According to a thread on MozillaZine, the default 'Qute' theme for Firefox is due to be replaced by a Windows version of the Pinstripe theme that is currently used by default on the Mac OS X version of Firefox.
Ben Goodger wrote in an e-mail :
We have been working on some of the issues surrounding Themes in our tree in recent months and two of the key areas of concern are licensing, and uniform product appearance across our supported platforms.
Read More... With regard to licensing issues with artwork in our tree, Mozilla policy has always been to minimize the amount of proprietary material that we host in our CVS repositories. In our case at present it's pretty much only our logos which are protected by trademark, and the Qute theme which you have indicated a desire to protect.
We have also had a desire to present a consistent look and feel for our browser across the platforms that we support - including Windows, MacOS X and Linux. This allows us to create a stronger brand identity for ourselves.
As a result we've decided to pursue a new path for the Firefox browser that we distribute, which involves replacing Qute with a free alternative developed by Kevin Gerich and Stephen Horlander as a Windows variant of Pinstripe.
The transition to the new theme for Firefox will begin in the next few days as the materials become available to us, before the 0.9 release. The decision to do this is in no way a reflection on the quality of your work, which has always been excellent, Qute is in my opinion one of the best themes produced . I encourage you to offer it as a standalone .jar install for the large number of people who enjoy using it. I imagine that being able to deliver updates to it on your own terms and schedule will be a relief from incessant Mozilla release delays and swamped engineers like myself too busy to find time to check in artwork updates right away.
Source : www.nikush.com
Ben Goodger wrote in an e-mail :
We have been working on some of the issues surrounding Themes in our tree in recent months and two of the key areas of concern are licensing, and uniform product appearance across our supported platforms.
Read More... With regard to licensing issues with artwork in our tree, Mozilla policy has always been to minimize the amount of proprietary material that we host in our CVS repositories. In our case at present it's pretty much only our logos which are protected by trademark, and the Qute theme which you have indicated a desire to protect.
We have also had a desire to present a consistent look and feel for our browser across the platforms that we support - including Windows, MacOS X and Linux. This allows us to create a stronger brand identity for ourselves.
As a result we've decided to pursue a new path for the Firefox browser that we distribute, which involves replacing Qute with a free alternative developed by Kevin Gerich and Stephen Horlander as a Windows variant of Pinstripe.
The transition to the new theme for Firefox will begin in the next few days as the materials become available to us, before the 0.9 release. The decision to do this is in no way a reflection on the quality of your work, which has always been excellent, Qute is in my opinion one of the best themes produced . I encourage you to offer it as a standalone .jar install for the large number of people who enjoy using it. I imagine that being able to deliver updates to it on your own terms and schedule will be a relief from incessant Mozilla release delays and swamped engineers like myself too busy to find time to check in artwork updates right away.
Source : www.nikush.com
