Talk:The Book of Mozilla

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[edit] mozilla

I have changed the description of 12:10 for it to correspond with the information found on the "official" The Book of Mozilla. Just view the source code of that website and you'll see a description of every verse. --212.186.144.229 19:29, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Notability Template

This article has been tagged for notability. Why is this? Also, I think I have a source for notability. The Mozilla Developer Center [1] has recently started a newsletter on that page called about:mozilla. The about:mozilla newsletter consists of general updates all around Mozilla, but, of course, it's name references the Book of Mozilla. Mandanthe1 (talk) 20:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I tagged it for notability because the article does not show why the topic is worthy of inclusion in the encyclopedia. Notability is a technical term on Wikipedia that basically means that a topic needs to have received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. The about:mozilla newsletter does not qualify because it is not independent of the Book of Mozilla, and does not meet the requirements for reliable sources. Hope this helps, Skomorokh ^incite 20:24, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

You are wrong. Most people who are contributing in this Geeky article know about Notability already.--Jahilia (talk) 01:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unofficial verses

The "Unofficial verses" section should be deleted. You only get those if you install a specific extension.

You only get the main ones from installing a specific version of a specific browser... there's no reason not to include them. --Random|832 12:13, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

But you will always get ONE of the main ones. I would bet the percentage of Firefox uses that install the Firesomething extension is less than 2%. The Firesomething extension is not an official extension. Could I get some more unofficial verses added here if I created some silly extension for Firefox that almost no one used?

The man got a point. I don't know what should be done about the verses, though. – Mackeriv 06:19, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I was also just about to post that the unofficial verses should be removed and then found it's already been suggested. Well they're right - get rid of them! you wouldn't expect the article on Bible to have some unofficial verses quoted, would you?

They're gone.

And so at last the unofficial verses fell and the followers of the beast rejoiced.

And now another one is here. Nvu. Nvu is not related to mozilla in any way save that it was based on the Composer code. It is not available from Mozilla.org. Thus, it has been removed by myself. If it were to return, it would require the return of the Firesomething quote as well. In my opinion, all pieces of the book should be included, including non-firefox pieces, under their own section. --TIB (talk) 03:07, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

The problem with unofficial verses is that literally hundreds on them have been written by different people. They're effectively fan fiction and therefore should not be included. The current rule of featuring only official verses (from Netscape and Mozilla browsers) is the best policy. Personally, I think that the fact that the unofficial verses even exist cheapens the Easter egg somewhat, but that's by-the-by.

I suggest to wait with the Nvu bit until it gets an official mozilla programm/gets listet on mozilla.org --Albert Feller 00:30, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Unless I'm very mistaken, Nvu was not made by the Mozilla developers, but by separate people who simply used some of the engine from Mozilla (which is something Mozilla likes and wants, and intends to make even more popular in later revisions of XUL.) I do not expect to ever, in my life time, see Nvu offered as a project from mozilla.org - nor do I ever expect to see Firefox on microsoft.com (even though Firefox uses technology and code from the Windows API.)

NVU is based on composer. It's made by Linspire 81.11.184.83 17:23, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Please note the mozilla.org projects list, which does not list Nvu, but instead lists their "competing" project, Editor (Composer). -[Unknown] 02:03, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)

It would be insteresting, though, telling people that unnofficial verses exist. It explains that the easter egg is famous enough to have "fan fiction" and somewhat covers the existence of unnofficial verses in a way that people won't feel tempted to add then back. -- Omar "Ekevu" Balbuena 11:53, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please note that Nvu is mentionned in the Other Application and Distribution Forum on MozillaZine Forums [2] along with K-Meleon. -- Astrowob 05:05, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Does anyone use Mozilla 1.7?

I have found the "about:mozilla" page for Mozilla 1.7(it changed) I don't know anything about it, or which letters are big, and whatnot, so it would be appreciated if someone who has mozilla 1.7(the absolute newest version) could redo what I put in to be more accurate.

There was no new Book of Mozilla for 1.7. It appears to have started out as a joke: http://www.peerfear.org/rss/permalink/2004/03/21/TheBookOfMozilla17b/

thanks for clearing that up

1.7.2 has the "And so at last the beast fell..." verse. k.lee 03:29, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As of the most recent version of SeaMonkey (the replacement for Mozilla) at the time, 7:15 was the verse being used. -- Jb-adder (logged on as 59.154.24.146) 17:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IE

