[Bug 18574] restore support for MNG and JNG

Discussion of bugs in Seamonkey
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zachariah
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[Bug 18574] restore support for MNG and JNG

Post by zachariah »

Since there are too many bug spam posts in the bugzilla bug: And, since the only response to those spamming the bug is the equivalent of Nancy Regan's "Just Say No" campaign,
with only asking to stop spamming but offering no alternative, I have created this thread for:
  • Discussion of the return of MNG and JNG to Mozilla/Firefox/etc.
  • A place to refer bug spammers each time they spam Bug 18574


Please discuss the pro's and con's of including the fix into Mozilla (once it is indeed fixed), why it should/shouldn't be
an extension instead, timetables for aspects of fixing the bug, difficulties in fixing the bug, roadmap of fixing the bug,
what's fixed already, what still needs to be fixed, why MNG is/isn't useful anyway, why you need MNG, MNG vs. GIF,
and anything else related to [Bug 18574] restore support for MNG animation format and JNG image format

Don't be afraid to show your passion, but please keep it polite.
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zachariah
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Post by zachariah »

My first suggestion related to this bug is that if you don't have really anything to say but would still like this fix included in Mozilla ASAP, then simply vote for this bug and leave it at that.

I would also suggest that you Right-Click and "Copy Link Location" on the post "#" then paste the URL in your post here for any posts in the bug to which you wish to reply.

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mtigas
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Why MNG Is Not In Mozilla & Will Probably Not Be For A W

Post by mtigas »

Comment #510 From Tanner Oakes 2004-08-18 10:49 PDT

How close is MNG to being put back into Mozilla? Also what is left to be done?
Comment #511 From Mike "Nova" Tigas 2004-08-18 12:39 PDT

Re: Comment 510

I'm re-iterating a few points made earlier, but some of this should be made
crystal clear, especially to those whose impatience leads to bugspam.

MNG won't be put into Mozilla/Firefox until some bugs are fixed up and the code
that enables it is cleaned up. Someone must maintain the code if/when it is
re-integrated.

However, MNG inclusion won't even be considered until there is true reason to
include it. According to some numbers I believe I saw at libmng or
png.org/pub/mng, the number of MNG/JNG images ranges in the hundreds or the low
thousands. Period. Worldwide. Ever. Almost all of these images are also set
up as testcases, not as practical media on sites.

Part of the reason for this is that the MNG spec and the mime types video/x-mng
and image/x-jng are not registered with the IETF, meaning to say that they are
not truly "accepted" or "standard" in an official documented sense. Thus,
software and web servers aren't even configured to handle these filetypes for
clients anyway.

This lack of official recommendation and lack of support in a global perspective
makes it pointless to include MNG because it generally will not be used in a
general-use public web browser such as Mozilla/Firefox. This makes it cruft.
Cruft is to be left out as much as possible to reduce size and improve performance.

I believe if a larger pro-MNG movement were associated and international
recommendation could be found, MNG inclusion would be certain in
Mozilla/Firefox. And hey, once Opi updates the patch code (or I'll try building
Firefox trunk and see if that works) I'll see the size difference between a
normal build and a MNG (with PNG disabled so MNG renders PNG). That would be a
compelling argument against the status of it as "cruft", if libmng could render
PNG as stably as libpng.
#474 From Mike Connor 2004-07-04 09:25 PDT

reasons why this isn't going to block aviary 1.0 (again, posting to prevent more
advocacy posting. If you want to debate this with me, feel free to email)

a) the code isn't ready, per the owner of the bug and the person responsible for
getting things to a point where it can be added back into CVS. We're on way too
short of a timeline to take major last minute code.

b) no one working on Firefox/Thunderbird really wants this at this point
(speaking as one of the people heavily involved in Firefox). Thunderbird
stopped building with MNG before CVS removal took place. Firebird was probably
going to do the same, but CVS removal came first. Its not something that'll
likely change going forward, unless MNG support is really low cost (i.e. not
200-300k). At 50-80k the case becomes stronger, of course. The "if you support
it, they will come" argument is weak, since we did support this for three years
and the content didn't come.

