Artwork Quality (was Re: Sound themes)

[Matthias Clasen]

On Wed, 2008-10-29 at 11:24 +0100, Max Spevack wrote:

> Fedora is *forced* to be a lot of things to a lot of people.

Of course. That doesn't mean that individual spins cannot have a more
clearly defined target audience. 

> We have a Desktop team that is trying to innovate towards its particular 
> vision.  I will admit that I don't know enough about what that vision is 
> as I would like to, but I am definitely eager to learn.

We are working on writing up some aspects of that vision, I'm not going
to try an impromptu definition here.

>  What is 
> the delta between the decision making ability and leadership ability 
> that the Desktop Team has *right now*, and what the Desktop Team thinks 
> it should be.

I don't think there is a big delta. We have editorial control of the
desktop spin, just like the KDE sig has full editorial control of the
KDE spin. So far, we have to a large extent failed to make use of that
editorial control, since our focus has been to work upstream or on the
boundaries of the desktop. 

> (3) How appropriate is it characterize opinions as belonging to the 
> Desktop Team versus individuals within that team?  Far better for the 
> Art Team to have one set of positions and the Desktop Team to have 
> another set of positions, but to know that the collective members of 
> those teams all agree with the starting points.  Then you can have one 
> conversation, as opposed to 7 or 8 individual ones.

You mean we need to pick our sides, elect speakers and clamp down on
dissenters ? Not going to happen. The single unifying characteristic of
the Fedora community is that we are all individualists who speak for
themselves. 

> (4) Does the Desktop Team feel that it has participated in the public 
> processes that the Art Team has set up?  Does the DT feel that is has 
> been shut out from the process?  Or does the DT simply not like the 
> process, and therefore doesn't want to participate in it?

Not quite sure what to say here. There are several answers: 

There is a very strong sentiment that voting for the default is not the
way to go. 

The process defines the possible results, by narrowing the focus and
rewarding those that meet the predefined target best. Ie having such a
process ensures that we'll always have an acceptable default background.
But if a 'default background' is not the art that would make our desktop
experience more polished, then the process will not help much. 

Jon invested a significant amount of work in a comparison of OS
background images, and sent the document to this list. Is that
participating in the process ? I guess not. But it was an attempt to
influence the outcome of the process for the better. 

> (5) What needs to be done to finally end this cycle of conversations in 
> a way that everyone can live with?  We've been having the same instance 
> of this talk since Fedora 6/7 timeframe, and one way or another, it has 
> to end. 

I don't agree with this at all. Conversation should not end. What must
end is the divisive 'us' vs. 'them' mentality. The conversion about the
goals and visions for the desktop and its art should continue. And I
will defend the freedom of anybody in my team to criticize the art, just
as everybody else is free to criticize what vt we choose to run X on.


Matthias