If you look at Internet Explorer, for instance with a binary editor, you will find the string "about:mozilla". There are apparently other special urls (such as res:// type urls) that are recognized by msie, but about:mozilla seems to be the only about: special url. It produces a blank html page with a blue background. (after checking, apparently the latest version of msie no longer has this feature) --WhiteDragon 05:03, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it's a particularly odd one that; some have suggested it is a subtle reference to the blue screen of death, but if so it's very subtle. If you typed any other URI beginning "about:" into IE, it used to render it as HTML - so "about:There is a <a href="http://example.com">link</a> here!" would show the sentence "There is a link here!" with the word "link" as a link. I think they took this out as being a potential security issue, so perhaps the "about:mozilla" special case was removed at the same time. - IMSoP 00:09, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

about:Mozilla still works in IE 6.0 SYSS Mouse 15:32, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have version 6.0.2800.1106 (the latest final version other than XP) and it still works. --Wulf 01:07, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

There is a list of those Internet Explorer strings for in the Registry. Open Windows' Registry Editor and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs to se a list of the strings.

I made a relevant comment about this below Maerk 11:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] weird book of mozilla picture

someone included this picture. apart from using a link to archive.org that doesn't work i don't think that this link should be included. if anybody doesn't share my opinion: feel free to comment. --Albert Feller 18:26, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Very funny, but is it a fake? It'd be nice to have a link at least, saying that it is possibly a fan art equivalent for the book 194.80.178.1 22:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Screenshots of all three Book of Mozilla verses

Combining my passion for installing old Web browsers and my ability to make Windows XP look like older versions of Windows, I've taken screenshots of all three verses of The Book of Mozilla in appropriate versions of Netscape/Mozilla:

Someone with an account must be just itching to upload these images so that I can include them in the article, musn't they? Standard fairuse applies, I believe.

[edit] About NVU easter egg

I don't speak English very weel : sorry :) Since Nvu .50 go to Help->About NVU then hold down Shift and click "Credits"

You will be redirect on http://disruptive-innovations.com/book/0823.html

And this is pretty weird - the Nvu paragraph was removed from this article, but the new Netscape 9 was not. How is Netscape's BoM more official than Nvu's - that's beyond comprehension.

[edit] Internet Explorer

about:mozilla is also supported in Internet Explorer. However, I don't have much to write about it. Does anybody know why it's supported when it's not a mozilla browser? The about:mozilla source code is:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<BODY bgcolor="#000080" text="#FFFFFF">
</BODY>
</HTML>

217.60.43.5 07:26, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

See above; I think "supported" is probably too strong a word, it's more that some coder at MS made it do something, probably just as a joke. Perhaps we should mention it in the article, but I'm not quite sure what we'd say. - IMSoP 15:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

As mentioned in one of the sections above, this might be a reference to the blue screen of death, as in Microsoft is implying that if you use Mozilla software, your computer is more likely to crash. However, this might be due to the way IE deals with strings after the about: bit -- I read somewhere that it tries to resolve them to the nearest hex colour. So 00000g (invalid) could be interpreted as someone trying to put 00000f (valid!). It's possible that "mozilla" is resolved to 000080, which is the blue colour you see. Maerk 11:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

According to Blue screen of death#References to the Blue Screen of Death it was included as an easter egg.

While this isn't necessarily authoritative, the fact that res://mshtml.dll/about.moz was the resource used for about:mozilla, makes it appear that the colour theory is essentially decimated.

I certainly think that this should be included in the article194.80.178.1 22:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another fan verse

Not worth putting into the article (on grounds above), but I found this slashdot comment pretty amusing. -Ethan (talk) 23:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Link

How about adding a link to about:mozilla in the links section?

There's no way of adding a link to that address, because it's not a standard URL; if we could link to it, your comment above would be clickable automatically, just like if I type http://example.com (and it would be linked in the second sentence of the article, too, way before the links section). Besides, it's not like it's hard to type! - IMSoP 16:41, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it should be possible to do so. I've seen a number of direct links to about:mozilla on Slashdot. I'd assume, though, that you'd probably have to add an external URL tag around it. Nevermind, there's a limitation in the MediaWiki software that prevents non-standard URLs, such as about: URLs. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to do so, though. There may be a work-around available. 130.126.171.107 (talk) 08:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "probably"

Why does it seem like the explanations of the verses are so unsure of themselves (using the word "probably", for example) when the explanations are so clearly written out by Mozilla in the source for http://www.mozilla.org/book/?

I mean, the article itself quotes the code ("will fight against the followers of Mammon (Microsoft Internet Explorer). -->") and then later reads "Some suggest that "Mammon" refers to Microsoft, whose Internet Explorer browser was Netscape's chief competition." Uhh, wasn't it just spelled out for everyone BY the people who wrote it? --68.122.9.164 07:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Read the article. The people who wrote http://www.mozilla.org/book/ are not the same people who wrote the verses. - 87.194.10.31 16:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the Blink in 12.10

The blnk references in the 12.10 verse is made from the choice of non longer supporting the <blink> tag by the upcoming IE (was NCSA Mosaic) at this time...

