As a Fedora KDE user i am forwarding this link to Fedora Artwork Team and KDE Fedora....
On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 10:35 AM, Ujjwol Lamichhane <ujjwol@fedoraproject.org
wrote:
As a Fedora KDE user i am forwarding this link to Fedora Artwork Team and KDE Fedora....
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/06/building-brand-together.html
gnu boi wrote:
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/06/building-brand-together.html
As I already wrote on IRC, I don't think this offer is of much value to Fedora at this point because we don't have our logo in the wallpaper anyway (to make things easier for remixes and other derived distributions). So if we really wanted to ship upstream wallpapers, we could just ship them as they are, there's no need to have upstream spend time on rebranding them. We have other reasons for using our own default wallpapers (e.g. consistency across the multiple desktops we ship, and also GRUB, Plymouth etc.).
There are also other issues, like what to do when we upgrade KDE to a new version: do we allow the default wallpaper to change in the middle of a Fedora release? Do we stay with the old one, shipping e.g. KDE 4.4 with the KDE 4.3 default wallpaper?
Kevin Kofler
Hi,
On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 10:38 AM, Kevin Kofler kevin.kofler@chello.at wrote:
gnu boi wrote:
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/06/building-brand-together.html
As I already wrote on IRC, I don't think this offer is of much value to Fedora at this point because we don't have our logo in the wallpaper anyway (to make things easier for remixes and other derived distributions). So if we really wanted to ship upstream wallpapers, we could just ship them as they are, there's no need to have upstream spend time on rebranding them. We have other reasons for using our own default wallpapers (e.g. consistency across the multiple desktops we ship, and also GRUB, Plymouth etc.).
There are also other issues, like what to do when we upgrade KDE to a new version: do we allow the default wallpaper to change in the middle of a Fedora release? Do we stay with the old one, shipping e.g. KDE 4.4 with the KDE 4.3 default wallpaper?
If I were working on a KDE desktop that is based on Fedora packages the first thing I would do is make sure I differentiate it from Fedora since Fedora is a GNOME based project - and that is not going to change. First thing I would do is give it a name. Having a different name does a few things for you: it gives you search engine exposure, it allows people to actually talk about your project, it makes it clear that it is different from what people expect from Fedora, and it allows you to build your own brand identity. This is not a new idea - Kubuntu has been doing this for years now.
Eventually, the Fedora board will realize that today's conception of spins is a failed experiment and force this change. I'd encourage projects based on Fedora to do this voluntarily before this occurs.
Jon
On 06/10/2009 08:47 AM, William Jon McCann wrote:
If I were working on a KDE desktop that is based on Fedora packages the first thing I would do is make sure I differentiate it from Fedora since Fedora is a GNOME based project - and that is not going to change.
GNOME is not upstream for Fedora in it's entirety. Without GNOME, there would still be a viable Fedora Project. Where did you get the impression Fedora is a GNOME based project?
Did and does this project not base itself on all of our passion and dedication to Free Software? Would you say Fedora is a Apache based project because Apache is the default webserver application?
Rather then looking at which is the best or superior desktop environment and should thus be default for the Fedora distribution, which is the most unlikely way of how the default desktop environment is going to change, we've seen initiatives at giving the user more and cleaner options to choose from either available DE, but it seems fans from either side continue to struggle with the sorting, positioning, default radio button selection and stuff like that possibly giving one DE more chance of being selected by the user then another DE. But letting the user choose right in the beginning is still just one idea. I'm very interested in learning about new ways and ideas to increase the option value for the users.
Spins in this aspect let users experience one DE, or several DEs, and let spin maintainers build the optimal show-case for what such a DE could look like. I think the KDE spin in this regard has been one of the most outstanding examples of building a show-case spin exactly doing what is the purpose of spins to begin with; be a show-case whether it is on a desktop environment or Electronic Labs.
Eventually, the Fedora board will realize that today's conception of spins is a failed experiment and force this change. I'd encourage projects based on Fedora to do this voluntarily before this occurs.
