Unfavorable Distro-Watch Report

[Nicu Buculei]

Luya Tshimbalanga wrote:
> 
> For what I
> observe on several forum, users welcome the change of icons. Despite the heavy

Of course they do, *any* change is a plus, Bluecurve is really showing 
its age. It was nice and served us well but we should put it to rest at 
some point.

> schedule (real life sucks sometime), I do my best to work hard to the
> development of echo. New icons are available but xml list needs to be updated.

To my shame, I worked only on very few icons.

> Sources to modify the icons are available : SVG. I am not sure what else is
> missing for further push the development.

A lot of things are needed:
- clear guidelines: developing Echo is hard, icons have a certain 
perspective, complex shapes, surfaces are filled with gradients, objects 
have lighting and shadows and all those are *not* documented, so for a 
new icon you have to study the other and guess. For example I can't 
submit an Echo color palette upstream to Inkscape because there is no 
one (but they have a Tango palette).
- no one is pushing Echo. Look at Tango Fridays: one day each week they 
get together and create icons. Pushing also means advertise: blog about 
the theme development, post on forums, write on the mailing list. And 
submit on your own icons to upstream applications, just as Tango people do.
- as I already said, creating Echo icons is not easy so new contributors 
with little experience will need advices, help and guidance, otherwise 
the number of contributors will remain small.
- indeed, we have the sources as SVG, but have you looked at the source 
of the majority of icons? Is horrible and bloated, made with Adobe 
Illustrator, so the first thing when you work on a derivative is to 
clean the initial icon.
With all those said and few other I missed at the moment I personally do 
not have big faith in Echo.

> I really wonder if Mairin departure from leadership to the development of GNOME
> really impact some people here. Perhaps we need that.

Too bad that we make good people turn away when exactly the opposite is 
needed.

-- 
nicu
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro