----- Original Message -----
On Mon, Nov 07, 2016 at 10:14:57AM -0500, Bastien Nocera wrote:
In which case the problem is that we don't consult with designers, or work on that branding work upstream. Case in point, our changes to the Details panel in Settings aren't upstream, nobody tested the performance impact of the logo watermark in gnome-shell.
I'm consuluting with designers.
I don't think the designers really got consulted for that particular feature, given that the developers barely had time to get this feature in at your behest.
I do agree that we should test the impact of any changes, for performance (if any affect), but also for overall UX and identifiablity.
Work which can only be done holistically upstream.
It also seems bizarre to me that we would push that branding on Fedora Workstation, but not in other variants with a Fedora branded motd before login on the server variant for example.
Have you looked, here? Of course Fedora Server identifies itself at the login prompt. And the Cockpit GUI uses the Fedora Server logo. I think there's room for improvements in this too, but the basics are there.
1 mention in GRUB, 1 mention in the login screen. In contrast, Workstation has 1 mention in GRUB, 1 in the splash screen, 1 in the login screen, 1 in the desktop wallpaper, 1 in the Details panel, 1 in Software when upgrades are available.
Do we *actually* have a problem with Fedora being identified as such? In which sort of deployment do we have that problem?
It is important to increase Fedora brand reach and recognition. A strong visual identity is an important part of this. If you want to phrase it in terms of a "problem", every place where there is a Fedora deployment and it is not easily recognized as Fedora, we have that problem.
Being able to recognise Fedora from a screenshot of a maximised application on a GNOME 3 desktop would go counter to what we've been trying to achieve with GNOME 3.
We already have branding in GRUB, in plymouth, in gdm, in the default wallpaper, in the Details panel. I'd rather we sent our stickers for laptop covers, and Windows keys, and toned down the branding on other parts of the OS, as well as investigated other possible branding (changing the default hostname, and .local name seem like no-brainer with no performance impact, and greater reach).
Although it's not nothing, branding which is only shown briefly at boot and when not logged in does not contribute strongly to the visual identity.
Then you agree with Stephen and I that we should drop the Fedora plymouth branding. Great, I filed a bug about that: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1392836
Branding in the "details" panel, though, is arguably *worse* than nothing, as it sends the signal that Fedora is merely that, a "detail".
Huh? This is where information about the system is.
And I think we already agreed that nobody likes the wallpaper overlay.
Great, let's get rid of that too then.
I'm all for investigating possibilities, especially ones which have no performance impact and reach. We should do everything we can, and we certainly *do* provides stickers and other Fedora swag. We need to work on the contrbutions of the desktop visual appearance to our brand identity as well.
I think that being the best GNOME Workstation distributor would go a long way towards making Fedora the de facto choice for GNOME use, and that would likely be more effective than slapping non-upstream logos in places.