Today's conception of spins is not a failed experiment although maybe in your opinion it doesn't meet your personal needs and/or expectations; today's conception of spins is still in continuous development having improved a *lot* since it's first initiation.
Tomorrow's conception of spins will likely be better, just like any other thing developing. Maybe I'm supposed to say something clever about KDE 4's recent development history here.
Now am I correct to understand you are suggesting that we should differentiate more then calling a Fedora KDE spin just "Fedora KDE Spin", such as by calling it something different, like maybe "Kedora"? Would that not create yet another brand? Would that not move away from Fedora and make *edora sound like *buntu, which has become how many people now refer to the project largely subsidized by Canonical?
Kind regards,
Jeroen van Meeuwen -kanarip
On 06/10/2009 04:06 PM, Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote:
On 06/10/2009 08:47 AM, William Jon McCann wrote:
If I were working on a KDE desktop that is based on Fedora packages the first thing I would do is make sure I differentiate it from Fedora since Fedora is a GNOME based project - and that is not going to change.
GNOME is not upstream for Fedora in it's entirety. Without GNOME, there would still be a viable Fedora Project. Where did you get the impression Fedora is a GNOME based project?
I think he forgot to add the "desktop" word, the Fedora default desktop is indeed based on GNOME.
Eventually, the Fedora board will realize that today's conception of spins is a failed experiment and force this change. I'd encourage projects based on Fedora to do this voluntarily before this occurs.
Today's conception of spins is not a failed experiment although maybe in your opinion it doesn't meet your personal needs and/or expectations; today's conception of spins is still in continuous development having improved a *lot* since it's first initiation.
I like a lot the idea behind the Games spin (its games not that much) and I would not call it a failed conception. A few weeks ago we had that spin on a laptop (running OpenArena) at the eLiberatica conference and people showed interest.
And even the design team has it own spin in a TODO, thinking it is a good idea (something akin of Ubuntu Studio).
Now am I correct to understand you are suggesting that we should differentiate more then calling a Fedora KDE spin just "Fedora KDE Spin", such as by calling it something different, like maybe "Kedora"? Would that not create yet another brand? Would that not move away from Fedora and make *edora sound like *buntu, which has become how many people now refer to the project largely subsidized by Canonical?
I think that would be brand dissolution and a bad thing.
Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote:
Now am I correct to understand you are suggesting that we should differentiate more then calling a Fedora KDE spin just "Fedora KDE Spin", such as by calling it something different, like maybe "Kedora"? Would that not create yet another brand? Would that not move away from Fedora and make *edora sound like *buntu, which has become how many people now refer to the project largely subsidized by Canonical?
It shall also be noted that several people in the Kubuntu project are unhappy with Kubuntu's use of a separate brand and point to Fedora as the example of how to do it right.
I don't think we need a separate brand, we need to make the one brand more open to other desktops. It's certainly convenient to relegate KDE to its own brand so GNOME-centric people don't have to worry about it, but that doesn't make it a good idea.
Kevin Kofler
On Sábado 06 Junio 2009 06:50:39 Ujjwol Lamichhane escribió:
As a Fedora KDE user i am forwarding this link to Fedora Artwork Team and KDE Fedora....
Hmm, interesting... Already commented it there (but it's waiting for approval)...
Short conclusion: we have to lost our Fedora identity...
What I don't like is that they made decision about us even without contacting/talking to us... (or maybe I've just missed it)
Jaroslav
On Sat, 2009-06-06 at 10:35 +0545, Ujjwol Lamichhane wrote:
As a Fedora KDE user i am forwarding this link to Fedora Artwork Team and KDE Fedora....
Hm... that's kinda long text... So what *I* think about branding?
