Exclude evil characters

[GreenLunar]

They do not support freedom!
http://gizmodo.com/so-long-open-web-moz ... 1576746922

I suggest to find another race referee (IceDove or, maybe, Swift of XMPP) and replace the fox with IceCat or IceWeasel

GNUzilla and IceCat
https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iceape-icon.svg (Gorilla)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... 00x300.svg (Cat)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... e-icon.svg (Bird)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... l_icon.svg (Weasel)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... -large.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File ... a_logo.png (GNU)

[deve]

Don't be fanatic...

Nobody knows what is IceCat :-P

[samuncle]

This is my own opinion and not the opinion from the team (because we hadn't the time yet to debate) but I would agree with Deve.

Let's not be fanatic, I think mozilla simply had no choice, they have only 25% of the market if people can't watch their netflix on Firefox their market will simply plummet. It might be sad and all that but it's simply true. People don't care that much about freedom in software.

To quote one of the comment

I don't think it's that simple. Just suppose Mozilla had decided to stand up against DRM, once again. What would have happened?

Ultimately, Google, Microsoft, Apple and consorts wouldn't have cared and would have stopped trying to properly work on Firefox, and their sites would only work on Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer... Firefox would be left out.

When Baker says "Mozilla cannot change the industry on DRM at this point.", I think they are right. For years, Firefox usage has slowly but constantly declined since mid-2009 and is now around 25% of the Internet traffic, according to w3schools. Firefox is not the biggest player anymore, Chrome is.

Sure, 25% is still a thing. However, if Youtube or Netflix stopped being compatible with Firefox tomorrow, most people would stop using it. It's not the other way round: too few users care enough about an Open Web to boycott such huge services.

Unfortunately, because Firefox isn't the main actor anymore means that standing up alone against DRM wouldn't have as much power as it would have if they still represented more than 40% of the traffic and were the biggest browser. Had they tried that today, they'd have probably died in the end.

And I think Firefox's survival is more important than a completely DRM-free Internet, which already wasn't DRM-free anyway: think about Flash Player... Even with the rise of HTML5, many popular websites are still using it. And are you really boycotting it?

Well, maybe you are. But still, people with a completely anti-DRM stance are but a small fraction of Internet users nowadays. Because they know that, they can't afford at Mozilla to just deprive the average user from their daily Youtube/Netflix and only keep among their users those rare people that are ready to completely boycott those services.

Sam

[konstin]

When judging about mozilla's position towards freedom, should not only consider this one case where a standard by the W3C was implemented by the last major browser, but also the work that mozilla did supporting freedom. This includes big efforts on many open standards and their implementations that make an open web possible, e.g. html5 video and audio, which supersede the proprietary and unsafe flash, webRTC, which has the potential of replacing skype, and of course many javascript improvements such as webGL, asm.js and many new language features. mozilla also improved the freedom of the user by supporting user-defined cookie policies, DoNotTrack, lightbeam and add-ons that can change nearly everything the browser does.

You also shouldn't forget that mozilla isn't the only organisation including blob's in their software. In the contrary, there is much open-source-software that uses non-free codecs or blob's, e.g. many linux distributions include binary drivers and every program that can play mp3 files uses non-free technology, as there are still some patents on mp3 pending.

Though I also really don't like DRM for many reasons, I don't think that STK needs to remove mozilla's mascot just because they included a blob in firefox, and I'ld claim that even the EFF would agree to that.

[ArDanWol]

I don't think we need to change the race ref over this

[Arthur]

Actually, the more important question would be: what would we replace it with? We've never been free software purists, and unless we have to replace something quickly because it turns out we can't use it under a CC license, we don't replace art unless we have something even better ready.

So until we see a better replacement, I really doubt there is much to discuss here.

[eltomito]

Actually, the more important question would be: what would we replace it with? We've never been free software purists, and unless we have to replace something quickly because it turns out we can't use it under a CC license, we don't replace art unless we have something even better ready.

So until we see a better replacement, I really doubt there is much to discuss here.

Well, not that I think Bluebird has suddenly turned evil but it could be actually funny to put an Ice Dove half mask on the ref's face - something like this: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/leather- ... 118805.jpg but white. Because that's what Ice Dove is, Bluebird with its identity changed, right?

Ice Dove isn't really well known but I had to google Puffy, Pidgin, Hexley, Adiumi and others to find out what they were. And I actually know one person who uses Ice Weasel, so he may be using Ice Dove too

[tuxkartdriver]

-

[charlie]

I thought Sara was an STK character.

[Akien]

I thought Sara was an STK character.

Well she is also the mascot of OpenGameArt, so in some way she is a free/libre mascot too

I think STK does a pretty good job at creating a consistent universe while using mascots of free software projects, I don't think it should part with this initial philosophy, as long as it's not a huge limit to the artists' creativity.
And I don't think Mozilla mascots should be removed based on what's been discussed above, as said already, Mozilla had no real choice. And the HTML5 DRM are way better IMO that this junk of Flash that is still plaguing the Internet.

[ArDanWol]

I'd love for us to come up with an exclusive STK character!

[samuncle]

Hi, yes currently all characters are from open source mascot. We might have two exclusive characters to SuperTuxKart soon, but I can't promise anything.

[Wuzzy]

Not really serious compromise idea: Make all “evil” mascots antagonists in story mode because they teamed up with Nolok and went to the dark side.

[ArDanWol]

Hehe

[GreenLunar]

Not really serious compromise idea: Make all “evil” mascots antagonists in story mode because they teamed up with Nolok and went to the dark side.

Great idea!

[GreenLunar]

For an easy fix, I suggest to color the current bird to green (instead of blue) and announce it is the KMess bird.

KMess
http://kmess.org/

[Akien]

For an easy fix, I suggest to color the current bird to green (instead of blue) and announce it is the KMess bird.

KMess
http://kmess.org/

So replace a well established brand of one of the firms that did most for open source by the mascot of an unmaintained client for a retired messaging network?
Seriously, if we start considering Firefox or Thunderbird evil, then we should probably also drop Tux as the mascot of the Linux kernel.

[Arthur]

To clarify something, it's never called Thunderbird in the game, and while the design has been inspired by the Thunderbird logo, just think of it as a similar looking bird, if the Mozilla association bothers you that much.