djst's nest

Why?
Simple.
Life never makes any sense at all.
As Tom Clancy recently said.
"Science Fiction has to make sense.
Real Life never makes sense".

This is one of those wierd decisions that have been made that suck-ass and push a project 6months back.
Fortunatly, Firefox still rocks and as a community we can help improve this and guide the new authors on the right path, something your reviews are doing great.

Just wish we could hear from Ben on why the rush, I don't disagree with changing the theme, but just the way it was done, the rush, and the un finished new theme. It makes no sense when we're pushing Firefox 1.0 so soon.

If Winstripe will be so excellent when it's finished (that's not to prejudge either way, mind) then surely users new to 0.9 won't mind it replacing Qute in 1.0 Beta.

So the "change it before people start knowing it was ever different" approach seems invalid. If Firefox has done so well thus far using a "closed" theme, what harm would one more *pre-release-not-finished-technology-preview-don't-trust-it* milestone do?

This would give Winstripe the development time it (really) needs, with chance for user feedback; and the miscommunication/misunderstanding between Arvid and Mozilla could (hopefully) be resolved.

Because Firefox has to be 100% free and open to be included in other open-source projects. If Arvid had 100% control of Firefox's artwork, then the whole Firefox product wouldn't be free. Ben Goodger has every right to change the artwork because of its license, the same way you might change your operating system because of its license. That's how I see it: a licensing issue, not a personal one.

It most likely would have made sense to wait until post-1.0.

""Because Firefox has to be 100% free and open to be included in other open-source projects.""

That makes no sense at all.
The current FIREFOX ARTWORK (the globe with fox) is NOT under a free license and is actually protected more than Arvid was trying to protect Qute.

It doesn't matter, but I point is that yoru logic is way off as to what an "Open Source" program entitles.

Firefox has branding which mozilla.org is trying to protect, I don't see why the theme isn't something they consider their official branding.

While I'd prefer if the firefox artwork was under a less restrictive license, it is pretty obvious that the in-program artwork is different.

Lets say that you are writing an extension for Firefox that provides some new functionality. You need to provide a toolbar icon for this new feature, and want it to fit in with the rest of the artwork in the program. With the Qute theme, you'd need to draw the new icon from scratch, while with the new (Pin/Win/Gnome)stripe theme you could take an existing icon and use it as a base for the new one.

From what I understand, this was the exact type of situation that forced the decision: the Qute theme for thunderbird was missing some icons, a third party started drawing some new ones using the existing ones as a base, and was asked to stop.

From your screenshots, it looks like that Winstripe already reach the quality level similar to that of Qute *final*... (Look how ugly Qute 0.1 is...)

That is an easy answer: "Because Ben says so".

Like it or not thats how he runs the project.

If it had been ready earlier, it would have changed earlier. With 0.9 the "feature complete" release, major changes needed to happen now. The only real exception is the prefwindow rewrite, but that became unavoidable.

There's more than just "because ben said so" but its not my place to air more dirty laundry. Suffice it to say that as someone heavily involved in the project, the decision works on a number of levels. There's work to be done, yes, but I think the end result will rival Qute.

Hell, I liked Orbit 3+1....

They don't want to be tied to a license.
Ben says so.
Qute 0.1 should've been Qute -0.5 and Winstripe 0.1 should be like Winstripe 0.5.
The earlier users get angry then forget about the change the better they'll forget about it.
Why do you like Qute so much? Back/Forward/Go's coloring makes it seem drab and Bookmarks look like someone's ripped out heart.
While Qute's Home is more polished, it just looks weird in its shade.
Have you noticed that Qute is DULL XP and Winstripe is BRIGHT XP?

"From your screenshots, it looks like that Winstripe already reach the quality level similar to that of Qute *final*... (Look how ugly Qute 0.1 is...)" - minghong

I totaly agree...

How long before the gorgeous rounded corners on Firefox Help get co-opted and disappear?

And why is that celery stalk bookmark thing back?

I haven't been paying much attention, but it smells like something is Rotten in Denmark™

They want a similar look across platforms. A windows xpish based theme would be offensive to Mac users. Windows has all kinds of different looks because Microsoft never pushed Luna asides from Microsofts Products

Darren, that was one of the lamest comments I've heard so far. Why on earth would Mac users find an XP-inspired theme to be offensive when it's not used on Mac? Mac users have a heavily Mac-inspired theme and I'm not offended.

The GPL is a bitch, ain't it?