For us (meaning the Fedora Project) the brand should be Fedora (and by far not just the logo). The ultimate goal would be when people would recognize Fedora just by a glance (and not just by wallpaper). We are not a project built upon GNOME or KDE or whatever DE (where I would see a strong reason to build our brand upon such project, so that we would be something like reference GNOME or KDE or whatever DE distribution) but a project using these as means to deliver first class user experience.
Yep, because we support that many desktop environments, it's not an easy feat. We have customized GTK, we have customized Metacity and XFCE window manager and we share our wallpaper among all the desktop spins (yep, the astronomy, security, FEL, ... spins have their own default wallpapers) but in KDE we still use upstream widgets and windows theme (I'm not making any conclusions about their awesomeness or usability) and we are using upstream icons everywhere (echo[-perspective] is nowhere close to be a good default icon theme) - as a result, if you have KDE, no-one will recognize it's fedora, unless (s)he looks on the wallpaper. If we want to do our branding properly we need to customize the default artwork anywhere and that's not a job one man can do and we would totally need to synchronize our efforts across the various DE SIGs, Design Team and, to keep our branding consistent even with our web pages, with the Websites SIG (or whoever takes care of fp.o).
Now the real question is how much we really want to promote the Fedora brand compared to upstream brands like GNOME, KDE, LXDE, XFCE and so on... I am for as throughout Fedora branding as possible, but that's just my personal opinion.
Martin
On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 03:46:27PM +0200, Martin Sourada wrote:
Hm... that's kinda long text... So what *I* think about branding?
For us (meaning the Fedora Project) the brand should be Fedora (and by far not just the logo).
<snip>
Now the real question is how much we really want to promote the Fedora brand compared to upstream brands like GNOME, KDE, LXDE, XFCE and so on... I am for as throughout Fedora branding as possible, but that's just my personal opinion.
FWIW, I read that article as saying, "Let's work together on resolving this problem I just described." There is a statement about making a commitment to take what they give us *if we require them to do all the work of making the art*. I presume, if we choose to work _with_ them including adding some efforts from our Fedora designers, then we don't have to commit to taking the result of the work.
Personally, I found the argument interesting and compelling, at least enough to say we could open a dialog with the KDE upstream designers on this. Maybe it turns out what they want will not work with Fedora. But maybe it does, and we can meet half-way or so, and get a bit more of what we all want.
- Karsten
Hi all! I talked to KDE artwork guys (mostly Pinheiro as he's responsible for it) and as result I think we (KDE SIG at least) should join this effort! Sounds great for me.
So what is it NOT about? It's not about stealing Fedora identity and it's not about shipping default upstream wallpapers, logos etc.
So what is it about? It's about cooperation and marketing both brands together so everyone can distinguish between Fedora and KDE (Gnome, other DE, OS etc...) but with strong visual feeling - I'm using KDE/Gnome/... on Fedora.
Actual proposal from them sounds like: We have selected our codename for future Fedora release and our design team prepare artwork (or mockups, depends on time), upstream joins this effort and they combine our theme with their current theme (so now it's Leonidas and Air = Airy Leonidas :D) to match together.
What does it mean for us? Visually consistent and rich desktop environments with strong brand feeling for both upstream and downstream.
What we have to/should do? We need our artwork as soon as possible and after F11 process I think we should reconsider design strategy. I know where the problem was, from Mairín's comments in my blog post. We should do our best to avoid it for future releases. Of course - it means lot of communication and you know...
Only for KDE and Fedora? No, OpenSuse, (K)Ubuntu already accepted this offer, I'm not sure if Gnome is planning anything similar. This is really in beginnings and maybe some IRC meeting with all interested parties would be useful.
I think it's a nice idea, sounds great (even I'm not Apple fan :D) and it can be considered by other DE's teams (upstream/downstream) either. All sides could gain profit from it. So what do you think about it?
Jaroslav
On Saturday 06 June 2009 06:50:39 Ujjwol Lamichhane wrote:
As a Fedora KDE user i am forwarding this link to Fedora Artwork Team and KDE Fedora....
