On Branding RoyTam1's Browsers

[Matt A. Tobin]

My contempt has ALWAYS been based on the fact that using the unofficial names for our projects especially "New Moon" causes confusion and some even attribute what roytam1 has done to us. Wanting to go your own way but not even taking that first step of rebranding has always irked me. That is what started all of this. It is the one request we have had from the start that roytam1 has to this day not fulfilled.

"New Moon" specifically is too intrinsically tied to the Pale Moon project to maintain any pretense of not being affiliated with or representing that project. That is why for my unofficial branding I choose EXTREMELY generic names of "Browser" and "MailNews" so there is less confusion when someone goes off on their own and produces builds not following my vision or representative of my projects. Indeed, that was also partly motivated by you guys as well. I thought if I made them hopelessly generic that you would change them to something unique but that never happened which is just silly. Who wants to set Browser as their default Browser anyway?

Yeah, you guys p*** me off because I see a lot of really rookie mistakes and some bad decisions in your development while still via user ignorance being associated with us and what we are doing. It also p***es me off that this is perhaps the fourth time I have offered some level of help and have not been taken up on it. I offered to share the secrets of how to do things like branding, as you said, before and it was ignored. After the second time y'all were kicked off the Pale Moon forums because EVEN IF you don't intend it it from OUR perspective looks like you guys just want to run off our work and reputation (and until kicked off) our infrastructure rather than stand as your own thing and accomplishment.

You project the appearance of leeches or a poor imitation of what we have been doing, for five plus years. This has ALWAYS been the issue with rebuilds and minor mods but you ARE more that that.. With all the builds you guys produce from all over the spectrum.. Why do you guys not want to make it your own? You don't own "New Moon" it isn't exclusive to you and you aren't associated with any other "New Moon"s or "Serpent"s out there.

The one thing I have always said was that if you were going to do this you should do it properly and not half-assed. I can sleep a lot better if someone I believe is doing something half-assed isn't using terms that are associated with me or what I do. Your Platform Codebase isn't JUST UXP with XP Compatibility it is something fundamentally different than what our vision is.. Same goes with the applications. I see that roytam1 has reverted or restored some stuff from the Navigator that I removed or changed. You guys have created something other.. Something new..

Whether I like it or not is immaterial. I dislike Basilisk as a project and application, I don't like Australis, I don't like WebRTC, and I don't like DRM and YET I am still contributing to it. I haven't USED Pale Moon as a web browser for the majority of 2019 and I am still doing important work on Pale Moon.

So even if I don't specifically believe in what you guys are doing I can still help in some way to make it better. If you get unique branding then the NUMBER ONE REASON I HAVE against you no longer exists. There would be no confusion and no longer any perceived damage or association regardless if it exists or not and I can finally consider you guys as going your own way and doing your own thing.

You talk about actions and history well when I say I am going to do a thing.. I do that thing. See: The previous six years.

Now I am not going to do it unless I know he will accept it. I had quite enough of that back at the SeaMonkey project. But he says go for it.. I will accomplish. You can bet on that. Afterward, whatever happens can be taken a day at a time. If as you say, I don't do it well then I have lost all credibility on making any argument against you on that basis. So it is in my best interest to accomplish. If I do it then p*** off back to BinOC Land and never show up again.. You still have it. You have nothing to loose and I have things on the line by offering and agreeing. There is no downside.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Matt A. Tobin

[looking4awayout]

I have never posted about this so far, but Matt is right. A unique brand for the browsers is the best way to make them stand out and finally get this issue sorted out for good.

I have been in this forum for around a year, previously as a lurker and since this spring as a member, and I do believe that a tense atmosphere between the PM team and Roytam1 doesn't help at making things better (maybe he can also help you improve the shortcomings of some browsers, such as the infamous stuttering of 45 ESR SSE, that is a pet peeve of mine, you know 😛).

Why not burying the axe of war for good? I know that between you and Matt there seems to be a non idyllic relationship, but in my opinion, Matt is offering a precious help @Roytam1 and his in-depth knowledge of the browser can help you further along the way. You know I use your browsers regularly on my RDD, and everything I want for those is to be even more excellent than they already are. In my opinion you should not ignore his offer.