>>Darren, that was one of the lamest comments I've heard so far. Why on earth would Mac users find an XP-inspired theme to be offensive when it's not used on Mac? Mac users have a heavily Mac-inspired theme and I'm not offended.

I answered your question the wrong way, but what I was getting at was that you're mad because we get a semi-mac inspired theme.
I'm saying Mac users would be mad if Windows, Linux, Mac used an XPish theme.
Because the only Luna-ish apps are basically Microsoft products, Windows users don't really care what it looks like as long as its easy on the eyes.

>>Why are we replacing an almost-perfect Windows XP theme with a nowhere near finished one barely at version 0.1?

They are replacing Qute basically on two reasons.
They don't like Qute's license and they want to have a uniform look while still adhering to the system's style.
Firefox logo is closed but it's mozilla.org's while Qute is Arvid's.
Also, when Qute first made its appearance on Firebird or whatever it was back then, and it was very ugly and unpolished.
Now it's better and so will Winstripe.
I found Pinstripe on Mac very strange because it looked nothing like Qute, while Mac Office and Win Office share similarities.
Winstripe allows a similar look.
It is better to have Winstripe and Pinstripe then Qute and Qute Aqua.
Qute is not almost-perfect.
The colors are not shiny and a little dull compared to IE and the icon designs aren't obvious, like Reload(a blue arrow hugging a page?)
Winstripe isn't perfect either, but nothing is.
Besides, version numbers don't matter.
A product could be at 7 and sucks or be at 1 and rock.

>>Why is waiting for Winstripe to mature not an option?

How do you know if it's an option or not?
You don't work at mozilla.org.
Also, Arvid's decision to publicly post their private conversations means they might as well have spilled the beans and showcase the theme. Plus, Winstripe is polished enough to be in any product and looks better than apps like AIM.

"Because the only Luna-ish apps are basically Microsoft products, Windows users don't really care what it looks like as long as its easy on the eyes."

And where are the statistics/studies to back your statements up? Or are you just assuming things you don't really know about?

">>Why is waiting for Winstripe to mature not an option?
How do you know if it's an option or not? You don't work at mozilla.org. "

Well obviously, that's why I'm asking... And obviously, the changes had to go in now. What's your point?!

> That is an easy answer: "Because Ben says so".
> Like it or not thats how he runs the project.

Good, because that is how Linus runs the Linux kernel and it is doing quite well.

It is often said that the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship.

>>And where are the statistics/studies to back your statements up? Or are you just assuming things you don't really know about?

Give me 10 major programs that are Luna-ish(not Microsoft sponsored) and I'll give you 10 that aren't Luna-ish. It proves users will use something pretty(Kazaa) or ugly(AIM)

>>Well obviously, that's why I'm asking... And obviously, the changes had to go in now. What's your point?!

My point is you implied why waiting for Winstripe is not an option, when you didn't even know if it was an option.

Has anyone actually looked at the Pinstripe theme website. The authors themselves post the following:

Why is Pinstripe Mac OS X only?

There are a few reasons that I won't extend the Pinstripe theme to be compatible with Windows and Linux:

1) My goal with Pinstripe is to make Mozilla look and feel like it belongs on the Mac OS X desktop. Mozilla's existing themes don't fit the bill exactly. Classic comes close by drawing the widgets with nsTheme, but it looks unpolished in many places. My assumption is that because Classic must serve as a theme for the Mac OS 8/9 version of Mozilla as well as a Mac OS X theme, it cannot be modified to conform to the Aqua HI Guidelines.

2) Mozilla themes are usually made by manipulating images, border and background colors etc to achive the desired look. The Pinstripe theme uses an API provided by Mozilla called nsTheme to draw the widgets. This API allows Pinstripe to draw the widgets and some backgrounds using the Mac's Appearance Manager . So the operating system draws most of the theme. Obviously the Appearance Manager does not exist on Windows or Linux, so Pinstripe will not have the Aqua-like appearance on those platforms.

3) The above means that if I were inclined to create a version of Pinstripe for Windows or Linux, I would have to use the regular Mozilla theming method of using slices of images to create an exact copy of the Aqua interface. This would be infringing on Apple's copyrighted work and I have no desire to tangle with their legal department.

> Let's have a look at Qute when it was considered a
> 0.1 release

It is not fair to make the comparison with this version, you should compare with Qute when it was introduced as the default theme of Firebird. At that time it was already very polished.