On 06/18/2009 11:30 AM, Jaroslav Reznik wrote:
Actual proposal from them sounds like: We have selected our codename for future Fedora release and our design team prepare artwork (or mockups, depends on time), upstream joins this effort and they combine our theme with their current theme (so now it's Leonidas and Air = Airy Leonidas :D) to match together.
<sarcastic>This is a good thing, we can give an initial concept and forget about theming, leave the KDE guys to the job so we can play with our personal pet projects: picture books, comics, games and so on. And we won't have to pay a dime for that, someone will put many hours in doing this work and at a high quality level.</sarcasm>
Sarcasm aside, consider the F11 case, when the graphics were changed, due to the received feedback, so late in the development cycle (Beta), can you see how that would cope with such joint effort? I think they would pretty much drop the ball, for not having enough time and manpower to react. Or the F10 case, when we were not able to reach a consensus and had tu just select a final theme *extremely* late in the devel cycle.
What does it mean for us? Visually consistent and rich desktop environments with strong brand feeling for both upstream and downstream.
I am afraid it is more like each our spins to have its own visual identity.
What we have to/should do? We need our artwork as soon as possible and after F11 process I think we should reconsider design strategy. I know where the problem was, from Mairín's comments in my blog post. We should do our best to avoid it for future releases. Of course - it means lot of communication and you know...
As soon as possible: we don't have that much time from one point (codename) to the next (alpha release) and the supposedly final one (beta).
Only for KDE and Fedora? No, OpenSuse, (K)Ubuntu already accepted this offer, I'm not sure if Gnome is planning anything similar. This is really in beginnings and maybe some IRC meeting with all interested parties would be useful.
AFAIK, neither GNOME, XFCE or LXDE have such plans.
I think it's a nice idea, sounds great (even I'm not Apple fan :D) and it can be considered by other DE's teams (upstream/downstream) either. All sides could gain profit from it. So what do you think about it?
I think the solution is so much simpler and natural: if any upstream KDE designer is truly interested and concerned about Fedora, they can join this mailing list and get himself involved in the process from the earliest stages, right from the concept and help drive the design either with active development or with feedback.
There are a number of upstream GNOME designers (hello andreasn!) here on list and on IRC intervening when hey feel is needed.
On Thursday 18 June 2009 11:34:05 Nicu Buculei wrote:
On 06/18/2009 11:30 AM, Jaroslav Reznik wrote:
Actual proposal from them sounds like: We have selected our codename for future Fedora release and our design team prepare artwork (or mockups, depends on time), upstream joins this effort and they combine our theme with their current theme (so now it's Leonidas and Air = Airy Leonidas :D) to match together.
<sarcastic>This is a good thing, we can give an initial concept and forget about theming, leave the KDE guys to the job so we can play with our personal pet projects: picture books, comics, games and so on. And we won't have to pay a dime for that, someone will put many hours in doing this work and at a high quality level.</sarcasm>
Sorry, maybe I wasn't absolutely right in my description of situation ;-) But for comics - it was great! I miss it :D
Sarcasm aside, consider the F11 case, when the graphics were changed, due to the received feedback, so late in the development cycle (Beta), can you see how that would cope with such joint effort? I think they would pretty much drop the ball, for not having enough time and manpower to react. Or the F10 case, when we were not able to reach a consensus and had tu just select a final theme *extremely* late in the devel cycle.
I know - I told them that our schedules are really tight :(
What does it mean for us? Visually consistent and rich desktop environments with strong brand feeling for both upstream and downstream.
I am afraid it is more like each our spins to have its own visual identity.
I'm trying to make KDE fit the rest of Fedora (if time allows me - so in F11 we have different splash screen than Plymouth splash :( ). So I don't want make it absolutely different - only to match it with upstream KDE themes. As we don't have manpower to prepare our own theme. At least Fedora is mostly dark blue, KDE is blue either so it goes together now. For us (KDE SIG) every hand, every help is very appreciated.
