries, and descriptions. Every new attachment or
description makes searching through the database that much more difficult. Yes
this bug has been here for 2 years, and yes it should be fixed before 1.0, but
adding meaningless "I like that one" comments and attaching hundreds of
splashscreens will not make the bug get fixed any faster. There have been many
comments made throughout this bugs life that most people haven't bothered to
read because of all the crap that fills this bug. I'm going to go ahead and
restate the most important of those comments so that everyone out there knows
exactly what is happening.

If you want to comment, you can post a message to netscape.public.mozilla.ui at
news.mozilla.org. if you want to submit a splashscreen, you can do so at Ian's
website http://www.lemnet.com/mozilla/ and I'm sure plenty others. Please do not
try to start some sort of revolution in the bug database. That will only anger
people and possibly cause you to lose your account.

The Facts:
1. This bug is blocked (partially) by bug 28028 which means that you cannot put
the Red Mozilla Dinosaur or any other Mozilla.org copyrighted item in the
splashscreen. This is due to some licensing issues that the lawyers are figuring
out. If you want this process to move faster or whatever, Mitchell Baker (the
Chief Lizard Wrangler) is assigned that bug and you can take it up with her at
mitchell@mozilla.org. I've talked with her already and the issue is definitely a
complicated one so...
2. Make a generic splashscreen. No attachment to one theme, no mozilla
iconography, no red dino, (no green lizard especially). very little text (we
can't localize the splashscreen), have a blank copy where version numbers can be
applied each time, no loading text (just a space for it) it will be written
overtop later (hence the black stripe in our current screen)
3. Dawn Endico (endico@mozilla.org) has said that artwork style should be
similar to the artwork for our parties/website. You can find this artwork all
around mozilla.org. some examples: http://mozilla.org/party and
http://mozilla.org/banners - the font is the revolution font from comment #116
but as always, the higher-ups at mozilla.org may want something a little
different, so make sure you keep the original so you can change it. :-)
4. Dawn is also working on a generic splashscreen (as per comment #102 ) so you
might best be in contact with dawn at endico@mozilla.org or on IRC to make sure
you are on the right track.

And finally, if you have questions or comments about what the splashscreen
should look like, or when we are going to get a splashscreen, or wanting a
contest on mozillazine or mozillanews, or whatever... I'd recommend that you
email the perties that would be able to help you, or go on IRC and talk to
people, or post a message on the newsgroups. This bug is filled enough already
and you can definitely make a bigger noise if you comment in the right venues
rather than spam a bug report that most people are ignoring.
Whiteboard: DO NOT SPAM
*** Bug 143879 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I see many people talking about the font that is used on the splash screens. I 
have said this before but there have been so many posts of people obviously 
not reading previous postings that I'll post it again. That font is 
REVOLUTION. The M is slightly changed for the Mozilla.org graphics. Email me 
for information on it. 

If you searched netscape.public.mozilla.ui on Google Groups - you would know 
this.

Please stop posting splash screens or your comments about splash screens to 
this bug. People are sick of the spam and the obscuring of useful information 
with people's opinions. There are probably hundreds of splash screens not 
linked to on this bug. Therefore, your screens WON'T be ignored if they aren't 
on this bug. Lots of the links on this bug are out of date anyway. The 
following URLs keep a more up-to-date list. Please only post a comment on this 
bug if you have compiled such a list with many splash screens from various 
people:

http://www.pali.sk/mozilla/splash_list.html
http://www.lemnet.com/mozilla/

Mozilla artwork here:
http://mozilla.org/party/

SVG here:
http://mozilla.org/projects/svg/

PLEASE KEEP OPINIONS ON AND LINKS TO SPLASH SCREENS TO YOURSELF. PLEASE KEEP 
COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE TIME THIS BUG IS OPEN TO YOURSELF. IF YOU HAVE 
COMPLAINTS, OPINIONS, OR QUESTIONS REGARDING THE STATUS OF THIS BUG, THEN 
PLEASE USE EMAIL OR NEWSGROUPS.

PLEASE USE DISCRETION BEFORE POSTING TO THIS BUG.
somebody being interested, I posted another splashscreen on
http://www.lemnet.qatlantis.com/mozilla/ as requested. as usual, please make me
know if you like it! :-)

bye all
Francesco
Ok, thanks for adding that link to your page... but even if you have a page
listing multiple splash screens, please "cache" the info for page updates and
tell us about them all at once in a larger posting (maybe every couple months)
to keep comments down in this bug. Thanks - I'm sure it will be appreciated. :-)
in reply to comment #123:
that's *not* my page. that's a page that collects splashscreen /in order to
reduce the traffic/ on this bug. you even signaled it in your comment #121 just
like Mike Young did in comment #119! I'm getting bored of this policy! what
should we use Bugzilla for? I tought this time I had done something good since I
had not post binaries here but... I'm gonna post *nothing* more if things go
this way! and if somebody wants to see my latest splash, will look for it in
lemnet.com/mozilla every 2 or 3 days. do you think this is right? I don't.

Sincerely,
Francesco
I'm sorry you were offended, but there are so many splash screens being created,
and if every one of them were mentioned on this bug, it would probably take
hours to read every comment. That is why those pages that list multiple splash
screens is good. I accidentally thought you were the one who maintained the page
because you said you had posted the splash screen as requested (therefore i
assumed that they requested it of you and this was a second email account you
use with Bugzilla)

Yes, people can bookmark those pages and view them as frequently as they want to
see new splash screens. If they are not interested in seeing the new splash
screens, I doubt they will want to hear about it from this bug - so regardless
of how proud you are of the hard work you put into it, they will feel you are
forcing the splash screen down their throat if they are just CCed on this bug to
see if the legal issues have been resolved, etc etc.

Until the legal issues are resolved, there will be no splash screen in Mozilla
save the generic screen that Endico is working on. I assume when the time comes,
people will be more interested, but as of now, splash screens are moot.
Therefore, when the time comes, people will start looking at all the splash
screens and try to decide on the one they like best. Therefore, as long as your
splash screen can be found from those listing pages, you don't have to worry
about it not having an equal chance compared to the other splash screens.

Maybe Mozilla could even have a splash screen .xpi installation page or
something so that people aren't bound down to the splash screen that is settled on.
ok. that's right. I agree.
*then* why don't we build a kind of "official website" where to put ALL the
splashscreens/artwork which relate to this bug? www.lemnet.com/mozilla doesn't
look bad but... improving it or making -from scratch if necessary- something
more organic (and more "official-like") would be useful. (a kind of
'splashzilla', in other words :)

sorry for having been so hard in my recent post
see ya soon
Francesco
I have been thinking about taking slashcode and making a Mozilla forum based off
of that, with part of it being a rating system for artwork, or maybe just a
ratings system for artwork and that's it, but I'm concerned about bandwidth
issues. I am only on cable.

I'm sure I could probably pull some kind of artwork rating system or equivalent
off sourceforge.com, and if I kept it to that, then bandwidth wouldn't be a problem.

The thing is, I would like it to be bigger than that, but I don't know if I
could handle the number of connections I would get.
I submitted a new project to SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net) called
SplashZilla. they say I must wait 2 business days... I hope they'll accept my
proposal!

I'll keep you in track
Francesco
Attached image another one ...
actualy I wanted to make a big foot ..like godzilla !!
We grow older ...
<bastard mode="on"> uh... I tought sending splashes here was deprecated...
</bastard>

btw, http://sourceforge.net/projects/splashzilla is up and running. can somebody
help me managing it? I'm not familiar with SF...
thanks in advance
Francesco
Personally, I don't think this bug will ever be closed :-) because the amount of
creativity the splash screen can gnerate is endless. I think it will be on going
and the splashscreens should be changed from time to time along with major
releases. At what intervals for change should be decided be the community, it
could be by time (eg. every half year), by fixed interval releases (eg every
third major release) or by every release (every 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 etc.) 

I would really like to see all the good splashes see light to day.
Hopefully these are some ideas for your splashzilla project.
Personally, I believe we should settle on one splash screen and allow a
mechanism for easily changing the splash screen.

There are many reasons for this. One is for stability and product
identification. If we are constantly changing the splash screen, people might
get upset because they liked the previous splash screen more than the new one.
Another reason is because it is unecessary work when there will be plenty of
themes sites that could host splash screens. I think we should leave it up to
people to change their own splash screen.

I would also like to see splash screens on unix machines.
Attached image a very clean splash
Not sure who to credit for this image, but its worth a look-see.
I think its time to Resolve this bug with a new code "AN OOPS", since we just
released 1.0
Attached image How about this one ;)
Dear Sirs:

I was showing Mozilla 1.0 to my boss, the little dragon did not too much for Mozilla. For him it didn't look professional, Mozilla seemed to be an Internet toy made by forty teens.

An adequate Splash Screen is an important thing if we want Mozilla to be taken seriously.
why don't we just turn off the splash screen?! on other os's like linux it isn't
shown and I like it better that way then the splash screen we currently have..
my poor splashscreen :)
sorry for the spam ;)
Attached file inappropriate (obsolete) —
well :) why not :) ;) :p
Attachment #90213 - Attachment description: a very splash splashscreen :p → inappropriate
Attachment #90213 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #90213 - Attachment mime type: image/jpeg → application/octetstream
Attachment #90213 - Attachment mime type: application/octetstream → application/octet-stream
Attachment #90213 - Attachment mime type: application/octet-stream → image/jpeg
Attachment #90213 - Attachment mime type: image/jpeg → application/octet-stream
I got a huge gallery of mozilla/netscape splashes here:
http://www.resexcellence.com/user_splash_Netscape.shtml

Unforetuneately, they are all .sitted and even if you unsit them, some are empty
archives with nothing but a readme (which is sometimes empty), and some are
empty .rsc files which neither mozilla nor stuffit recognizes.

This might be as a result of unsitting on a PC.  Can any macintosh users unsit
and put up a .bmp/.jpg mirror of the above sit?
Splash screen suggestion, released under a MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license. Contact me
at wowtip-at-home.se
I suggest marking this bug report invalid on the grounds that its
signal-to-noise ratio is less than 10 percent.
mpt: invalid would just cause people to ask "Why is this bug invalid?". 

Is there any way we can make this "Read only" until bug 28028 is resolved?
*** Bug 162614 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
RFE - Splash screen sucks!
*** Bug 164073 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This shouldn't be marked as dependent on 28028 - if you just DELETE the splash, 
no licensing is required. The current one is illegal anyway - why is it still 
being allowed in the builds?