While the reasons to create Winstripe are perfectly valid, it should not have been (IMHO) set as *default* until it were out of "alpha" quality.

Qute was hideous when it first appeared on Phoenix. http://www.mozillazine.org/misc/phoenixqute.png
Look at Reload, Stop, Bookmarks, History, Print, Back, Forward. Winstripe looks much better with it's first appearance on Firefox then Qute on Phoenix.

Mike wrote:
"If it had been ready earlier, it would have changed earlier. With 0.9 the "feature complete" release, major changes needed to happen now. The only real exception is the prefwindow rewrite, but that became unavoidable."

Winstripe is supposed to go through some big changes until Firefox 1.0 is released. It seems likely that Firefox 1.0 will look much different from Firefox 0.9 with the current Winstripe. What makes that situation preferrable over a total theme change between 0.9 and 1.0? Why not wait with the Winstripe introduction until after the 0.9 milestone?

The theming capabilities of 0.9 are not going to change, so in that sense, the browser is 'feature complete', regardless of the used theme.

"There's more than just "because ben said so" but its not my place to air more dirty laundry."

Well, by saying there _is_ more dirty laundry, you are insinuating that the conflict with Arvid goes much deeper than we know. Perhaps some more openness would be useful here, if you want to put an end to speculations. Maybe Arvid is more at fault here than we realize, but hinting that this might be the case without showing some details doesn't seem a very classy thing to do. If you want to keep this behind closed doors, you shouldn't mention the dirty laundry here to start with.

"Suffice it to say that as someone heavily involved in the project, the decision works on a number of levels."

Care to elaborate? I am quite willing to accept that there is no alternative to launching Fx 0.9 _now_ with a theme that its creators call "barely a first draft", but unless you guys publish some more details I remain puzzled by this decision. I really don't understand why there is such a rush, when we could also wait for the 0.9+ nightlies and 1.0 beta's. Why now?

"There's work to be done, yes, but I think the end result will rival Qute."
Probably, but that isn't the issue here. Fx 0.9 may still be a 'technology preview', but it is also considered to be a feature complete preview of 1.0. This wouldn't be an issue if we were still talking Phoenix 0.6 here, be we aren't. Currently a mature theme (whether you like it or not) is being replaced by an early draft version of a new theme. And that is not my characterization of Winstripe, but Kevin's: http://kmgerich.com/archive/000063.html.

Oops, the link in my post above didn't work, because of the period after 'html'. Here's the correct link:
http://kmgerich.com/archive/000063.html

I guess I'm in a minority, but I never liked Qute and I'm happy it has been replaced. The new default is not great, but chances are it will get better. Meanwhile the 3rd-party theme designers will be working hard to get their artistic creations updated so that everyone will continue to have a wide choice.

Yup. Another fucking ugly as hell theme from the same idiots that brought us modern. Too proud to actually talk to the one developer that made a theme that actually worked.

Rolling back to something this buggy and ugly-looking in a 0.9 release is just STUPID.

Firefox Fan, your post just screams "I'm an idiot!"

The new default skin looks perfect, i hated the previous throbber, this one's much better.

BTW, i always loved the modern theme, right from the start when netscape introduced it. It was one of the reasons why i changed to mozilla.

dzd, Firefox isn't licensed under the GPL. Thanks for playing.

I'm sure this has been said before, but to add my redundant two cents:

1. The Qute theme is much more engaging

2. The WinStripe theme is flat and boring - looks like Win 95

3. The Qute theme is easier to decipher (larger)

4. 3-d is where it's at

5. Somebody fucked up.

So the gist of "charles stuart"'s comment is that while Winstripe is, even this early, much, much more usable, Qute is better because it's "what's happening"? Interface design isn't about what's "cool" or "in" these days. Interface design will always be interface design. Qute is simply bad, bad design. Icons should be SIMPLE, have DISTINCTIVE SHAPES, and be easy to recognize almost IMMEDIATELY. Kinda like Winstripe.

I implore you to read up on human interface design. Or better yet, use a Mac. Not an OS X era Mac, but a System 7 or Mac OS 8 Mac. You'll never be able to use Windows XP again. Seriously. My Mac LCIII's finder works so, so, so much better than Windows Exploder on this Athlon 2200. It's silly.

Microsoft products get worse and worse each time around. It's sad, really.

I hate how this change is taking place and how people involved are being jerks, but I never liked Qute much. Its too 3D, too big, and too soft. I like flat and simple icons. I can't stand what MS has been doing to IE icons either.