What we have to/should do? We need our artwork as soon as possible and after F11 process I think we should reconsider design strategy. I know where the problem was, from Mairín's comments in my blog post. We should do our best to avoid it for future releases. Of course - it means lot of communication and you know...
As soon as possible: we don't have that much time from one point (codename) to the next (alpha release) and the supposedly final one (beta).
For beta we need final one, absolutely. And I understand - time is crucial...
Only for KDE and Fedora? No, OpenSuse, (K)Ubuntu already accepted this offer, I'm not sure if Gnome is planning anything similar. This is really in beginnings and maybe some IRC meeting with all interested parties would be useful.
AFAIK, neither GNOME, XFCE or LXDE have such plans.
I think it's a nice idea, sounds great (even I'm not Apple fan :D) and it can be considered by other DE's teams (upstream/downstream) either. All sides could gain profit from it. So what do you think about it?
I think the solution is so much simpler and natural: if any upstream KDE designer is truly interested and concerned about Fedora, they can join this mailing list and get himself involved in the process from the earliest stages, right from the concept and help drive the design either with active development or with feedback.
There are a number of upstream GNOME designers (hello andreasn!) here on list and on IRC intervening when hey feel is needed.
I think it's a best way to join mailing lists and sometimes check IRC channel, I've already said it to Pinheiro. This mail is mostly thought as knocking on the doors of you and other KDE SIG members ;-)
Thanks for your response (and time for comics) :D
Jaroslav
On Thu, 2009-06-18 at 10:30 +0200, Jaroslav Reznik wrote:
Hi all! I talked to KDE artwork guys (mostly Pinheiro as he's responsible for it) and as result I think we (KDE SIG at least) should join this effort! Sounds great for me.
From what I understand (and please correct me if I am wrong) this is
highly dependent on the design team's effort and cooperation. It doesn't seem like any of the designers on the design-team, however, really agreed with this at all from the previous thread. I just re-read the previous thread on this topic and I do not see any support from this team's side.
The design team has enough time pressures on it wrt to theme as is. This puts an additional, difficult burden on us to get the theme out even sooner.
If the Fedora KDE spin would like to branch off and take its own approach to the artwork and not use the design team's artwork, then that is a different conversation. If this involves additional effort on this already overloaded and understaffed team, though, then I feel this is not a good idea.
Besides this, there are some fundamental issues with the proposal:
- Are these themes going to match oxygen AND tango? - How is the production of these themes going to line up with X distro's release cycles? Who gets to be the one with the stale theme? - How do you produce a set of artwork that doesn't clash with X distro's individual branding styles?? - What kind of SLA does the KDE artist team assure us with this service? - How much say does the Fedora design team get in the wallpaper design?>
~m
[1] http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/06/building-brand-together.html
Máirín Duffy wrote:
The design team has enough time pressures on it wrt to theme as is. This puts an additional, difficult burden on us to get the theme out even sooner.
You need to do that anyway. The systematic late tagging of the entire artwork which happened the last few releases is not acceptable. It also puts a lot of pressure on us KDE maintainers because we get to come up with KDE implementations of your theme concept in a very short timeframe because we don't even have any artwork to work with at the point where the artwork is supposed to be final (final devel freeze). A few of us (primarily jreznik and me) are willing to work on KDE artwork, but we're no artists, we're developers, we really need actual artists coming up with concepts in time for us to actually do the implementation work.
I'm sorry, but the design team will have to work with the same freezes as all the other teams, the current situation is not tenable.
This issue has been the subject of a lot of frustration on our (KDE SIG) side.
So, while I'm not convinced this idea of working with KDE upstream on artwork is going to really work out (count me as one of the remaining scepticists), the scheduling issue remains there in any case.
If the Fedora KDE spin would like to branch off and take its own approach to the artwork and not use the design team's artwork, then that is a different conversation.