I would even say, everything references at this point the NCSA's cuts in adaptation into IE, which was born the same year. FCartegnie 16:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other Gecko based webbroswers

It should also be noted that this easter egg appears in Camino for Mac OSX --GrayApple 17:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

A new Book of Mozilla quote appears in Netscape Navigator V9.0 b3. It says " And thus the Creator looked upon the beast reborn and saw that it was good.

from The Book of Mozilla, 8:20" I don't know what the 8:20 date refers to, but the verse looks like it refers to the previous verse.Mandanthe1 18:14, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Annotations"

The accompanying "Annotations" appear to suggest that these annotations were included in the original texts. This ain't so (and in fact, can be checked by following the diffs on bonsai). These "annotations" were evidently compiled after the fact, perhaps as explanations for the "Book of Mozilla" collection, which post-dates all of the actual about:mozilla texts.

The "annotation" for 7:15 reads:

This is hogwash. The first line is correct in that 15 July 2003 is the date of the non-profit Mozilla foundation, started with a $300,000 donation from Mitch Kapor and a $2 Mil. (over two years) donation promise from AOL.

However, the "creation of the Firebird browser, although the name was later changed to Firefox" is false. The "Firebird browser" has nothing to do with the creation of the foundation. The "rising from the ashes" refers to the Phoenix browser, which was the name of the standalone browser that would later become "Firebird." The first standalone browser to be called "Firebird" was released in MAY 2003, some two months before the foundation was established. Mozilla.org had already existed long before this date, and even the standalone "Phoenix" browser had already had 5 releases before the name change. "Firebird" was the 6th and 7th release (May and December 2003), and from the 8th release onwards it was "Firefox."

The name change from "Phoenix" to "Firebird" was due to a trademark dispute with some company who owned the rights to the "Phoenix" name. Then, shortly after the rename to "Firebird", another company asserted its trademark rights, and the name had to be changed again. The name "Firefox" is also a protected trademark, but has been proforma "licensed" to the Mozilla Corporation. (This is why the "The Charlton Company" appears in the "About Mozilla Firefox" popup).

One can still find traces of "Phoenix" all over the Mozilla source code. In fact, the build #define for what is today the Firefox browser is still MOZ_PHOENIX, and the makefile variable for the list of files to be made is still MAKEFILES_phoenix. To deal with various compatibility issues, there are also various instances of "phoenix" inside Firefox binaries.

There were also plenty of "rogue" standalone releases before the "official" Phoenix browser. These were custom compilations of the Mozilla suite. -- Fullstop 02:49, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is that "Mozilla Church" a spam?

I think it is. I went into it and found nothing useful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vincent Pun (talk • contribs) 12:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to remove that for several times, but it still persists. I would consider that of no significance of placing such a link there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.40.139.108 (talk) 16:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images should be removed

The images should be removed, because they do not qualify for fair use, since the textual representation right there is a perfect replication (although that still may be infringing copyright. Additionally, none of them presently have rationales, which they can't, because the rationale will not be true. ALTON .ıl 04:45, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe that these images would be considered to fall under one of the free distribution licenses.Baruch 01:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flock

When "about:mozilla" is typed into the address bar for Flock, the message "And when the Beast had taken the quarter of the Earth under its rule, a quarter hundred Birds of Sulfur flew from the Depths. The birds crossed hundreds of mountain views and found twenty four wise men who came from the stars. And then it began, the believers dared to listen. Then, they took their pens and dared to create. Finally, they dared to share their deed with the whole of mankind. Spreading words of freedom and breaking the chains, the birds brought deliverance to everyone. from The Book of Mozilla, 11:1" is displayed.--Lietk12 (talk) 03:18, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes I noticed this too, while this verse is mentioned to be available if you type about:mozilla into flock 1.0 it is not presented in the article.213.202.135.101 (talk) 18:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)Derry Quinn (No Account)

[edit] new update for fx 3.0

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=411352 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=296152

[edit] new book of mozilla

from the February 18, 2008 beta 3

Mammon slept. And the beast reborn spread over the earth and its numbers grew legion. And they proclaimed the times and sacrificed crops unto the fire, with the cunning of foxes. And they built a new world in their own image as promised by the sacred words, and spoke of the beast with their children. Mammon awoke, and lo! it was naught but a follower.

from The Book of Mozilla, 11:9 (10th Edition) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.4.106 (talk) 01:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)