c) Content that 90% of the web doesn't support isn't going to get created in any
substantive way. MNG has the advantage of being more ideologically pure than
Flash etc, but if people aren't using it, its cruft, and that's the reality.
Given the choice, we'd be much better off bundling Flash with Firefox based on
the "size vs. usability boost" equation. I realize lots of people don't like
Flash for a myriad of reasons, but users don't care.
This post will be edited and updated as new developments (i.e. official stances) come along.
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mtigas
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Post by mtigas »

I also recommend using the top of this thread as an informative section. My post right above this one is serving part of that purpose.

Probably sometime in the future a page could be set up on this. (There is MNGZilla, but it's heavily outdated.) A MNG-Mozilla Wiki page?

-----

I had an idea with a friend (does graphic design) to create our own browser product based off of Mozilla. More or less use the rebranding policies of the Firefox project and totally revamp it to call it our own. The idea was to have more or less the same browser, with a handful or so of popular mods/patches, MNG support, a new default skin, and optimized build versions for various architechtures. Don't know if we'll go anywhere with it, but it gives us something to do in our freetime, and it seemed to be a cool enough idea.

In any case, once the kinks are worked out, I will be providing Win32 optimized builds of AVIARY MNG sometime soon.
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zachariah
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Post by zachariah »

MadmanNova wrote:A MNG-Mozilla Wiki page?
I like this idea -- I'll link to it if someone wants to set it up.

Anything else that belongs in the first post in this thread, just post or PM me. :D

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guzzi333
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Post by guzzi333 »

Isn't it possible to just have a MNG plugin (like a flash plugin) for mozilla? So people that want mng can easily get this working
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DVega
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Community conflicts

Post by DVega »

Mozilla software products are build around a community. There are many people who contribute code, report bugs, evangelize web developers and promote Mozilla products with friends and relatives.

A number of members of this comunity (718 votes) have shown interest to see MNG support back into mozilla again. I know this is not a democracy. But even dictatorhips need some society support. You can not ignore comunity requests without costs (see XFree86 recent history).

I personally not asking for inclusion of MNG on the oficial builds. I only would like to be able to create my own build with MNG support enabled (I usually compile my own browser).

Why I want MNG support ? I dont know. Perhaps because I have libmng already installed on my system and I would like to use it. Perhaps because I like MNG images. Perhaps because I like to use a browser that supports more features than the Microsoft alternative. Or simply because I like to use a product that is Free Software and is build around a comunity.

Is this "cruft" if we put MNG support back in the CVS but don't include it on official builds ?
Is this "cruft" if we support MNG only when libmng is already installed on the system ?
Dunderklumpen
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Re: Community conflicts

Post by Dunderklumpen »

DVega wrote:Mozilla software products are build around a community. There are many people who contribute code, report bugs, evangelize web developers and promote Mozilla products with friends and relatives.


Not so. The project is not community driven and the developers have clearly said so - more than once. Patches are implemented only f the devlopers accepts them, decissions are being made without further notice and voting on bugs...well does anyone still thinks that a vote matters?

The Foundation asks for help from time to time - help with various marketing projects etc. etc.

DVega wrote:A number of members of this comunity (718 votes) have shown interest to see MNG support back into mozilla again. I know this is not a democracy. But even dictatorhips need some society support. You can not ignore comunity requests without costs (see XFree86 recent history).


A good example of the above.
schapel
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Re: Community conflicts

Post by schapel »

Dunderklumpen wrote:voting on bugs...well does anyone still thinks that a vote matters?


Votes do matter, but bugs don't get fixed automatically or even necessarily faster merely because they have a certain number of votes. And after a certain number of votes, maybe 50 or 100, more votes hardly matter at all.

But by all means vote on bugs you experience. It does help developers know which bugs are most important to users.
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mtigas
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Post by mtigas »

guzzi333 wrote:Isn't it possible to just have a MNG plugin (like a flash plugin) for mozilla? So people that want mng can easily get this working
There was/is a MNG extension for Mozilla/Firefox, I believe, but it's long outdated. It was affected by the "JNG images crash" bug, but there might've been a fixed version. Can't seem to locate it at the moment.