If other people are as irritated as I am about the splash screen, they should 
VOTE for it. I can't believe it has only 41 votes, when it has almost 150 
comments.

I for one will not use mozilla for browzing until the splash is changed, or 
more sensibly just deleted. 
I agree. It is ugly and unprofessional. It looks like something out of some 12
year old's "l33t" vb app.
i agree with mpt and his suggestion in comment 143.

i *strongly* suggest closing this bug as invalid.  at this point, i do not see
any possibility of any future comments or inclusions here leading to a
"successful" solution to this bug.  this is a trivial, p5 bug targeted for a
long past milestone.  end it,  please.
>at this point, i do not see any possibility of any future comments or
>inclusions here leading to a "successful" solution to this bug.

Are you tripping? 'Delete the splash screen' bugs gets filed as a
duplicates of this one! Just get rid of it, problem solved, splashscreen
'updated'!

Signal/noise ratio <10%: Generate more noise, maybe someone will get off their 
dorrie and delete the file.
endico: 

How is the generic splash screen coming along? Can we replace the current one 
that has legal issues with a generic one with no images, no Revolution font, 
just arial text or something for the time being?

Ratman said: "i *strongly* suggest closing this bug as invalid.  at this 
point, i do not see any possibility of any future comments or inclusions here 
leading to a "successful" solution to this bug.  this is a trivial, p5 bug 
targeted for a long past milestone.  end it,  please."

AFAIK, the legal issues are close to being resolved.




 Let's close the bug? Part of wide acceptence of Mozilla invloves Mozilla looking more professional    and actually looking like a final project (for example, not having Final builds such as 1.1 goto    mozilla.org/start/ have them point to mozilla.org/start/1.0/). Mozilla will still be laughed at in    any professional setting due to it's splash screen and I don't think that is a good impression to    make on people. One of the things I hate about the MOzilla project is that it takes an act of god to    get anything done around here. This bug has been open for years, all it requires is replacing or    removing some bitmap. Now you're saying it should just be closed and marked as invalid? This truely    is redicules. I think someone needs to take some initiative and resolve this bug, take 5 seconds of    there time and replace the bitmap with a more professional looking splash or just remove it.      I also feel this is more then trivial. Believe it or not it is things like this that affect   widespread acceptiance of Mozilla. While things like MathML support are nice, it's not the type of   thing that is going to impress your average joe or corporate user. Mozilla is past 1.0 now, we need to stop treating it like it's a beta and that it's just for developers and the curious. And certain cosmetic things, as shocking as it is to all of you elitest developers, affect the acceptance of Mozilla, and I hope, I really do hope, that that is something that is not "trivial" to you. 
Sorry got posted as one long line last time - Hopefully it works now.
-----------
Let's close the bug? Part of wide acceptence of Mozilla invloves Mozilla looking
more professional and actually looking like a final project (for example, not
having Final builds such as 1.1 goto mozilla.org/start/ have them point to
mozilla.org/start/1.0/). Mozilla will still be laughed at in any professional
setting due to it's splash screen and I don't think that is a good impression to
   make on people. One of the things I hate about the Mozilla project is that it
takes an act of god to get anything done around here. This bug has been open for
years, all it requires is replacing or removing some bitmap. Now you're saying
it should just be closed and marked as invalid? This truely is redicules. I
think someone needs to take some initiative and resolve this bug, take 5 seconds
of    there time and replace the bitmap with a more professional looking splash
or just remove it.

I also feel this is more then trivial. Believe it or not it is things like this
that affect   widespread acceptiance of Mozilla. While things like MathML
support are nice, it's not the type of thing that is going to impress your
average joe or corporate user. Mozilla is past 1.0 now, we need to stop treating
it like it's a beta and that it's just for developers and the curious. And
certain cosmetic things, as shocking as it is to all of you elitest developers,
affect the acceptance of Mozilla, and I hope, I really do hope, that that is
something that is not "trivial" to you.
God save us!
Author: JDL
I agree that the Mozilla splash screen could be made a little more professional
looking. I wonder about going further though and allowing themes to alter the
splash window in the same way they alter the rest of the Mozilla user interface.

I have created an enhancment request #170964 if anyone has any comments about
such an idea.
I would just like to say that I also think the current splash screen is very
unprofessional and that it really can and will cause people to not use the
software. There are so many other splashes out there that are so much better,
why can't it just be replaced with one of those? I do not agree that the splash
screen should be deleted all together. The splash screen keeps people with
slower computers from double-clicking on the icon over and over again because it
doesn't load right away for them. That's just my two cents.
In defense of unprofessionalism; When Mozilla 1.0 came out I started installing
it on all the computers at work. Nobody cared much about the enhanced standard
compliance. Nobody cared much about the new features. Nobody even blinked at the
skinnability. But _Everybody_ loved the cute little dinosaur on the splash
screen. The ladies in the sales department especially got a kick out of that
little fella breathing fire on their desktops. Go figure :)
Attached image Mozrix
Originally drew just for fun, but my boyfriend told me It was possible to post
it here. This is for all you moz developers. You rawk :}
I understand this is a 'do not spam' bug, but I'd like to know if there's any
work planned on allowing people to simply specify their own splash screens from
an image in the install directory, for example.
Michael, yes, please read or scan all of the comments before posting to bugs
like this one.  The answer to your question is in comment 78.
Let me share with you my own opinion and my point of view. I assume that
Mozilla Red Dino logo is of no copyright violation, since it is used widely
(e.g. on "about:"). And I also feel that Comment #36 was right. Some of Mozilla
contributors live in communist countries. And, which is much more important,
lots of people of our world live in communist countries, like China, right now,
and will deeply appreciate Mozilla. Mozilla is a sign of Communism, whether you
do want it or not. Software being downloaded and installed free of charge.
That's how Communism works ;-)

Personally I was born in that Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which the
Cold War was against. Do you know that today (07 Dec 2002) is exactly the
4000th day after the end of USSR in 1991? Kind of a surprise for you, I guess
;-) And I think it's a great idea to draw another pentacle-based Mozilla splash
today - I'll use exactly that red star from "about:" page. And I'll even to so
far to upload it here. ZIP file is only 14 Kb, though there's 298 Kb BMP
inside.

I hope this will help us to get rid of the green lizard. My splash is of
minimalist style, I used four colours only: black, white, red, and orange.
Following the advices from comment 94,

> - be light on text. images are not localizable ;)

my splash has only "Mozilla" text and website URL

> - not integrate with any particular skin, splash screens are not skinnable.

my splash will suitable almost with any theme of themes.mozdev.org

> - not contain loading text, this is overlayed in programmatically if the 
platform supports this (e.g. mac)

splash origin written below is going to be replaced with "Loading in progress"
messages generated by the software

> - get the dates and version numbers right ;) mozilla.org has decided that 
its first release is "Mozilla 1.0"

my splash does not contain any Mozilla version number

> - Contain only official Mozilla imagery

my splash contains only about: star logo

> - Not contain copyrighted material

as far as I can judge, my splash does not.

Download it, extract BMP into the folder where mozilla.exe is. Then enjoy it
;-)

Deeply,
Mithgol.
Hmm... I've just read that again... looks like http://www.mozilla.org/banners/
impressed me a way too much. Those banners looks like slogans of the Revolution,
and are designed to. That's great. I guess the following development of the
brand should follow that direction...

Sorry if all that looks like spam. BTW, it's funny. Why only 57 votes for this
bug? I'll add mine.
I personally don't like the banners on http://www.mozilla.org/banners/. 99% of
the people don't give a f00k about whether or not they can view the code, or
what kind of political statement their browser is. 99% of the people just want
to use what they find to be better. Mozilla is "better" in a lot of ways. I
think the banners should focus on pointing out Mozilla's strong points over
competiting browsers (such as Internet Explorer). Things like built-in pop-up
blocking, ad blocking, tabs, skins, etc...

As much as you like the banners sounding like a "revolution", it is moot to most
people. Most people really don't care. The only way to get them to switch is
convincing them that Mozilla is better feature wise, stability wise, security
wise, etc...

Btw, open source in general is communist (from each their abilities, to each
their needs), but that cannot be compared to any country that has or does call
itself communist. Because there has yet to be a true communist country. That is
why so many people associate communism with dictatorship from a few and
political oppression. So there is not that some people don't like Mozilla to be
associated with communism in and of it self, it is just that some people don't
like Mozilla to be associated with the highly negitive reputation that countries
who have claimed to have adopted "communism" have given it.

P.S. If you're ever at a book store, pick yourself up a copy of "Animal Farm".
The problem with this bug is not communist imagery, and it's not copyrighted 
fonts, words or iconography. It's not the impending lawsuit from the owners of 
Godzilla, and it's sure as **** not colour-clash. There's at least a billion 
splashes which avoid these issues, some of them are popular enough to be used, 
and in any case, they can't breach copyright any worse than the current green-
lizard splash. 

The problem with this bug is that the people responsible for it don't want it 
fixed. I suspect that they find the bug so annoyingly trivial that they have 
stopped reading the list. They repond to pleas for help with 'worry about 
something useful instead'. They are presumably exclusive unix users, who think 
that ugly art makes no difference whatever to the quality and popularity of the 
software. They are, of course, wrong.

This has always been the problem with open source. No focus groups. Which works 
fine for gcc, or emacs, where only developers will use it. But for mozilla, 
where potentially everyone could use it, it sucks.
Flags: blocking1.3a+
Flags: blocking1.3a+ → blocking1.3a-
"The problem with this bug is not communist imagery, and it's not copyrighted 
fonts, words or iconography. It's not the impending lawsuit from the owners of 
Godzilla, and it's sure as **** not colour-clash. There's at least a billion 
splashes which avoid these issues, some of them are popular enough to be used, 
and in any case, they can't breach copyright any worse than the current green-
lizard splash."

Completely agree with you.

"The problem with this bug is that the people responsible for it don't want it 
fixed. I suspect that they find the bug so annoyingly trivial that they have 
stopped reading the list. They respond to pleas for help with 'worry about 
something useful instead'. They are presumably exclusive unix users, who think 
that ugly art makes no difference whatever to the quality and popularity of the 
software. They are, of course, wrong."