Of course there's also the possible option to work ONLY with upstream KDE's designers and ignoring Fedora's theme entirely. However, this will not lead to a consistent Fedora experience. :-( And at that point I guess we could just ship upstream's original artwork and not ask for their help at all. The idea of upstream's plan is to design something which is a blend of upstream and downstream design elements. How well that'll work out is something we have yet to see (and that's one of the reasons for my scepticism).
Besides this, there are some fundamental issues with the proposal:
- Are these themes going to match oxygen AND tango?
These themes will be for KDE only (Plasma wallpaper, KSplash, KDM, possibly also a Plasma theme, the main focus from upstream right now in this trial phase is on wallpapers, which would be used both on the Plasma desktop and as part of the KSplash and KDM themes), there are no plans for KDE to use Tango and I think upstream would not be happy if we change the default KDE icon theme away from Oxygen. The whole reason they're doing this artwork plan is that they're unhappy about distros changing too much of the artwork (they even complain about distros changing the menu button from the KDE logo to their logo as we're doing, if we change the whole icon theme, they'll most likely just stop working with us entirely).
- How is the production of these themes going to line up with X distro's
release cycles? Who gets to be the one with the stale theme?
The themes will be designed for each distro. That said, the theme will certainly be stale in that it will be based on e.g. KDE 4.3 artwork for F12, but F12 updates will most likely have KDE 4.4 and 4.5. (They certainly won't be willing to work on 3 themes for every Fedora resp. KDE release to cover all the combinations.) The idea is to blend the latest upstream KDE artwork with the artwork for the upcoming distro release.
- How do you produce a set of artwork that doesn't clash with X distro's
individual branding styles??
I have no idea how upstream plans to do that. That's why I'm sceptical. ;-)
- What kind of SLA does the KDE artist team assure us with this service?
Most likely none, they're just volunteers just like you.
- How much say does the Fedora design team get in the wallpaper design?
That's also something which remains to be seen, though it certainly also depends on how willing you are to talk with the upstream designers about things. If you just send us your designs and we forward them to upstream with no direct communication between the artwork designers, then of course upstream will do whatever they want with your design. ;-) But I don't know how much influence you can have on the design if you're willing to discuss things with upstream. The idea is new, so there are no returns yet.
Kevin Kofler
MáirÃn Duffy wrote:
The design team has enough time pressures on it wrt to theme as is. This puts an additional, difficult burden on us to get the theme out even sooner.
You need to do that anyway. The systematic late tagging of the entire artwork which happened the last few releases is not acceptable.
[..]
I'm sorry, but the design team will have to work with the same freezes as all the other teams, the current situation is not tenable.
If you have problems with our schedule then that needs to be discussed appropriately when the schedules are published. The only point at which we've explicitly missed a date in my recent memory was in F11 when we all made a decision to go with better-looking artwork that was proposed past the deadline. This was a decision that was unfortunate time-wise but that I think we can agree was the right call to make for Fedora' appearance.
If the Fedora KDE spin would like to branch off and take its own approach to the artwork and not use the design team's artwork, then that is a different conversation.
And at that point I guess we could just ship upstream's original artwork and not ask for their help at all.
I don't understand the difference between the above and this proposal. Except maybe if the latter involves screening a blue layer on top :-p
Besides this, there are some fundamental issues with the proposal:
- Are these themes going to match oxygen AND tango?
These themes will be for KDE only (Plasma wallpaper, KSplash, KDM, possibly also a Plasma theme,
Okay, this is where the sincerity/earnestness of the proposal completely breaks apart for me. If the point is to give Linux desktops more recognition/familiarity across distros, then not working to make the theme match both the two most popular DE icon sets demonstrates a level of dogma that makes involvement in the project even less appealing.
- How do you produce a set of artwork that doesn't clash with X distro's
individual branding styles??
I have no idea how upstream plans to do that. That's why I'm sceptical. ;-)
Same here. Sounds great on paper - would love to see it work in reality - but would rather save my last genie wish for a pony.
~m
design-team@lists.fedoraproject.org