I am not saying this new theme is exactly what I am looking for either. Its closer, but the style of some of the buttons don't seem consistant with each other. The first four toolbar buttons go together well, and the rest of the buttons go together well, but those two groups don't look like they belong in the same theme.

Changing default themes is not a good idea. Lucky they are doing it now rather than later after 1.0. But its pretty obvious that the Moz developers don't care one bit about consistancy now. Pheonix, FireBird, FireFox. I know its supposed to be a "technology preview," but its what a lot of IE users are being convinced to change from. They say they make all these changes so they can be safe with name/theme in the future, but being this used to making sweeping changes without caring what users think is going to make it easy for them to justify radical change in the future too. Luckliy I only use Gecko through K-Meleon and don't really care how ugly Fire* gets.

I really agree with Dylan. Graphic designers and programmers really need to do some research on interface design. Macs do have a lot better designed interface in many ways, and not that its just prettier. But I disagree that a Mac is easy to use. They drive me nuts, but its mostly because I am so used to the way MS shoved things down our throat. For a new computer user they are pretty good though.

I just upgraded my mom's Quicken today from 98 to 2004 and she can't stand it. Too much of the horizontal and verticle space is taken up by unneeded toolbars that cannot be turned off. All you can do is reduce the size, but they still waste a lot of space that way too. Reminds me a lot of the Mozilla sidebar, but at least that is completely resizable and removable.

Well I'm a UI designer and a graphic artist, and yes, these new "theme" looks like shit.

Out of the box, the browswer looks so plain, and so dull with these icons that it feels like it's some kind of highschool programming project.

Hey, I love the browser, but c'mon this is just not acceptable. The icons are not consistent at all, and the final product just looks very generic. The worst offenders are the ugly green back and forth arrows, what the hell is this?

Yes, Qte wasn't perfect, but it was a lot more attractive than this. Anybody that tells you that the icons visual appeal are not important, doesn't know what they're talking about. UI butttons are "affordances", things that indicate you can click and interact with them, they're not supposed to be eye sores or make you want to puke.

Sorry firefox team, nice logo, crappy look and feel. Try again ...

Actually, Augusto, I thought Qute was the one that looked drab, overly cartoonish, indistinguishable, and hard to use.

This "Winstripe" has simple, colourful icons with definite shapes, and is much easier to use. In addition, it has that pixel-pushed feel, which I hear is apparently not in vogue anymore. Tragedy, that. Pixel-by-pixel icons were always better and always will be. These new "full-color", "alpha-blended icons" are nothing but blurry splats of color. If they seriously look 'cute' and 'inviting' to you, then I'd suppose you have some emotional issues to deal with.

It stands and always has stood that simple, minimalistic, easily-distinguishable icons have always been easier to work with.

Plus, Qute does not look like a "perfect Windows XP theme". I always thought of it as a "typical amateurish imitation to the real Luna" which is much more clean-looking. Well, relatively speaking, of course. Luna looks like ass and gives me headaches. And Luna itself is a half-assed imitation of Aqua done by those half-assed icon designers at IconFactory. While their "World of Aqua" icons may be "nice", they certainly don't hold a candle to the real deal.

Mac OS X has alpha-blended, photorealistic icons and still manages to be usable. While I prefer the old Mac OS 9 jobs, they're still quite nice. Windows's icons are all blurry. There's too much color. It's rather like a paint can being knocked all over my desktop.

Icons shouldn't be "miniature photographs" or works of art. Qute's home icon is ridiculously overdesigned. Icons are simple, easy-to-distinguish images that represent a certain action in an application. The key to good icons is simplicity, then consistency. Winstripe accomplishes both.

I suppose the best way to describe Luna is "visual noise". Qute's icons include all sorts of noise--I suppose I have to give you all that one, Qute is a good imitation of XP if for no reason other than the overwhelming amount of visual noise.

Take, for example, the "stop" icon. It is a red "X" over a piece of paper. The piece of paper represents the document or web page, and the "X" represents the action of stopping it. This is nothing but a pile of visual noise. There's no reason for the sheet of paper to be in the background. In addition to serving no fundamental meaning or purpose, it actively introduces noise by making it less distinguishable from other icons, e.g. the "reload" button. The classic, years-old icon for the stop action is a stop sign. It is, in essence, simplicity. It is but a red octagon. No extra noise. It's easy to find and impossible to misunderstand. It doesn't get in your way with "cuteness". It requires a minimal amount of effort to "decipher".