Actually I noticed this type of (miss-)behavior in several cases already (here).
So one of these guys marked the quite popular wish for a "Home button" in the
main toolbar a "WONT FIX" (and hence "RESOLVED"). Incredible!   See Bug #89350.

Sometimes it really SEAMS as if these guys have lost touch with the wishes and
needs of _normal users_ ("the mass" if you like).

"This has always been the problem with open source. No focus groups. Which works 
fine for gcc, or emacs, where only developers will use it. But for mozilla,
where potentially everyone could use it, it sucks."

Completely agree with you! (...)

----------------

Someone said: "...[they do] not integrate with any particular skin, splash
screens are not skinnable."

Hmmm... Actually I think that "Skins" in the future SHOULD contain also a splash
screen, if possible. Certainly there ARE issues with "colour-clash" - but in
this way they could be resolved. (IMHO)
60 votes. Adding dependency to "large community interest bug."
Blocks: majorbugs
Keywords: mozilla1.0mozilla1.3
Is there an easy way to write XPI putting mozilla.bmp into Mozilla installation
folder?
Learn to spell Amateur please.

But yeah, this is obscene now. We're post 1.3alpha. Someone just need to pull
the damn splash and put in somethign blank, such as
http://mods.mozillanews.org/splashes/ultrablanksplash.png or really anything but
this. It's relly pathetic at this point in time. I've had folks roll their eyes
on more than one occasion.
Yeah, sorry about the spelling error. Someone needs to pull it or replace it. On
most computers it doesn't take more than a second or two to load anyways, so
it's not even necessary. At the same time you guys have a lot of options for
alternate splash screens that don't look so amateur.
Um... it may be getting really obscene, but I'm sure a lot of people won't care
for a petition. IMHO it solves nothing in an environment such as Mozilla's. Have
faith in the system; right now there are 62 votes. What we really need to do is
come to a general consensus on *which* splash to use, and not that we need a new
one (we already know that). A lot of... um... n00bs who don't realize how our
bug system works like to just say, 'let's get this fixed'. In this case, as well
as many other cases, that just isn't feasible, getting us nowhere. Somebody who
can needs to hold a vote or something (hint, hint).
Agreed, the petition is useless. But since this bug has been around for ages, we
have solutions that avoid bug 28028 entirely, and there has been NO action on
any part of this, it's quite obvious that it's become a nuisance bug that will
NOT get fixed out of spite. Unless (unfortunately quote JTK) we drag this out to
the public view, dangle it around, scream shout and dance about it, and
basically humilate someone to fix this damn thing. We all know votes are
near-worthless, and with almost 200 comments, at least a petition makes this a
little more high profile. This is really a polish issue, and someone needs to
bite the bullet, and just replace this thing already. 
Well let's canvas ideas on how best to make this issue public. Derek, why don't 
you ask Mozillazine to link to your petition? 
We're not putting a silly petition on mozillazine.  Please find something better
to do with your time, rather than spamming this silly bug.
Ok that's what I'm talking about. Presumably any further comments here are 
spam, rather than debate, purely because you don't want to hear them. 

Essentially you want to move this from a democratic process - fixing this bug 
because it has a large number of votes - to an autocratic process. This makes 
me wonder, why even work on an open source project? 
Please find me where it says this is a democratic process.  Until then, be
quiet.  There are thousands of more important bugs that this.  Just because 61
people out of the tens of thousands of people registered for bugzilla want a new
picture, doesn't mean it's going to happen.  Please, stop being silly, and find
something useful to campaign for.
Then why not fix it and shut us all up?
This bug is unlikely to get fixed. Mozilla is a *test* binary, not a
distribution. They have provided framework for suppressing or changing the
splash screen. Their goal is to work on the technology, not on deployment issues
and that's exactly what they did.

Please join us in creating a user-supported Mozilla distribution instead of
demanding the unlikely or impossible.
Saw the petition.

Suggestions:  

replace old green lizard with new red dinosaur.
no text (translation issues).
keep it simple (minimize disagreements based on style)


Commentary:

Current splash screen looks awful.  I thought so the moment I first saw it, and
still think so.  I'm not arguing *for* any particular splash screen, just
*against* the unfixed mistake that is the current one.

Apologies to anyone who (completely wrongly) believes the current one is
acceptable  :-)

well I like this one for example:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=108580&action=view

its attachment id 108580 "14 Kb ZIP with yet another pentacle-based Mozilla
splash dedicated to 07 Dec 2002, the 4000th day after the end of U.S.S.R."

I like it because it's simple but good-looking. With some little changes it
would be a very good replacement for the current one.
Once again sorry about the damned spelling error, trying to get petitiononline
to let me ammend it but no response lol. Anywho, I say just remove the damned
splash. Like I said, on most systems Mozilla starts up quickly enough now a days
anyways. If the developers still feel the need to make sure people know that
Mozilla is starting to they don't click a million times wondering what is going
on, then why not just a simple, little, "Loading..." text. No copywrite issues,
don't have to worry about cramping people's style, etc... The point is, DO
/SOMETHING/

kerz@netscape.com "Please find me where it says this is a democratic process.
Until then, be quiet."

Oh, I'm sorry kerz, the voting and comment system mistakenly gave me the
impression that the users' opinions count for something. My bad.
Proposed generic simple splash
Need to remove myself from this junk mail ;) But before I leave, 1 last comment

READ:  Opened: 2000-03-17 05:00

ITS BEEN ALMOST 3 YEARS!
Give me a frickin bone here! ;)

Has anyone ironed out the legal issues that were behind this bug? If we haven't,
we are still ILLEGALY using this image! FOR OVER 3 YEARS!
Thanks to Jason Chambers for trying to make this bug open. Still I see the only
"Leave as NEW" option below the "Additional Comments" field. Hmm... maybe I
should wait... or all that was just a bad joke...

Thanks to Harald Glatt who liked my splash most of all.

And the greatest today thanks to http://mozcafe.com for an XPI sample of bug
installation. I'll soon make my own XPI pentacle-based splash installer, and
provide a link on it. Please stand by if you're interested.
Sergey,

please do :-) We would like to work with the splash screen maintainer at
mozdev.org and put up a whole gallery of easy-to-install XPIs as a temporary
relief for the general public.
All right, I've just uploaded a self-installing XPI; get it from
http://mithgol.pp.ru/Mozilla/mithgol.xpi

Hmmm... maybe it's just a classical cause for Slashdot Effect. Imagine thousands
of Mozilla users potentially ready to get an XPI... my site may get really
overcrowded really soon ;-)

Well, I'm at least sure it's only 15 Kb. I can afford serving requests to
http://mithgol.pp.ru/ with about 600 Mb of total responce traffic - and then
there'll be no garanteed service. It's all seems to be about 40000 of XPI
downloads, and there are only 67 votes. Ok. Will leave.
By the way, the darktoned version above is a partially transparent GIF. Since
there's actually no way to provide partial transparency for Mozilla Splash
nowadays (it's format is plain BMP Windows Bitmap), the splash with rounded
corners won't work (sorry Brander) - it needs an extended support from Mozilla
code developers.
Re; http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32218#c178

In light of some recent conversations, events, and information, I apologize for
that comment. It was inappropriate (especially for Bugzilla), and rude. I'm sorry.
Here is one proposal.  It is up to the Mozilla to make this decision.  

There was a prospal of including the XPI into Mozilla that allow the option of
changing the splash screen.  How about a proposal to include an option to the
recent proposal that would display no splash screen at all as an addition to it.
 This would satisfied some people who complained about it and would allow
Mozilla to move on to tackling other bugs.  Just a penny for my thought.
My favourite self-made-splash. The original graphic is an Photoshop psd-file so
the version- and copyright-information can be changed very easy. Looks also
with 256 colors really viewable.
I don't particularly like
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=110113&action=view and there
shouldn't be a version number on it, as after every update it would need to be
changed.
Aren't you able to place a version text label at position X,Y over the picture?
You would be able to show the version on the loading splash screen then
easily... And it wouldn't need a change both in code and the picture when the
version changes...
Okay, we'll be lucky if we can get the developers to so much as replace a bmp
file, let alone dick around putting version numbers over the splash screen.
I think, a version information on the splash is extremely important. Look at
every software out in the business, everybody has a version information in their
splash screen. Changing the version number is a work of 15 seconds because the
original file is saved as a photoshop files with layers.

My second thing is to make a simple splash with carries all needed information
within seconds to the user. The user didn't want to see an glorious graphic, the
user should see the software name, a version of the software, the copyright and
maximum a logo. A simple, clear splash visualizes a quick and health program.
Sounds funny but I'm doing the job for several years now. ;-)

My third thing is to make a splash simple so that 256 coloured screens would
show the splash nearly like a high coloured screen. That's done.
To avoid spamming Bugzilla attachment system with my splashes, I've just created
http://mithgol.pp.ru/Mozilla/ webpage where ready-to-install XPIs and comments
and preview images are now stored.

Download, install and enjoy!
I understand that you feel having version information in the splash is
important, however, if we can't even get the developers to replace a bitmap file
(or even give a f00k about this bug for that matter), have fun trying to get
them to go above and beyond that and code to add version information and whatnot
to the splash. In otherwords, don't make this more complicated than it needs to be.
Attached image Disregard. (obsolete) —
Attached image Disregard. (obsolete) —
I prefer this design over my original.
Against my better judgement, I'll (re)post.
http://home.alphalink.com.au/~cltan/mozilla/

Its claim to fame is that it's based on the graphic style of www.mozilla.org,
which is about as official as it gets. It also has the same dimensions as the
current splash screen.
allow me to quote "a bug's life cycle"
(http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/bug_status.html):

WONTFIX
    The problem described is a bug which will never be fixed.


i make the following challenge:  unless someone can generate solid proof before
the release of mozilla 1.3 that the folks at mozilla.org have any intention to
fix this bug, this bug should be resolved as WONTFIX by definition.  somebody
running this project needs to either admit this needs to be fixed or admit that
nobody that matters actually gives a d***.
Attached image Orange Splash Screen
I am adding this splash screen I made. Hopefully it will suffice.
*** Bug 188400 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Attached image How's this?
Now that I have a fuller understanding of the criteria, here's a much better
attempt.  I tried to make it clean and simple, (without any unnecessary text)
while maintaining the Mozilla spirit.

I obtained the dinosaur image from this page: http://mozilla.org/projects/svg/

I used a freeware font called "Eraser."