Edited December 19, 2019 by looking4awayout

[LoneCrusader]

One point; the point of which is not to argue, but for the record:

19 minutes ago, Matt A. Tobin said:

...rookie mistakes...bad decisions...poor imitation...

When you make statements like these about a project, who in that project would really want to take you seriously? Why would they want to take your advice?

HOWEVER-

22 minutes ago, Matt A. Tobin said:

...but you ARE more that that.. With all the builds you guys produce from all over the spectrum..

Finally, some small bit of respect. Maybe there is hope.

[Matt A. Tobin]

There is a whole loose association of drones out there that all day long and everywhere they can they repeat the mantra of "Old and Insecure" about Pale Moon and allied projects. Some with a little more brain power might use the phrase "Poor imitation" when referring to us and we have indeed made SOME bad decisions over the years and some six years ago a number of rookie mistakes when we declared independence for version 25. There is nothing wrong with that if you learn from them. s*** happens.

Least we forget that the moebius codebase for us was a 7 month mistake in that unless we compromised fundamentally the code for other applications aside from the Firefox application code native to that codebase none of it would ever happen. Just porting Pale Moon to moebius would have gone too far in what had to change to make it run and it would have been a massive disaster and might have killed the project out right when said and done. Now I know roytam1 is producing builds of that codebase so you might not know or see that but that is only because the firefox application code matches and is native to it. After 53 stuff went nuts with several refactor storms of fundamental code in how XUL Applications work. That is why UXP was restarted.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Matt A. Tobin

[LoneCrusader]

11 minutes ago, Matt A. Tobin said:

There is a whole loose associations of drones out there that all day long and everywhere they can they repeat the mantra of "Old and Insecure" about Pale Moon and allied projects.

I've seen them in action.

But this does logically flow to another subject, one of my "pet peeves" if you will. Pale Moon faces this type of denigration itself, yet it's developers continue the cycle and pass this same denigration down to XP (or other legacy systems) users, who only wish to be left alone, and not have things broken "on purpose." As I said it would be long ago, now we're all in the same boat here, whether we agree with one another or not. We all need this same platform. It would be nice to stop arguing about it incessantly. I know you only speak for yourself, but maybe it's a start. If the rest of the Pale Moon crowd would lay off the condescending attitude, then maybe something constructive could come of all this.

Personally, I'm mostly indifferent to the name changes. I tend to favor keeping them as-is, but in the end it doesn't matter. I'm just firmly opposed to changing it based on threats, intimidation, or just to appease someone who's being a pain. If those things do indeed come to an end, then maybe it should be considered. I'm not advocating in favor of it; the decision lies solely with roytam1, and I will continue to support him whatever he decides.

[msfntor]

3 hours ago, dencorso said:

I don't think being confrontative helps any, I'm sorry to say. I do think ignoring Matt's offer (as in hiding one's head in the sand) leads nowhere. And his offer *was* ignored, while very minor issues continued to be discussed. There's much to gain and nothing to lose in accepting it. My 2¢, of course,,, but this is one occasion I think keeping silent a real bad choice..

Okay, the olive branch is here, really.

Two heads are better that one, right? It always helps to bounce ideas. United we stand, divided we fall, "we're all in the same boat here".

Make hay while the sun shines.

[Matt A. Tobin]

We can't be expected to support Windows XP but you guys want to and have positioned your self to. The breakdown happened over this branding situation and everything else came from that. It really isn't something that can be overlooked because there just has to be a way definitive way to differentiate what are otherwise very similar but different projects with mutually exclusive goals and vision.

If that one root point is resolved then on-going cooperation is possible even if it is in an advisory or resource role. Not born out of threats and what is now mutual bul***** but because we do have some common interests but aren't, even inadvertently, encroaching on each other's territory.  I can make this happen and work if the one point above anything else is resolved. We are approching a new year and a new decade AND a new development milestone. Surely we all can have this too.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Matt A. Tobin

[looking4awayout]

8 minutes ago, Matt A. Tobin said:

We can't be expected to support Windows XP but you guys want to and have positioned your self to. The breakdown happened over this branding situation and everything else came from that. It really isn't something that can be overlooked because there just has to be a way definitive way to differentiate what are otherwise very similar but different projects with mutually exclusive goals and vision.

