----- Original Message -----
From: "Bastien Nocera" bnocera@redhat.com To: "Discussions about development for the Fedora desktop" desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Friday, November 4, 2016 12:10:11 PM Subject: Re: I asked Hacker News what developers want from a desktop, and this is what they said
----- Original Message -----
On Fri, Nov 04, 2016 at 08:32:05AM -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
Maybe something more traditional like the macOS desktop environment that had similar concepts but built with GNOME technology and Wayland.
So, er...GNOME? ;)
I for one am glad that after the initial period of rapid development after the 3.0 release, GNOME has settled into a relatively stable, comfortable, and usable design. I don't think we'd gain anything from starting all that again. If people are interested in experimenting with something like that as a Spin, cool, that's what we've got Spins for — but I'm not sure it's the best use of resources for Workstation.
I *would* like to see a little bit of distinguishing flair giving some separation between Fedora Workstation and stock upstream GNOME. I love the clean minimalism of the existing design and I don't want to stray from the productive partnership we have with upstream — or from the general perception of Fedora as the premier distro for GNOME. But, I would like people to easily recognize when Fedora is in use.
The desktop watermark with the default wallpaper is was a quick last-minute hack, but I think we can do better.
It was awful then, and is now as well. Most of the Fedora developers that also happen to be GNOME developers don't like it.
We already have patches to the details panel to prominently show Fedora, we have custom wallpapers that don't match the upstream ones, and that watermark.
Spending more time differentiating Fedora's GNOME and the upstream GNOME means that we lose the upstream work on providing a simple yet recognisable design and branding.
We want to make the difference in Fedora by providing the features and technologies before other distributions, not by changing the upstream visual identity.
Being first is definitely important and something we should focus on, but differentiation in open source is a hard challenge and branding is a big part of it. We are not GNOME, just like we are not the linux kernel or systemd or glibc. Yes, we happen to make use of all those projects, but what we are is the sum of all of those and more plus the testing, integration, customisation, extensions and specific combination of things. And making sure that totality has a clear and easily identifiable visual identity is not wasting time. It is to build a design and branding that highlights that Fedora Workstation is a unique thing and not just one of many ways to run a generic GNOME desktop.
Christian