The background was created using various Photoshop filters.  It's dark enough
to display white lettering clearly, and the appropriate amount of space has
been reserved at the bottom to accommodate such an overlay.
Attachment #110311 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #110312 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Attachment #110311 - Attachment description: Here's my attempt. → Disregard.
Attachment #110312 - Attachment description: Here's a slight variation. → Disregard.
Hope to don't spam... but I think that Mozilla should show what's happening
while it's loading. I like the current image (but if it's changed it makes me no
problem, though), and if you watch at it, you'll see that a black space remains
under the lizard, inside the box that appear. So, why don't add a white text
which say: "Loading Navigator...", "Loading Preferences...", and so on (like
Communicator does, if I remember exactly). Maybe it's just my Win32 build (I
would like to pass to Linux, but I can't since I share the computer with other
people in the family!). Ok, sorry for the personal comments, and say if it is
possible, or just makes a messy.
in reply to comment #214: I think that the main block on displaying loading text
is that it's image-based and therefore non-localizable (as for comment #9). I
know it is a bad thing but at the time there's nothing to do (except of a code
fork, of course!) ^_^

PS: you *can* switch to linux if you have enough disk space (~5GB) to host it in
a separate partition, even if your relatives disagree: just set the boot manager
to load Windows by default ;)
Re: comment 215
The status text (bug 35866) is overlayed. The only thing non-localizable is text
on the splash screen itself.

Also, a better place to post new splash screens would be
http://mozilla.deskmod.com/?show=showcat&cat_name=mozsplash and I like
http://www.corplink.com.au/~bennettf/mozilla.gif without version number and
status text best.
re: comment #216
you're right, but bug 35866 is still not solved (actually nor assigned). should
this be depending on it?
Re: comment 216

I finally came to a conclusion that
http://mozilla.deskmod.com/?show=showcat&cat_name=mozsplash in not the suitable
place to post new splash screens. 

They stated (in their upload webpage), "In general, by submitting photographic,
artistic, computer-generated and/or other materials (audio, visual, audiovisual
and otherwise) to us and agreeing to the terms and conditions set forth below,
you are giving us the nonexclusive right (i.e., you can grant similar rights to
others at any time) to use those materials on and as part of our websites (e.g.,
to include your materials in our database which we make freely available over
the World Wide Web). You are also representing to us that, among other things,
you have the right to allow us to so use the materials and are agreeing, among
other things, to cover the costs of our defense if someone claims that we do not
have the right to so use the materials (or that you do not have the right to
allow us to so use the materials)."

Personally I cannot afford covering their defence costs, including additional
cost of money transfer from Russia (where I live) and converting from roubles to
dollars or anywhat. And I don't feel myself responsible for possible violation
of some "mad" copyright laws in foreign network, like DMCA in U.S., because we
are independent. So I'll publish my artwork on mithgol.pp.ru and will defend it
under Russian jurisdiction; and I've read our copyright laws and won't violate them.
If bug 35866 doesn't get fixed, there's no need for an empty bar.
Depends on: 35866
> If bug 35866 doesn't get fixed, there's no need for an empty bar.I don't really care if windows suports it or not. My platform does, so there is a reason for that space.
No longer depends on: 35866
I've created a new variation of my design, this time with the 
famous "Revolution" font logo.  As recommended by CT, I've uploaded it to 
DeskMod.  [Thanks for the link!  I'm familiar with that website, and I 
previously tried and failed to locate a section for Mozilla splash images.]

If anyone gets a chance, please leave a comment:

http://mozilla.deskmod.com/?show=showskin&skin_id=23741
*** Bug 189867 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
RE: comment #37
The red star is on the flag of north Korea, which is a communist country.  Some
people are offended by this, but I am not.

---
I am planning on making a splash screen based on the mozilla svg image.  It
should be done and posted by the days end.
RE: comment #37
The red star is on the flag of north Korea, which is a communist country.  Some
people are offended by this, but I am not.

---
I am planning on making a splash screen based on the mozilla svg image.  It
should be done and posted by the days end.
Attached image MozSplash 1 (obsolete) —
I think we've had enough fun here.  This bug's not ever going to be fixed, for
so many different reasons.  Time to kill it.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 24 years ago22 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Kerz: Could the reasons for nor resolution be listed so we can show reasons for
closure if people revisit this bug in the future?
The bug is completely unmanagable, and now quite useless.  There is no way any
constructive work will happen here, as too many people have filled it with junk.
 If it's ever decided that a new splash should go in, a new bug can be opened. 
For now, there are no plans to, which is why this is a WONTFIX.
Verifying fixed before someone posts the Soviet flag...

http://members.aol.com/duvelle/nxp-zarya/ussr.gif
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
replying to comment #229:
> If it's ever decided that a new splash should go in,
> a new bug can be opened.

*who* will decide this? people at netscape, mozilla.org board, or users?
who?

thank you
Attachment #112167 - Attachment is obsolete: true
The people in charge of the mozilla distrubution, ie drivers@mozilla.org.

Robert: Can you not read?
This is a ridiculous bug, not because it's not a problem, but because no one's
going to step up, make a stand and say THIS is the way it should be.  Given the
fact that the judgement of a 'Good' splash screen is so subjective, the delivery
mechanism should just be changed so it's tied to the skin/theme.  That way, the
honus for creating them is placed upon the 'creative' folks making the skins,
and if joe schmoe doesn't like it, he's welcome to either turn it off with the
launch command variable, or open up the skin and change it there.  That's my 2
cents.
This is a decision for drivers@mozilla.org. For their own reasons (copyright has
been mentioned) they have decided that they do not want to change the
splashscreen at this moment. Nothing you can do will change that decision.
Someone has to be in charge of a project, if you don't like their decisions then
you are free to fork the code.

The splashscreen cannot be theme-specific because it is shown before mozilla
knows what theme is active. It can easily be changed by the user on windows by
putting a file called mozilla.bmp in the main moz dir (though not on other
platforms IIRC).
It's amusing, in a sick way, how much antagonism the question of the splash
screen causes between (primarily) developers and non-developers.  There's an
interesting sociological article in there somewhere for someone with more time
on their hands than I.
I always asked myself how Netscape could manage to dropout from place 1 to last
place until they released their code. I know the answer when I look at your
email adress, kerz. You're really funny. Instead judging that a bug with 72
votes and 30 attachments and 50000 comments probably need to be fixed you judge
that it shouldn't be fixed couse there is to much interest in it. Don't tell me
it'ss unmanageable because the community tried to help you. If the community
wasn't be there mozilla have never been as far as it is now. And what is there
to manage btw. This bug is about one thing I can tell it in one phrase: "Change
the splashscreen to a 32bit picture which is antialiased and has less color in
it." Currently some people don't use your browser because they say "With that
splashscreen it rather looks like a children's browser than a reliable thing."
And all kind of people are thing this, people that want to use it for home-use,
people that use it at work, and sam chief's judging about using mozilla as an
alternative solution to their current browser. And telling OVER and OVER again
that the splashscreen isn't themable - what is this crap? You're the devs. Then
change it to be! It won't be harder than any other possible bug. You could even
get the problem solved that the splashscreen is currently only popping up on
Win32. Currently the users of mozilla don't have a choice about their splash.
And you won't tell an IT director of a company that he can use mozilla without
being laughed at when he draws his own bitmap and replaces the original one with
that.

Well think about this and then hopefully make another choice about this bug.
I *completely* agree with Harald Glatt (comment #238) and I'm pretty sure
everyone is aware of this bug history will. please consider this if you plan to
close it.
Peace people!

Let me try to calm you all down a bit by pointing out a few things and making a
few suggestions:

First, please accept that drivers have to last word about what gets into Mozilla
and what not. If you do not agree, discussion should probably be done in the
newsgroups, not in a bug description. If you still do not agree, you are, as has
been pointed out, free to fork the code. 

Second: while I do not like the current splash screen either, I must say that
there is hardly an alternative that looks any more professional, and many of the
suggestions here or at other places are, frankly, worse.

Third: this seems to be a topic that *is* important to lot of users. This should
bot be ignored, but as far as I can see, there is simply no way to make
everybody happy: just imagine that drivers *would* select one of the
alternatives - then immediately all the other proposers would be angry, complain
that this choice is even worse and why did not their proposal get selected?

Fourth: making this dependent on the theme sounds good but is very hard to do.
Maybe those complaining about lack of this feature should look at the code and
figure out how to do it. If you come up with something workable, chances are
high that your patch will get accepted (do it in another bug).

Fifth: a simpler solution might be for somebody who really cares about this to
provided some add-on that makes it very easy to change the splash screen (e.g.
at installation time). Or come up with a patch that allows to use an alternate
splash screen from the user's profile and then provide an addon to allows to
change that. Theme authors could then provide optional splash screen bitmaps
(outside the theme jar) for users to use with that feature.

Sixth: If you are worried to use Mozilla with the current splash screen in your
company: it has been pointed out how to change it. It is really easy. Note that
you can repackage Mozilla with a chnged splash screen quite easily for later
installation in your company. 

> First, please accept that drivers have to last word about what gets into 
> Mozilla and what not.
>
Sure. But shouldn't that people try to decide in a _responsible_ way. That's 
simply not the case here (imho). :-(

> [...] If you still do not agree, you are, as has been pointed out, free to
> fork the code. 
>
C'mon you KNOW that that's not really a "practicable" solution!  (In fact it's 
neither practicable, nor would it be a "positive" solution!)

In fact, it seems to me that these "argument" could be (mis-)used as some means 
for _repressing_ divergent opinions and whishes concerning the development 
process of the project.

> Third: this seems to be a topic that *is* important to lot of users.
> This should [n]ot be ignored
>
Yes. (Tell the drivers!)

> but as far as I can see, there is simply no way to make
> everybody happy...
>
The KEYWORD is _choice_ (as always in such cases). GIVE THE PEOPLE the 
POSSIBILITY FOR CHOSING THEMSELVES (what they want)!

Hence a possible solution would be implementing such a "mechanism" to choose 
the splash screen (if so). 

> Fourth: making this dependent on the theme sounds good [ full stop ]
>
Still it could be done differently!

> Fifth: a simpler solution might be for somebody who really cares about 
> this to provided some add-on that makes it very easy to change the splash 
> screen.
>
Actually, that would be my favorite "ad hoc" solution.

