FC5 has a broken gnome-session package

I am sure other users, like myself, have tried to replace the stock FC5 splash screen and found that the start-up icons are mis-aligned on the replacement screen. I googled and found 2 other users posting of the problem, but no solution. It turns out the problem is deliberate.

On a side note. I am over the bubbles. And the ugliest part of the bubbly theme is the splash screen. Seriously it looks like someone drank a cup of blue ink and threw up.

The splash screen is taken care of as part of the gnome-session package. I downloaded the source package to have a poke around. There is a patch included: gnome-session-2.12.0-shaped.patch, which changes size settings and offsets for icons and labels.

This is seriously stupid. To accommodate someones particular preference in splash screen, Fedora have actually hacked the source. In doing so they have broken the package to anyone wanting to use any of the abundance of third party splash-screens available.

This is not a good solution. In fact, I think this is a moronic idea of amazingly stupid proportions.

If you want to change your splash-screen there are 2 solutions open to you:

1. White space your splash screen. The offset has been increased by about 75 pixels. Add 75 transparent rows to the top and bottom of your splash screen using gimp and things should appear almost normal.
2. Un-patch the source. Edit the SPEC file in the SRPM and remove any references to the patch file gnome-session-2.12.0-shaped.patch. Recompile and all downloaded splash-screens will look normal.

I have adopted the second approach, but this does mean that I can no longer use the default splash screen, and it also means I have to recompile gnome-session every time a patch is released for it. But at least I have gotten rid of the bubbles.