If that one root point is resolved then on-going cooperation is possible even if it is in an advisory or resource role. Not born out of threats and what is now mutual bul***** but because we do have some common interests but aren't, even inadvertently, encroaching on each other's territory.  I can make this happen and work if the one point above anything else is resolved. We are approching a new year and a new decade AND a new development milestone. Surely we all can have this too.

I agree with all the line. A fruitful collaboration can be spawned out of this, and I hope @roytam1 will agree.

Edited December 19, 2019 by looking4awayout

[roytam1]

for me, I just want a working browser and naming is unimportant to me. If just changing the names and no artwork works need to be done in short period (as I have no time working on artwork and I have no sense about audio-visual), then it can be done.

As I have no idea what name to use, I'd create a poll here and let people to choose use names that Tobin given, or a name by other forum member suggested, and also give out a "No" option for reference.

if these can be accepted by people, then it can be proceeded afterwards.

Edited December 19, 2019 by roytam1

[Matt A. Tobin]

Well.. I created an icon for the Whistler Branding which would be used on Pale Moon... It is based on a public domain photo of the actual whistler mountain.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Matt A. Tobin

[looking4awayout]

7 minutes ago, Matt A. Tobin said:

Well.. I created an icon for the Whistler Branding which would be used on Pale Moon... It is based on a public domain photo of the actual whistler mountain.

Looks nice! Simple and effective. I like it.

[Matt A. Tobin]

Edited previous post with a wordmark.. Notice the font

THE REAL QUESTION IS.. can I do half as good three more times AND will people LIKE it.. hmmmmmm.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Matt A. Tobin

[msfntor]

7 minutes ago, Matt A. Tobin said:

Edited previous post

yes could you sharpen this nice mountain picture, and add orange color on the sky above, if you wish, please?..

[Matt A. Tobin]

The largest the logo icon would be anywhere is 256x256 which is the second largest size. At that resolution it doesn't look as chunky as it does in the 512 size.

But let's see..

Edited December 19, 2019 by Matt A. Tobin

[siria]

roytam1 said:
> for me, I just want a working browser and naming is unimportant to me. If just changing
> the names and no artwork works need to be done in short period (as I have no time working on artwork
> and I have no sense about audio-visual), then it can be done.

GREAT! Delighted to see light at the horizon :-))
Am sure new artwork can also easily be added, just created by other members here. Always amazed by the artistic skills of non-pro's in the web since decades.

msfntor said:
> Two heads are better that one, right? It always helps to bounce ideas.
> United we stand, divided we fall, "we're all in the same boat here".
> Make hay while the sun shines.

LOL! Love especially that brilliant last line, sounds like a proverb, didn't know it yet.

Fully agree. I always find it sad that people and groups so often cause each other huge problems, but not caring at all just for ideological reasons. Even when minimal efforts on one side would spare great struggles to the other. Until some day third parties start a war against them all and suddenly they find themselves in the same boot, finally realizing that helping each other will benefit all, and then make great progress by working together. Just so useless that humanity often needs wars to speed up progress, when they could get the same without destructive side-effects. Have read that funnily this conflict-loving behavior extends to animals too, especially wolves, if there are no external threats they start fighting each other inside the own group, but still find it sad. Oh well.

But back on topic, just tossing around some names ideas...
One prob for users without dev background, it's really confusing when browser forks with minor differences get completely different names each time. There's not even a Wikipedia page "translating" what's what in reality, the basics of those forks, like "Firefox fork to keep killed good features, forked again to still work on XP and keep yet more killed good features" ;-) As a user one is completely left out in the dark, seeing only completely unknown alien names, of completely unknown alien browsers, with no explanations to find easily. For that reason I'd also like very much some common family name or stub for closely related builds, just as a recognizable hint.

With that in mind, and the target of "good old" systems, how about....
Moonix26/27/28? Could get used to that one very easily, except "nix" hinting wrongly towards Linux...

Or XFox? XMoon? XSnake? XLizard? (current faves)

OldieFox? OldieMoon?... Herit-... Vintage-.... Vint...
Golden-... Sunset-... Dusk-... Dear-... Blue-... Night-... Nite-... Ripe-...
Mozy-... Goa-...
RoyFox? RoyMoon?... (but probably too personal, if some day continued by others)