HELL, it shouldn't be THAT DIFFICULT to implement a preference setting that 
allows for choosing the _picture_ that is shown at start up.

Actually there could be _several_ pictures in the main directory and the 
preference setting just would allow to pick out ONE of them. (The startup code 
of Mozilla obviously always uses "mozilla.bmp" at the moment. Is this 
hardcoded? Why the hell not change THAT ... such that the startup code uses 
some preference setting to decide which picture should be shown/if any.)

BTW: This could be implemented "parallel" to the idea of including "splash 
screens" in the themes. Why not bundle "...bmp" images with the themes? [ They 
simply should be copied into the main directory when choosing that theme. One 
could use a "standardized" naming scheme: splash1.bmp, splash2.bmp, etc. 
where "splash1" denotes the "default" splash screen.]

> Sixth: If you are worried to use Mozilla with the current splash screen in 
> your company: it has been pointed out how to change it.
>
Yes. SEE ABOVE. :-) ;-)

> It is really easy.
>
Yes. One would think so.

Thanx johann@ai.univie.ac.at for calming us down but this won't help all the
people who created all that nice splash screens since this bug exists.
You have to understand that these people are very angry now that it has just
been closed like that.
Like Francesco De Francesco said, this bug will make history and will be talked
about in IT media if you will close it just like that now.
*** Bug 190078 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Franz, Harald, johann@ai.univie.ac.at, Jason and everyone interested:
this bug has been opened almost three years ago, and many people would now love
to see it solved, in a way or another. I think we all are tired of this long debate.
I besides think that something went wrong in the principle; maybe the original
reporter had not idea about the image rights problem, neither about the
skinnability/l10n issues. but the splash problem, like Harald pointed out, is
not so ridicolous as some may think (see comments #210, #227, #229 & #234). many
people dislike the current splash, and having loading info(s) would not only be
useful, but (imho) would give a more ‘professional look' to the beast. this bug
should NOT be closed this way.

but these are concepts already said, explained and re-re-re-repeated.

what to do then?
personally, my vote is for Franz's solution (comment #241): giving to the user
the ability to choose (via preference) the splash screen he/she likes. i think
it is definitely the best thing to do, and for many reasons (beside Franz's
ones, of course):

1. at this time, using a splash different than the default one is easy _for me_
and _under Windows only_. an unexperienced user doesn't even now what a bitmap
is, and how to put it in a folder.
2. under other platforms you have to recompile the whole, and this is at least
boring (when possible). why?
3. implementing a simple preference for choosing a favourite pixmap shouldn't be
very hard to do
4. what if tomorrow drivers think it's time to change the splash? do you think
people would be so happy to donate their works that today are in fact being refused?

my 2 cents
Francesco

*** peace & love ***
*** Bug 190089 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
> you are free to fork the code

You like cheap shots? Me too! 

How about instead of forking, I just use *Konqueror* and *Safari* instead. It
seems that it's what everyone else with a clue is using... It's open source, who
cares? Ummm, "drivers" who are paid salaries might care if their project is
hated by the public. Mozilla might move on, but their jobs sure won't if no one
uses it out of resentment.
Again: calm down everybody!

> How about instead of forking, I just use *Konqueror* and *Safari* instead.

Is that supposed to be some sort of threat?
I don't like the current splash screen either and voted for this bug, but these
rants do not do any good.

How about everybody writing NO MORE COMMENTS for about one week and then see if
the anger is still as strong?

And *then* those of you with *some* programming abilities can try to find a way
to perform one of the ideas in this bug like prefs for splash.

Those without this knowledge are currently shouting "then make the splash
skinnable" without knowing that the splash screen is exactly there to let the
user see that something is happening while Mozilla needs some time to get
skinning enabled at all. So I think it is better to only open new bugs if there
is a feasible idea and there are people who can implement that idea.
Bugs by people just proposing that *something* should be done are as likely not
to be fixed as this one. No offense intended, but you see various proposals in
this bug - but nobody who is willing to implement them.

When it comes back to simply replacing the current one: the only consensus here
is *that* it should be replaced, but I'm sure for every proposal there would be
somebody filing a new bug that it should be replaced or reverted to the old one.
I don't think mozilla.org is so deep in love with the current one that they
would never replace it, but there is still no alternative that everybody agrees
with. 

=== So they decided to better leave people unhappy with the old one than make
them unhappy with a new one. ===

Ranting in bugzilla is veeery unlikely to change that decision, don't you think?

Closing this bug OTOH does not prevent anybody from finding a better splash that
everybody agrees with. But that should not be done in bugzilla, but in public:
the newsgroups, mozillazine.org,...
IF you come up with a 100% agreed on new splash, I'm sure mozilla.org staff will
also like it and might be willing to use it after the waves have flattened.
IF you do NOT get broad consensus on an alternative, then you'll probably
understand that it does not make sense trying to get it in Mozilla.

Thanks for your attention. ;-)


P.S.: If you feel like you have to write an answer to this comment now, PLEASE
sleep one night before you do so, then think about it again.
Maybe the splash screen on other OS's is different but i really don't see what
people are so worked up about the splash screen looks allright on BeOS
> And *then* those of you with *some* programming abilities can try to find a way
> to perform one of the ideas in this bug like prefs for splash.

Well, for my part, my desire requires absolutely no programming skills.  It just
requires replacing the current cartoon with something that isn't so
ass-disgustingly childish and ugly.

The prefs thing is not the issue - as has been pointed out, you can change the
image simply by putting one in the moz directory (I pre-install Mozilla on all
our workstations at work, and that splash screen is outta there immediately). 
It's the first impression someone gets when they download and install Mozilla
for themselves.

But we've been over this before.


> When it comes back to simply replacing the current one: the only consensus here
> is *that* it should be replaced, but I'm sure for every proposal there would be
> somebody filing a new bug that it should be replaced or reverted to the old one.
> I don't think mozilla.org is so deep in love with the current one that they
> would never replace it,

Having followed this bug for quite some time, that's exactly what I think. 
Either that or it's strictly a power/ego trip for the people who control the
check-in of the splash screen image.  

Either way, it boils down to those individuals either having naked contempt for
the testers' opinions regarding this issue, or being dishonest with them about
their true motives/intentions.


> but there is still no alternative that everybody agrees
> with. 

The simple answer is to hold a Mozilla Splash Screen contest.  I dislike most of
the alternatives submitted via this bug (those I've looked at), but would
probably take any of them over the current one.  

Establish criteria for the image, and then put it up for two rounds of votes: 
First offer up all eligible candidate images  for vote.  Then take the top ten
and take a vote on those.  The winner is the new splash screen, and then
everyone can STFU, me included, because the question has been fairly decided.


> Ranting in bugzilla is veeery unlikely to change that decision, don't you think?

What the hell else are we supposed to do?  Oh yeah - fork the code.  To change
the splash screen.  I forgot.


> Closing this bug OTOH does not prevent anybody from finding a better splash that
> everybody agrees with. But that should not be done in bugzilla, but in public:
> the newsgroups, mozillazine.org,...

THAT'S NOT WHERE THE DECISIONS ARE BEING MADE.  They're being made here.


> IF you come up with a 100% agreed on new splash, I'm sure mozilla.org staff will
> also like it and might be willing to use it after the waves have flattened.

And I'm sure that coming to 100% agreement will never happen, so your suggestion
is useless.  See my vote suggestion.


> IF you do NOT get broad consensus on an alternative, then you'll probably
> understand that it does not make sense trying to get it in Mozilla.

Why not put it up for a vote?  That way the current image can be subjected to
the same degree of apathy/adoration/antipathy as any other candidate image might
garner, rather than requiring an unrealistic, overwhelming consensus.


> P.S.: If you feel like you have to write an answer to this comment now, PLEASE
> sleep one night before you do so, then think about it again.

I've been saving this one for weeks.

"The prefs thing is not the issue - as has been pointed out, you can change the
image simply by putting one in the moz directory"

What they are refering to is a pref in the preferences menu, a GUI pref, to
change the splash. As far as splash screens based upon the current skin, I see
it being possible. Just allow skins to write a pref to the preferences file (or
a seperate text file) and when Mozilla loads up it checks that file real quick
and loads the defined slash screen. Same concept with a GUI pref, only intead of
the skin chosing it, the user does by the preferences menu.

"The simple answer is to hold a Mozilla Splash Screen contest.  I dislike most of
the alternatives submitted via this bug (those I've looked at), but would
probably take any of them over the current one."

I agree. But considering the additude of certain developers, such as kerz whom
seems to not give a sh*t about the testers, I doubt this will happen. But voting
seems to be the most logical move in case the devs ever decide to give a sh*t
about the testers.
fully agree with lloyd - voting is a good idea...
All of you who dislike this decision check out this bug:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=190078

Boris Zbarsky suggested to tell staff@mozilla.org that an @netscape.com
developer is abusing his position.

May I laugh?

I think it's come the time to open a discuss on mozillazine.org, in order to
hear other people opinion. I know my english is poor so I'd rather avoid to
write an article there, but if nobody else has enough time to spend I will do it.

thank you
Francesco

*** peace & love ***
> > Closing this bug OTOH does not prevent anybody from finding a better splash
> > that everybody agrees with. But that should not be done in bugzilla, but in 
> > public:
> > the newsgroups, mozillazine.org,...
>
>THAT'S NOT WHERE THE DECISIONS ARE BEING MADE.  They're being made here.

Wrong.
Decisions are NOT being made here. They're made by module owners, or
drivers/staff if they cover more than one topic or are "hot stuff" (like this one).
And, what is even more important, this is NOT the place for lenghtly discussions
about "hot" topics. You should go into mozillazine forums and, much more
improtant, newsgroups, for discussions. For personal discussions, it's also good
to use IRC. But Bugzilla is NOT made for lengthy discussions, and what's going
on here in this bug report is simply abuse of Bugzilla, even all those
attachments, which are useless unless there is stuff that people can agree with.
This bug report only waste's space in the Bugzilla database in it's current state.
When the legal issues are solved, and drivers/staff can agree with a method how
to find out what to be used as a new splash screen, then we can open a new bug
to _implement_ it. Don't open one to discuss it, that won't help. The current
throbber image also was found with a contest (on mozillazine and a long time
ago), which was announced by "officials" of mozilla.org - nowadays what staff
would represent, I'd guess.