For that matter, I find "charles stuart"'s comment:
3. The Qute theme is easier to decipher (larger)
to be patently absurd. Interfaces shouldn't need to be deciphered. If an interface has to be deciphered, it is badly designed and should be scrapped. Making your interface "easy to decipher" is grossly missing the point. The point is to make your interface intuitive so you *don't* *have* *to* *decipher* it.

But I've already went on enough tangents.

In a few days I'm going to reformat and downgrade to Windows 2000. (But I'd rather use Windows NT 4.0's interface. If there is a God, he'll merge them.)

>> That is an easy answer: "Because Ben says so".
>> Like it or not thats how he runs the project.

>Good, because that is how Linus runs the Linux >kernel and it is doing quite well.

>It is often said that the best form of government >is a benevolent dictatorship.

That is true but...

It is not the Project structure I'm complaining about, it is how people act within those.

There is miles between the style / attitude they (Ben and Linus) has towards leadership.

I have yet to see Linus pull stunts like this, and frankly Ben could learn alot form linus

http://mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=4824#94

Here's one licensing problem. Firefox team wanted to remove picture in background of Downloads, because it slowed performance, was inconsistent with other parts of Firefox such as Bookmarks, and it looked like a middle finger. But they couldn't because Arvid liked it.

>>Well I'm a UI designer and a graphic artist, and yes, these new "theme" looks like shit.

You sound like someone pretending to be one if you can actually say that Qute is more user-friendly than Winstripe.

>>Out of the box, the browswer looks so plain, and so dull with these icons that it feels like it's some kind of highschool programming project.

It's supposed to look plain. It's just supposed to be a theme. It's not trying to be anything else. Also, Qute was duller than Winstripe if you're talking about brightness.

>>Hey, I love the browser, but c'mon this is just not acceptable. The icons are not consistent at all, and the final product just looks very generic. The worst offenders are the ugly green back and forth arrows, what the hell is this?

Qute was also inconsistent when it first debuted and as time passed, it looked more uniform. You just said it yourself. They green back and forth arrows are green back and forth arrows.

>>Yes, Qte wasn't perfect, but it was a lot more attractive than this. Anybody that tells you that the icons visual appeal are not important, doesn't know what they're talking about. UI butttons are "affordances", things that indicate you can click and interact with them, they're not supposed to be eye sores or make you want to puke.

Qute's artsyness made me want to puke and it made me want to puke more because of its fatness and dullness, as well as its size(too small/too big). The Pro-Pinstripe/Anti-Qute people never said icon appeal wasn't important. We find Qute unappealing and Pinstripe easy on the eyes. Qute's Reload and others don't make me want to click on them. They confuse me with their "creative" look.

Please !

Do not remove Qute : it should stay the default one.
It's a lot more polished and professionnal !

I'm sure I'm not an artist but looking Winstripe I know I could certainly draw as good as it. So, if I can draw it it's not so exciting. I'm very bad artist. Winstripe is so plain... :-(

Just a thought... is the octagon even recognized world-over as the "Stop" signal? Isn't that more of a US thing?

Winstripe is more utilitarian than Qute, but Qute sure was easier on the eyes. Winstripe will develop into a perfectly fine theme in the future, but for now it is most assuredly the lesser of the two themes. But I have time to waste, it's all good ^_^.

Qute draws attention. It's not subtle. That's a general no-no in UI design. The new ones could be better. And i'm sure that it will be.

If i don't like a default theme, i just switch theme. I think most of the worst complainers should take a deep breath, take a walk, and then install what ever "HaxXXor 3D Theme" and be happy.

Cheers from Sweden.

About removing the download background because it looks a middle finger - it was marked as WONTFIX in Bugzilla so it wasn't a problem.

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=233525

Personally I think the Qute theme does the job it's supposed to, it doesn't look bad while it does it, everybody's used to it, and problems like this so close to a 1.0 release smack of re-arranging the deckchairs while Titanic sinks.

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=233525

Arvid fixed that after 3 months of complaints. If Qute was free, all they would've had to do was take out the picture.

>>Just a thought... is the octagon even recognized world-over as the "Stop" signal? Isn't that more of a US thing?

What is so hard about an X on a red surface? What else could it be? It's obvious it means Stop, while Qute's Reload is rather ambiguous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_sign
Not exactly worldwide, but still recognizeable.

