Figuring out the mission

[Paul W. Frields]

Hello Artwork folks,

The Fedora Project Board has been keeping an eye on developments in the
Artwork subproject for a while now.  We know that there's some
confusion, and maybe trepidation, about the direction being taken for
some of the initiatives under the Artwork umbrella.  We also know that
people are wondering, "Where does the community stand in this effort?"

The Board has been discussing this in its meetings for some time, and we
have been stumping hard for the community's role in Fedora art.  The
frustration that some of the community members have expressed is
understandable, and we've tried to carry your concerns to all the
parties involved.  But unfortunately, we haven't been completely
successful, and to make a long story short, we've had to concede the
default release theme work to the Desktop group inside Red Hat.

This decision is based on a number of factors, not the least of which is
the involvement of thorny issues of trademark, branding, and the polish
demands from both inside and outside the Fedora Project.  We're
fortunate that these graphics are being handled by one of Red Hat's
skilled desktop artists, Diana Fong, who used the ideas generated by the
community to jump-start a fresh look for Fedora 7.

But the default theme is not all there is to the Artwork project.  There
are many things left to do, including the Echo icon set.  Redesign and
new art is needed for the Wiki, infrastructure applications, the "Some
Day Soon" Plone site, and so forth.  In addition, Fedora is not limited
to just the default release art.  As part of the initiative to give
users the ability to spin their own distributions built on Fedora, we'd
like contributor art to be able to function as a drop-in RPM package
replacement for the default release art.

We are determined to give the Artwork community whatever help we can
provide to get their contributions into Fedora, included in the
distribution for anyone who wants to use it.  As a Board member, I
agreed in yesterday's meeting to take responsibility for spearheading
this part of the work.  To ensure that I do this as well as possible,
and that your ideas are heard, understood, and fairly represented, I
invite your comments, criticisms, and ideas.

Thanks to all of you for the hard work you continue to do with Fedora,
and I look forward to hearing from you!

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
      Fedora Project:  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PaulWFrields
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
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