Please just shut up at that issue for now - don't forget to look at the bug
report for the legal issue (don't make useless comments there though), and
perhaps ask somebody "important" from time to time (not too often) what's the
status, so the issue won't be forgotten. The time will come when light will come
into the dark here.
(And yes, I agree that the current image is suboptimal - though it's cute...)
Woah, calm it, people. You're making yourself look like children here, really.

1. This bug has been marked "WONTFIX". Quoting
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/bug_status.html , that means nothing else than " The
problem described is a bug which will never be fixed."

Now, obviously, the question arises: *Why* will this never be fixed? This
question has been answered many, many times. There are actually multiple reasons:

A. There are some image rights issues keeping mozilla.org from using the
"proper" Mozilla logo in any place of their software. This sounds ridiculous to
me, seeing as mozilla.org mostly consists of Netscape people anyway, but that
aside, these issues are there, and that's why the dragon doesn't really look
like the original Mozilla dragon.

B. It just doesn't matter. The product "Mozilla" (originally "Mozilla
Seamonkey"), which is more of a proof-of-concept for a cross-platform
Gecko-based browser on which companies and other organizations can build entire
browser suites such as Netscape, Beonex or even OEone's whatever-they-call-it,
doesn't need a fancy splash screen, fancy icons or a fancy look at all, for that
matter. It - in my very humble opinion - is the distributor's job to do that.
That's why major distributors such as Netscape *do* replace the splash screen,
and if I may say so, Netscape's splash screen looks quite cool and quite right too.

C. This bug has been over-loaded with over 200 comments (of which probably not
even 10% really try and fix the problem) and about 30 (!) attachments, most of
them being different kinds of splash screens. Since when has BugZilla turned
into an image hosting site? How about writing a patch that will read the theme
information and thus allow for theme-dependant splash screens (not that I'd
agree to that idea, but it's much better than *not* contributing something
useful). How about just SHUTTING UP when there's a "DON'T SPAM" comment in the
Status Whiteboard already, clearly suggesting that nobody appreciates the
endless "blah blah this splash screen makes me puke" any longer?

2. Rather than trying to solve the problem through IRC or the newsgroups, or
contacting staff@mozilla.org as has been suggested two or three times already by
various persons, additional bugs have been filed where the reporters KNEW they
were dupes. Namely bug 190078 ("Mozilla made me puke because of the splash
screen!") and bug 190089 ("Lack of cool splash screen is clearly a blocker"). In
the latter, bzbarsky suggests creating a mozdev.org project for storing splash
screens. Let me point you all to http://themes.mozdev.org/splash.html , which
has been there for ages and should work just fine. Unfortunately it links here :-/

3. If you plan to convince your big boss to use Mozilla in your company, you
should have at least have as much knowledge that once you do, you're responsible
of your company's Mozilla installations on your own, as you distributed them.
mozilla.org does not do end-user support. This also means that you can customize
your company's own Mozilla to have more relevant bookmarks (such as the company
home page), a customized feature set, and... ooh! a different splash screen per
default. It's simple to do that. Much more simple than write up a useless
comment in BugZilla and get flamed for it.

Sorry for the spam.
Forget it Robert, no one will shutup about this.
You won't tell us sitting for years in this bug to shut up now.
You didn't make a single commment on this bug.

This bug was about finding a new splashscreen. And those attachments are all
splashscreen proposals. They are no spam and they are no crap. An no waste of
database space. Don't ever dare to insult all the people who invested time into
making splash screens again like this.
>You didn't make a single commment on this bug.
Exactly ! 
He knows why he shouldn't add SPAM comments in bugs. Maybe you could learn
something from him ?

Until this debate started the comments were about 10% spam and 90% useful. In my
eyes you guys started to wreck this bug with your decision about closing it.

The only reason why this bug grew so big was because it
a) is open since 2000-03-17
b) there were many people drawing solutions
c) there were many people saying what they like and dislike

AND THATS EXACTLY WHAT BUGZILLA IS FOR.

This bug is about a SPLASHSCREEN a image. So the attachments can't be C++ Code
but images. And the comments can't be discussions about how to write some C++
Code but about how to draw the splash screens.

If that doesn't fit in your mind I'm very sorry about you. And if it's really
the mozilla "officials" speaking here then I'm very sorry about mozilla too.
Regarding #255 from Sören 'Chucker' Kuklau,

1. "bug which will never be fixed."
=> That exactly is the problem.

A. image rights issues
=> There are lots of cool MoZilla Splashs which don't even use a dragon (or any
other potentially copyrighted animal) at all and still look much better.
The problem with the current dragon is that it looks like a 256 color dragon
from 1995.


B. "It just doesn't matter (...) it' is the distributor's job to do that."
=> Yeah, right, but it still looks ugly and quite a few ppl actually USE MoZilla
regardless of how many distributions are available. At least switch it off - or
is a splash screen really needed for a proof-of-howto-splash-concept ?
And why is the MoZilla "Modern" Skin included in the Package ? No need for that,
the "classic" works fine.

So, please remove the "Modern" Skin from all future releases - it's a waste of
space and absolutely not needed for a proof-of-concept!

C. "How about writing a patch that will read the theme
information and thus allow for theme-dependant splash screens"
=> Good Idea, assign this task do a developer !

2. (...)
Well, i can't say much to this, but i don't think discussing something in the
bug is THAT bad.

3. "you can customize your company's own Mozilla"
Yeah, of course you can customize EVERYTHING in an open source project by
writing your own code, 
adding your own images, ... - But still it should be any project's goal to make
the product itself better and make customizations only necessary where needed.
It is not that productive if you have to spend hours setting up a usable
configuration - thats why there are default configurations which should fit for
>90% of the users.
ok ppl, who's able to write a small plugin/patch to make users able to choose
the splash pic they like? let's start a mozdev project! ;-)

Francesco
*** peace & love (_o_) ***
Francesco,

are self-installable XPIs good enough? We´ve had an experimental splash.xpi
posted on our website for about a month. I meant to contact you about creating a
gallery of XPIs and let everyone have it their way. 

Working with most popular skins distributors and have them include an alternate
splash in their XPI is another possibility. 
Okay, by reading this thread, I want to put in my opinion on the matter.

This problem is not going to go away and you can't code a solution to solve it.
There is a bigger problem here that needs to be addressed before this thread
could ever be closed.

There is no process in place for how visual assets, whether it's an icon, a
splash screen, or a button are added into Mozilla via the community. The Modern
skin was primarily driven by Netscape, from what I know, and therefore, it
didn't have the difficulties that we are having with community proposed
modifications. 

Whether it's Drivers, or staff or whoever, there needs to be some process
created and followed to solve this issue. People like me, who want to contribute
to the Mozilla effort, who aren't coders are having a hell of a time
contributing. I have spent my spare time, which is valuable as hell to me, to
make what I think is a cool browser a little bit better the only way I can, and
because of a lack of a process, it's being thrown out. Why? Because it's
"unmanagable". That's totally bogus, and if this continues, you're going to
scare off the very small community of willing artists you have.

That's my 2 cents.

-s
I'll comment more on this.

Specially for Jacek Piskozub about comment 230: I've planned more than just
posting the Soviet Union flag. Look at http://mithgol.pp.ru/Mozilla/ for a
sample of really Soviet XPI self-installable splash.

Specially for Harald Glatt about comment 238: Frankly speaking, themes CAN alter
Mozilla splash, but they must be XPI for that trick, instead of JAR. This makes
no problem since some themes at MozDev (Pinball, for instance) are already made
XPI installable. But the problem is that switching theme (via Mozilla View menu)
will not result in splash switching, and you'll have to re-install splash.
That's why splashes and skins would better not depend on each other at all.

For all other people, including those of Mozilla development team: You know we
all already have "Get New Themes" in menu, pointing to
http://www.mozilla.org/themes/download/ - there we should have "Get New Splash"
also, pointing to http://themes.mozdev.org/splash.html

This will make splash installation as easy as those of skins at MozDev: the user
just picks a preview sample and clicks on it, then the skin is installed via XPI.

Creating new menu item "View -> Apply Theme -> Get New Splash" is, as I hope, a
pretty simple task - it is as easy as copying several lines of the code and
changing only one URL in a certain string constant; and this will fix the bug
properly and immediately!

Notice that the bug is not in the ugly default splash; some people may think
that Modern or Classic skins are also ugly, but that's not the problem. The bug
is, actually, in the wrong conceptual model.

The wrong concept is having only one splash - instead of multiple splashes in
our avail somewhere in the Web, installable with a single click.

Some users suggested holding a contest or a voting about what splash is the best
- that sounds really terrifying for me - imagine that you don't have all that
themes Early Blue, Eskimo, Gold, Gray Modern, Internet Explorer, Kzilla,
LCARStrek, LittleMozilla, Lo-Fi Classic, Lopbury Flat, Negative Modern, Orbit,
Pinball, Skypilot Classic, Wood etc. - but you have only one skin instead,
though approved by the public voting, as the best in show?

Looks like you are really choosing between freedom and democracy nowadays. I
think, in my humble opinion, that it's much better to satisfy everyone's needs
differently (that's how the freedom works), than to satisfy the majority only,
but by an equal supply for all.

I assumed above that most http://themes.mozdev.org/splash.html items are
self-installable XPI, ready to install; actually, they're not. There are some
BMP images, which need to be manually moved to Mozilla folder, and also
PNG/JPEG/GIF etc., which also need proper conversion to BMP before placing them
properly on a local filesystem.

I feel also, that invention of XPI makes all that former formats of splash
things obsolete; this also means for me that splash authors must be provided
with some means of convertion. They need both how-to knowledge files and real
examples.

Then, if someone needs an example of XPI splash, try
http://mithgol.pp.ru/Mozilla/ussr.xpi

And, if some manual docs would really do better than an example, try
http://devedge.netscape.com/library/manuals/2001/xpinstall/1.0

And, for Mozilla's sake, don't hold any damned contests on features that are
easy to alter. Keep multiple choice alive.

Thank you.