>>I'm sure I'm not an artist but looking Winstripe I know I could certainly draw as good as it. So, if I can draw it it's not so exciting. I'm very bad artist. Winstripe is so plain... :-(

No you could never draw as good as it, since you just said you weren't an artist. You can't just use Paint and end up with Winstripe. And why does the theme have to be "exciting"? H&R Block uses a green box as it's logo yet people still recognize it.

>> The key to good icons is simplicity, then consistency.

Dylan, there are those who contest that the introduction of the 'Luna' look in XP was a mistake, but as you state yourself a very important principle in UI design is consistency. When I use an application in Windows XP, I want it to look like any other *XP* application and not something from Windows 95, as much as I 'lament' the changes in UI design which have occurred since that time. Apple has user interface guidelines to ensure consistency on its platform which just goes to show how important it is. There is no denying that on the Windows platform those who are likely to be switching over to Firefox are Internet Explorer users - why make it more difficult for them by introducing a theme which looks out of place in the OS? Granted, there are those that consider the old style 'sharp', 'pixel-by-pixel' as you say, glyphs to be more easily recognisable but I don't think there is any doubt that if Firefox is to be successful then its default theme on each platform needs to fit into the user interface of that platform. This is something that Winstripe does not do.

It seems to me that the decision to switch over to the winstripe theme, disregarding the inability of the Mozilla team to communicate effectively, is motivated more by the design sensibilities of a group of 'enthusiasts'. At the risk of making to broad a generalisation, it is this kind of person that prefers the more clinical 'sharp' look. However, if Mozilla wants to lure the 'average' user away from the homely delights of Internet Explorer, I don't think that there is any doubt that Qute, which you describe as 'all blurry' and 'visual noise', should be the default theme on Windows XP at least. As much as you may hate current trends in UI design, if Firefox is to be perceived as a modern software application, and one that is immediately accessible to all users, it needs to fit into the visual style of the operating system under which it is running - this is why I so dislike the 'modern' theme, which has in various places been hailed as a 'work of art', because as you say the primary role of a user interface is to be used and not admired and for its alleged 'beauty' it did not fit into the standard user interface of Windows, or for that matter of any other OS. In addition, for an application such as a browser which is likely to be in daily use, a theme which is 'easy on the eye' is crucial and to me Qute fits the bill completely!

>> Personally, I think the Qute theme does the job it's supposed to, it doesn't look bad while it does it, everybody's used to it, and problems like this so close to a 1.0 release smack of re-arranging the deckchairs while Titanic sinks.

Spot on!

Just to reassure our "benevolent friends", I can assure you that the stop signs are of the same form in every country I've ever been to (that would include most of Europe and some parts of Canada). Red octagons with "stop" everywhere, excepted in Québec where it was "arrêt". But still, red octagons.

Benoit: I live in Japan. Here there are red downward pointing triangles here for stop signs! (but then, I'm waiting for the final.)

Personally I can instantly understand the first 5 icons of winstripe, the next two fairly obvious ones are the last two, add tab and new page ones.

The rest aren't obvious, esp the one next to the home, is it save the page? save the link? not a clue, thoses guesses are only from looking at the qute examples!

The printer, thats difficult, its obvious what it does, but it looks 'wrong', i'd say overcomplicated compared to the first five.

Very nice!
Would it be possible to get the ico's ?
Sincerely,
Rainer Pohl

Winstripe looked so bad, instead of bothering to install Qute, I just downgraded back to Firefox 0.8.

What's going on? Why are all the cries of "it's ugly" and "it's immature" being ignored? You *must* have a hysteresis in huge changes like this (huge in the sense that they're very apparent).

That means you don't switch the default theme until, say, 2 out of 3 people prefer it. That means a theme theme becomes default when it has 67% popularity, but doesn't switch out until it has no more than 33% popularity. This affords consistency.

There's a community around Firefox. Why are they being ignored?

Analogies to Linus driving Linux do not apply, because the kernel itself has no user interface. Well, it does in its configuration system -- and they went through bloody holy wars to get that revamped.

Why isn't there more process involving the community for a user interface change?

I think the colors of the Qute theme don't fit to Windows XP. No I'm not the best friend of Windows XP, but if everyone argues with Icon Design Guidelines this should also be considered.

I think everybody is missing the point. Why does it have to be an "XP theme"? Why not just have a usable one that looks good and works well? It doesn't need to copy anything, especially considering it's multi-platform. Nevermind about what direction the light is coming from or whatever, I just want an intuitive one.