[update]
http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e0225227/
That extension is heavily broken and doesn't work, apparantly.

However, there is a plugin available:
http://entropymine.com/jason/mngplg/

Build date of it seems to be after the fix for the JNG images crash (patch released around December 03).

I'd love to see libmng in Mozilla/Firefox, particularly because it can render PNGs, MNGs, and others, which kills several birds with one stone. libpng could more or less be removed, due to this, and that'd result in less cruftness, on the behalf of the MNG code.

[update2]
Hm. MNGPLG, like MNG4IE doesn't work on IMG tag MNG images, only ones thrown in with <EMBED>. Another reason why native support is better, IMO.
ehn
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Re: Community conflicts

Post by ehn »

DVega wrote:Why I want MNG support ? I dont know. Perhaps because I have libmng already installed on my system and I would like to use it.


I have been wondering about this for a while. Why is the size of libmng even a factor? Surely, you wouldn't include libmng in Mozilla, or would you? That would defeat the point of shared libraries.

Though, if I run ldd on mozilla-bin or firefox-bin, they actually aren't dynamically linked to libpng.
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mtigas
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Post by mtigas »

20040820 (night; can be considered almost 20040821) AVIARY build + MNG

I got it working. ;p

-O2 optimization, generic for all CPUs, all Windows platforms.

http://pryan.org/firefox/MadmanNova/AVIARY-20040820-MNG.exe 4.7MB

Extracts to directory "Firefox". Contains README.txt (with my build information in there) and mozconfig.txt.

UA String (on my computer):
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20040820 Firefox/0.9.1+ (Nova: Aviary MNG)

-----

This is a pretty lame build announcemnet post. I'm tired and it's 2:30am here. I'll post a much lengthier stint at the actual Third Party Builds forum tomorrow.
Old GlennRP
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Post by Old GlennRP »

Nova's 20040820 works great for me on Win XP-home. Three of the "cheap transparent" images (the 16-bit ones) at http://gjuyn.xs4all.nl/libmng/MNGsuite/index.html are rendered non-transparent
due to the use of MNG_BUILD_MOZ_MNG instead of MNG_BUILD_FULL_MNG but that is to be
expected.
kyber
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The much lauded post 511 is a troll

Post by kyber »

It takes the advantage to reiterate points refuted repeatedly in the hundreds of comments in that bug, then orders people not to reply in it.
Small surprise if the advice is ignored and the poster can righteously point out the uncontrolled nature of the mass of the mozilla community pressing for this bug.

Lets go over the reasons MNG should (and probably will once we get past a few well-placed people in opposition) be included.

A) MNG format offers needed image formats for the web. Sophisticated animation with alpha layers, lossily compressed image with alpha.
B) The idea of Mozilla just being a browser is ridiculous. Mozilla has been pushed time and again as a development platform. MNG support will aid both the internal development of the browser (in interface) and in websites/intranets that want to develop specific web apps for Gecko.
C) There's a very good reason there are only a few thousand MNG images in the world. There are many of us who have no problem with providing extra bits of a website for those with a browser that supports it, except that, well, that support was removed from Mozilla.
D) The argument that stability is the limiting factor is stupid. This component is in active development, but can even be disabled in prefs if there is that much concern that it is more unstable than some other parts of the product. From what I'm reading in the other bugs, I don't see the stability problems as being that serious, and a replacement of libpng as quite feasible.
Old GlennRP
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Re: The much lauded post 511 is a troll

Post by Old GlennRP »

kyber wrote: I don't see the stability problems as being that serious, and a replacement of libpng as quite feasible.

It is worth noting that libmng is immune to <b>all six</b> of the recently disclosed libpng vulnerabilities. Had we switched to using libmng for our PNG support, we could have simply smirked when the disclosure was made, instead of having to rush out a new set of releases.
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