And please stop discussing the situation here, or I'll take my vote off the bug.
My mailbox is really getting overburdened. At least use direct e-mail for
personal comments, which are mostly not things to be interested in.
in reply to comment #263:
I agree that choice is important, but it seems nobody on the drivers' board
takes it seriously. therefore, the only things we can do are:

1. discuss about splashes
2. find solutions (lixe XPIs, as you point out - but it looks like more a
workaround than a *real* solution)
3. collect as many splashes as we can
4. eventually be ready to vote one

Harald Glatt, me and others are setting up a discussion board at
http://www.dynaloop.net/mozilla-splash/ (maybe in the next future
http://splashzilla.dynaloop.net or similar).
it is still in a demo phase so sometng could not work (but phpbb is great and we
plan to solve all problems in a few days). register if you wish, and enjoy!
moreover, I'm gonna update the _whole_ http://themes.mozdev.org/splash.html . I
didn't do it for months (personal issues, and a 30G hard disk blow) but now it's
time to do, if possible with brand-new XPI installable splashes (if admins give
me enough space for BMPs instead of JPEGs)

I hope this is my last post here
thank you everybody

Francesco
The majority want this fixed *LISTEN*
Status: VERIFIED → REOPENED
Resolution: WONTFIX → ---
Bugzilla isn't a popularity contest site, it isn't an image hosting site, and
it's not a debate site.  If and when mozilla.org chooses a new splash screen,
they will open a new bug.  This bug has gotten completely out of hand, and I'm
putting a stop to it.  Don't reopen it again, or your bugzilla permissions to do
so will be removed.  Take your debate and your favorite images to the
newsgroups, bugzilla isn't the place.
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 22 years ago22 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Blocks: 164421
Verifying. I'm more than sorry I broght this up. This is NOT the type of
discussion I intended. This is now a "mee too" fest. This bug is now being
closed NOT because no one wants it fixed, it's being closed because there are
larger issues that need resolved first, and they are complex, hairy, political
issues. This issue will eventually be resolved, but this bug is no longer
useful. It's NOT a gallery, it's NOT a forum for discussion, it's NOT an arena
for argument, it's now nothing but noise. We're all going to need to be patient
here, yes, MORE patient.

If we want more discussion of this issue, let's take it to a web forum, or a
newsgroup. This bug report is now far beyond every being useful, as it's now
nothing but opinion from 200 people. This is NOT me telling someone to open yet
another bug report on this, as they will be marked DUPEs, rightly so. Let's take
this discussion somewhere else more productive.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
>
> This bug is now being closed NOT because no one wants it fixed, it's being 
> closed because there are larger issues that need resolved first, and they are
> complex, hairy, political issues.
>
What a nonsense! Obviously your "complex, hairy, political issues" does not 
prevent the present extremely childish splash screen TO BE THERE! So please 
don't tell fairytales.

>
> It's NOT a gallery, it's NOT a forum for discussion, it's NOT an arena
> for argument, it's now nothing but noise.
>
Actually, (1) it SHOULDN'T be the TASK of testers/users to CONVINCE developers 
of bugs! One would think it's enough that they actually SPOT and REPORT them. 
In addition (2) it's an extremely bad practice to "solve" bugs by just ignoring 
bug reports (i.e. mark them as "invalid"). :-(

#268 must have missed something from the part "We're all going to need to be
patient here, yes, MORE patient."

This bug is dead, dead, dead - killed by the presumed doctors, as it was. This
bug has degenerated into a beauty contest of no real value and I believe that
Bugzilla is for more pressing issues than deciding which screen the average user
has to watch for 5 to 10 seconds while Mozilla starts up.
As it is, the current screen (politically incorrect as it may be) could just as
well stay on for the time being - it gives the user a last chuckle before dull
work starts again. ;-)
To Mozilla drivers: couldn't the existing splash be just removed? That would
solve this bug. Who want's a splash could install some from xpi.

I believe this is a way this issue must be solved.

Tnx.
@#268 

You shouldn't underestimate the impact of such (from the viewpoint of a 
developer) "unimportant" topic. For Mozilla as such it IS of a certain 
importance how the browser presents "itself". (!)

@#270

Well... actually a splash screen SHOULD be there. I can't imagine a big 
software product like Mozilla which _doesn't_ have such a splash screen (at 
least under Windows.) It's just to SHOW the everyday user that _something_ 
happens (and/or that there is a "progress"). [ If there were only the spinning 
cursor the Windows-experienced user would think that the program hangs. :-) ]
If you want no splash screen while launching, launch mozilla with the "nosplash"
parameter. As simple as that.

If you want to replace the splash screen on Win32, add a / replace the
mozilla.bmp file in the program directory.

If you want to replace the splash screen for your distro build, replace the file
in the sources.

@ Franz: As I've explained before, the look of Mozilla's splash screen doesn't
really matter much as distributors should just use their own.
Keywords: mozilla1.3
argh, lets scrap the modern theme - it doesn't matter thats stuff of the
distributer too
I'd just like to say that I'm personally offended by the remarks of Jason 
Kersey, as well as by the decision to mark this bug "invalid."

Firstly, it's impossible for a bug to suddenly become "invalid" after close to 
three years.

Secondly, numerous people have dedicated their valuable time and effort for the 
purpose of finding a solution.  I'm new to the Mozilla community, and I lack 
the knowledge required to write program code.  Therefore, I decided to 
contribute in the only manner that I was able.  This nasty backlash only serves 
as discouragement from further involvement in the Mozilla project.

Thirdly, it's outrageous to claim that the attachment of images was improper; 
the bug is described as "Mozilla needs an updated splash screen," and these 
files are proposed fixes.  They're every bit as legitimate as patches and the 
like, and it's extraordinarily arrogant and condescending for you to believe 
otherwise. (It's as though you feel that only the efforts of programmers are 
worthwhile.)

Having said that, I will refrain from posting splash screens to this bug in the 
future.  As I did with my last version, I'll upload any new designs to: 
http://mozilla.deskmod.com/?show=showcat&cat_name=mozsplash

Those who are seeking a simple, office-type splash screen can check out: 
http://mozilla.deskmod.com/core.mod?show=showskin&skin_id=24014
this bug should be resolved/verified as WONTFIX, not invalid (despite my earlier
comments).  this bug is certainly a "valid" one, it simply will not be fixed. 
unless a good reason is provided for the invalid resolution, i intend to
reassign the resolution to WONTFIX.


this relatively minor bug seems to have become a significantly more serious one
when it became an issue of what really is "open" to the community within the
theoretically open source code, and what remains proprietary to the code's
"owners" (i.e., drivers@moz, staff@moz, etc.) instead.  while one would argue
that a successful open source project would incorporate as much input from the
community as a whole, any project eventually remains in *someone's* control, in
order to set the limits of the project itself.  arguing this boundary is a moot
issue - we as the community have the privilege, not the right, to assist in the
development of this project.

admittedly, the length of this bug displays the frustration that many
contributers are feeling regarding the central control of this project, and may
eventually lead to the loss of valuable capability and insight from mozilla as a
whole.  but this issue is clearly outside the scope of a bug that simply will
not be solved in the open community.


> this bug should be resolved/verified as WONTFIX, not invalid

This is what Jason Kersey did previously.  Shortly thereafter, he changed it 
to "INVALID," purely out of anger and spite. (an obvious abuse of his position)


> this bug is certainly a "valid" one, it simply will not be fixed. 
> unless a good reason is provided for the invalid resolution, i
> intend to reassign the resolution to WONTFIX.

In my opinion, "LATER" is the most appropriate resolution; it’s likely that 
Mozilla’s default splash screen will be changed eventually, but not in the 
immediate future.


To address the other designations:

While the official description of "trivial" could be applied, "enhancement" 
might be a better choice.

A "P5" priority indicates the lowest level of significance.  While purely a 
matter of aesthetics, the passionate reaction that this discussion has 
generated clearly establishes a higher degree of concern within the Mozilla 
community.

As version 1.0 was released some time ago, the target milestone should 
be "Future."


Thank you for considering my feedback.
Re: Comment #275 From ratman 2003-01-25 16:37

> this bug should be resolved/verified as WONTFIX, not invalid
> (despite my earlier comments).  this bug is certainly a "valid" one, it simply
> will not be fixed. unless a good reason is provided for the invalid resolution,
> i intend to reassign the resolution to WONTFIX.

The bug was first resolved as wontfix as it won't be fixed the way most of the
commentors would like it.

It is now invalid because, while the report in itself is valid, the resulting
attempts to fix it (the attachments) are not the right solution. BugZilla is not
a whiteboard for discussion what graphics look cooler - the newsgroups can be
used for that.
I am wondering how a reasonable person can formulate SUCH A NONSENS!

"The bug [...] is now invalid because, while the report in itself is valid, the 
resulting attempts to fix it (...) are not the right solution."

Hence _a problem vanishes_ (or may be ignored) if _the proposed solutions_ are 
not appropriate??! Right??!  Oh my god, WHAT A LOGIC!

-----------------------

Actually, you seem to be quite desperate in seeking "justification" for such an 
incredible incident!
David (comment #276), you say:

"In my opinion, 'LATER' is the most appropriate resolution; it’s likely that 
Mozilla’s default splash screen will be changed eventually, but not in the 
immediate future."

Well, actually it depends on what you mean with "later". Did you notice that 
the bug was opened at 2000-03-17 (!)? Isn't 2003 (3 years later!) not "late 
enough"?!

No, really, actually it's quite obvious that Mozilla presently seems to be 
headed by a group of adult children and/or youngsters, but _certainly_ not by a 
serious people.

This might shed some light to Apple's decision NOT to use Mozilla as basis for 
their own browser!



Re: Comment #278 From Franz Fritsche 2003-01-26 04:30

> "The bug [...] is now invalid because, while the report in itself is valid,
> the resulting attempts to fix it (...) are not the right solution."
> 
> Hence _a problem vanishes_ (or may be ignored) if _the proposed solutions_
> are not appropriate??! Right??!  Oh my god, WHAT A LOGIC!

No, that's not what I said. I said that BugZilla is the wrong medium for solving
this problem. As I pointed out many days earlier, mozdev.org has been providing
a place for getting alternate splash screens for a long time. Changing the
default splash screen most likely won't happen until the bug this bug depends on
(bug 28028) gets fixed. 

> Actually, you seem to be quite desperate in seeking "justification" for such
> an incredible incident!

No, I'm trying to make this bug die a quick death.

If you want this problem ("Mozilla needs an updated splash screen.") solved,
discuss it in the newsgroups. But obviously, that's not what you want to do, as
I've suggested it multiple times before and you didn't even comment on that.
Sören (#280) said:

   "BugZilla is the wrong medium for solving this problem."

