Artwork conversations

[John Baer]

Rahul,

Thank you for responding to this thread. I hope things went well at
FUDCon Boston. 

> Apologies for the long post but this touches a broader topic.
+1

Let me state the problem here is not Diana, the problem here is Fedora.
There was never any question in my mind of Diana's skill but Diana is
not the only person on the planet capable of producing polished Fedora
art. IMO one very talented artist and contributor named Máirín Duffy was
pushed to the side and there are others.

If Fedora is going to be open source then Fedora needs to embrace open
source. The fact Diana was crafting Fedora final artwork off line with
no communication to the team is not open source. It has nothing to do
with polish or talent and has everything to do with equality, integrity,
inclusion, and teamwork. 

I read the slashdot article on Ubuntu and don't attempt to legitimize
Fedora's mistakes with theirs. IMO Mark Shuttleworth does open source
better than anyone and that is why Ubuntu is so popular, but on this
issue he got it completely wrong. If Mark had the time and skill I
believe he would craft the artwork of Ubuntu as the Ubuntu art team had
some of the best talent available. Go to their wiki today and search on
art. I only see one “feisty” page. Go to launchpad and search on art or
“feisty”. Compare that with the effort of “dapper”. These are not the
foot steps Fedora wants to follow.

> Nobody knows all the pieces of the puzzle. We are bound to have
> intermediate failures.
+1

Ok, so how do you make it work? 

> Work as a team : Expect to receive criticism, others to take your 
> work and come up with variations or polish it better
+1

1. First and foremost Fedora has to decide to practice what it preaches.
If Diana is not on our team and we are not on hers, this will never
work. 

Use the tools of love, equality, integrity, inclusion, and teamwork to
empower team members. I believe we are all mature enough to know our
limits but that does not mean we can not contribute in a meaningful way.
If the bar has to be high, define clearly what high means.

2. Everyone needs to be working with the same information. Although
Diana's artwork guide was very helpful I noticed her artwork does not
conform to the guide. I'm not saying her art won't work but plainly
things changed and we were not kept in the loop. This is not a talent
issue this is a "Fedora's commitment to the team" issue.

3. Publish a schedule which clearly defines what is due and when. The
Ubuntu schedule (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeistyReleaseSchedule) notes
the deadlines for artwork as well as upstream projects. IMO this can be
vastly improved but it is way more than what we were given. At this
moment I honestly do not know when artwork will make it into the mix.
I'm guessing RC2 or RC3?

Not only should Fedora be able to provide us with a release schedule for
version 7, but a schedule for version 8. I realize things change but the
process is the same.

Finally Rahul here are the disappointments. 

1. It is obvious the intent from the very beginning was to have Diana
produce the final artwork. Why wasn't that stated plainly and clearly?
Will that always be the case? What is the intent for “echo”? What about
artwork for the doc team?

2. I do not know what tools Diana uses to create her images but many
professional artists use Adobe on Apple or similar product on Windows. I
have had this discussion with Diana and agree it's not the end of the
world if the images for Fedora come from one of these platforms, but
wouldn't it be nice if Fedora made a statement with it's head held high
and showed the world what can be done with open source software. The
Team said yes, what does Fedora say?

So there you have it Rahul. The problem has little to do with artwork
and everything to do with process.

John