Well, certainly you are right. BUT on the other hand, clearly BugZilla SHOULD 
BE the place where bugs/problems are "collected" AND/OR *acknowledged*. (No?)

Actually marking a bug report that is about 3 years old and has more that 70 
votes (!) as INVALID is an incredible incident!

It simply crashes the whole idea of means like BugZilla. ("No, it's not a bug, 
it's a FEATURE!")

"As I pointed out many days earlier, mozdev.org has been providing a place for 
getting alternate splash screens for a long time."

Yes. That's certainly a step in the right direction. What is _missing_ now 
(imho) is a means to change the splash screen without editing some "preference 
files" (say hello to Linux) or dealing with bitmap files at OS-level. With 
other words: there should be a possibility in the _preferences_ menu to change 
the splash screen. (Moreover one could think about a mechanism for EXTENDING 
Mozilla's "skins/themeing" ability to include splash screens. Or introduce a 
now menu command like "Get a new Splash Screen", etc.)
> > BugZilla is the wrong medium for solving this problem.
> Well, certainly you are right. BUT on the other hand, clearly BugZilla SHOULD 
> BE the place where bugs/problems are "collected" AND/OR *acknowledged*.

Yes, this is why this bug was accepted and left open in the first place.

But then it was more and more misused for discussion - what you admit should be
happening in the newsgroups.
Only now when about 99% of the comments are sheer discussion, this bug is closed
because it is *not* what it was meant for anymore.
You sure do understand that.

kerz explicitly mentioned that there might be a new bug filed when the time was
right, the problems solved.
I think this does also not sound bad to you.
But unfortunately the time is obviously not right yet because you see right here
that such a bug would be mostly used for discussing and spamming.

> It simply crashes the whole idea of means like BugZilla. ("No, it's not 
> a bug, it's a FEATURE!")

With this and similar comments you (not only you, others as well) show your
ignorance of what I just said.
Nobody ever said it's a feature. 
And you should know very well by now *why* this bug was closed. It's a shame
that you still post such comments.

BTW: LATER is deprecated (as is CLOSED).
>
> Only now when about 99% of the comments are sheer discussion, this bug is
> closed because it is *not* what it was meant for anymore.
>
Well, but that surely DOES NOT make _the bug_ go away!

While "A Bug's Life Cycle" suggests a different interpretation:

   INVALID 
   The problem described is not a bug 

>>
>> ...this simply crashes the whole idea of a means like BugZilla. (...)
>>
> With this and similar comments you (not only you, others as well) show 
> your ignorance of what I just said.
>
Agree. ;-)

>
> And you should know very well by now *why* this bug was closed. It's a 
> shame that you still post such comments.
>
Look, Andreas, a) I want that PROBLEM/BUG accepted _as such_ (since it is one) 
and b) I want that appropriate measures are taken to resolve that PROBLEM/BUG 
in the future. (Of course it's part of the Module-Owner's duty to _decide_ 
which measure might be appropriate, and when things actually can be done.)

By just declare that bug INVALID neither a) nor b) is "fulfilled".

>
> BTW: LATER is deprecated (as is CLOSED).
>
A Bug's Life Cycle says:

   LATER 
   The problem described is a bug which will not be fixed in this version 
   of the product

Actually "LATER" would be good enough for me.
from comment #277:
> It is now invalid because, while the report in itself is valid, the resulting
> attempts to fix it (the attachments) are not the right solution.

a bug's status and resolution are to be based solely on the reporter's original
summary and description, or as acceptably amended via follow-up comments.  only
the final results of commentary are relevant to the status and resolution (i.e.,
patch, fix, etc.), not the path taken by the comments of a bug.

since you also concede that this bug is valid based on its initial report,
clearly this bug should be WONTFIX.
"It is now invalid because, while the report in itself is valid, the resulting
attempts to fix it (the attachments) are not the right solution. BugZilla is not
a whiteboard for discussion what graphics look cooler - the newsgroups can be
used for that."

When a bug involves changes in the code, people submit code changes (patches).
When a bug has a fix that involves a change/removal of a certain graphic, people
submit graphic changes (splash screen attachments). It is only logical. As a
coder you should understand logic quite well, although it appears you, and
others who have made similar comments, have missed this one. Is it an ego thing
that bugzilla should only contain attachments of coding that the average Joe
wouldn't understand, but now we have (usually) pretty graphics? Or is it that
you guys truely are blind to certain logic? I really hope you guys aren't
arrogant enough for the former to be true, but I sense that it is.
Removing self from CC
Derek Petersen (&others): While patches are small and usually one or a few of
them  do fix the problem for good, the images are large and do not fix the
problem here (legal issues). And even if the legal issues were resolved (which
they should have been) one or a few images are not the fix since there is
nothing that guarantees anybody but the author likes the image.
Although I value the effort of poeple who created the splashes I think they
should not be placed here. Imagine how large the bugzilla database would be if
any splashscreen ever created for Mozilla would be stored there.
WHY do people continue to accept that this bug has any dependencies whatsoever? 

The existing splash breaks copyright 3 times and style rules about 100 times. 
We could pick ANY splash in this list, even if you think they are ALL bad, and 
it would be a major, major upgrade both in terms of legal liability and 
professionalism. 

***FACT 1*** The current splash is a problem - keeping it until drivers are 
ready to replace it isn't an option.

We don't need to be pedantic about the wording of it; truthfully this bug would 
be SOLVED by deleting the splash. This would satisfy almost everyone, not least 
the lawyers of Toho, Netscape etc.

It is also ridiculous to suggest that posting images here is not a valid way to 
fix the bug. Maybe kerz et al., would be happier if someone wrote a splash in C?

      splash_bitmap[] = 10010010010010010...

"Imagine how large the bugzilla database would be if any splashscreen ever 
created for Mozilla would be stored there."

Sure, imagine that, it might wind up 10 mb in size! Oh no!

***FACT 2*** This is the right place for splashes to be posted. 

You are all right to suggest that drivers should pick, or design, a splash 
which doesn't break copyright laws and style rules. WHY HAVEN'T THEY DONE IT 
YET???

*** FACT 3*** The reason this bug is broken is because of drivers, not because 
of testers, artists and people who are writing comm.. er, spamming, here.
WHY do people continue to accept that this bug has any dependencies whatsoever? 

The existing splash breaks copyright 3 times and style rules about 100 times. 
We could pick ANY splash in this list, even if you think they are ALL bad, and 
it would be a major, major upgrade both in terms of legal liability and 
professionalism. 

***FACT 1*** The current splash is a problem - keeping it until drivers are 
ready to replace it isn't an option.

We don't need to be pedantic about the wording of it; truthfully this bug would 
be SOLVED by deleting the splash. This would satisfy almost everyone, not least 
the lawyers of Toho, Netscape etc.

It is also ridiculous to suggest that posting images here is not a valid way to 
fix the bug. Maybe kerz et al., would be happier if someone wrote a splash in C?

      splash_bitmap[] = 10010010010010010...

"Imagine how large the bugzilla database would be if any splashscreen ever 
created for Mozilla would be stored there."

Sure, imagine that, it might wind up 10 mb in size! Oh no!

***FACT 2*** This is the right place for splashes to be posted. 

You are all right to suggest that drivers should pick, or design, a splash 
which doesn't break copyright laws and style rules. WHY HAVEN'T THEY DONE IT 
YET???

*** FACT 3*** The reason this bug is broken is because of drivers, not because 
of testers, artists and people who are writing comm.. er, spamming, here.
reopening to change resolution.
Status: VERIFIED → REOPENED
Resolution: INVALID → ---
resolving as WONTFIX.  for explanations see above.
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 22 years ago22 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
To change the "resolution" to WONTFIX is a wise decision, but still not a _good 
solution_!

Imho, you guys (whoever) simply underestimate the (negative) "psychological" 
effect of this feature (in its present "incarnation")!

Actually..., its mere existence (and your constant resistance to change it, 
even after being confronted with considerable public interest in doing so) says 
A LOT about the people "behind" Mozilla (and their relation to the public)! In 
fact, it doesn't help to gain any confidence concerning the project.

How about taking people serious who actually use Mozilla (and TRY to contribute 
something with giving feedback)?

F.
WONTFIX in BugZilla.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
"Asa has a simple one done by Kerz - just the plain name "Mozilla" in 
Revolution font on a plain background. No trademark issues.
Asa to send it to Gerv, to arrange for checkin." - 2003-02-19 Mozilla staff
meeting minutes, available at
<http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3E5AB326.402%40mozilla.org&output=gplain>
I created this one and have been using it for a couple of months now, and it
still doesn't bore me...
It's a picture test, if you like it, i can make others one. I've done it
quickly. And when i done this picture, it was because i didn't found many soft
splashscreen (for professionnal use in some company).

I hope you like it.
It's a picture test, if you like it, i can make others one. I've done it
quickly. And when i done this picture, it was because i didn't found many soft
splashscreen (for professionnal use in some company).

I hope you like it.
Attachment #117264 - Attachment is obsolete: true
Soft splashscreen is very nice. Good work :)
The blue sky version, for gray/modern
The blue ocean version, for blue theme
300 comments and this bug is not fixed yet....

Attention needs to be put elsewhere to fix bugs.
Whiteboard: DO NOT SPAM → DO NOT POST MORE SPLASHES! DO NOT SPAM!
This has been fixed.  Stop posting splashes already.
Status: VERIFIED → REOPENED
Resolution: WONTFIX → ---
Yes, I'm duping against a much newer bug.  You guys trashed this one and made it
useless.  This is fixed.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 194291 ***
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 22 years ago21 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Verifying per the fact it was already four time verified fixed/wontfix/invalid.
We didn't have a duplicate, yet!
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
So we must stop to post splash screen or there is an other way to propose to
mozilla team some splash screen?

Thanks for your help.
Théome.
(In reply to comment #294)
> Created an attachment (id=116259)
> A simple small elegant professional splashscreen
> 
> I created this one and have been using it for a couple of months now, and it
> still doesn't bore me...

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/653647/

even though it took me abour 5 mins to make, cribbing my work and pushing a few
of the pixels around != creating.

just posted for posterity. thanks guys.
I'm so off this thread...
Product: Browser → Seamonkey
No longer blocks: 164421
Blocks: 158464
No longer blocks: majorbugs
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