Echo vs the destkop

[Martin Sourada]

On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 17:22 -0400, William Jon McCann wrote:
> Hi,
> 
Hi,

> Fedora does not equally support QT/KDE applications.  And even if we
I'd strongly disagree with that. QT/KDE applications has equal love from
the KDE SIG as GTK/Gnome from the Desktop team, and I think the KDE SIG
guys are trying hard to avert the general opinion that Fedora does not
care about KDE.

> did, there is a difference between supporting the applications and
> guaranteeing that they integrate perfectly with a GNOME desktop.
> 
True, but we'd like to reduce the integration shortcomings to minimum.

> Even if we did want QT/KDE applications to integrate perfectly into a
> GNOME desktop, it is not true that the only way to do this is to adopt
> the Oxygen icon theme styles and metaphors.  It is simply not true
> that your only choice was to create a brand new icon theme.  From what
> I can tell, the Tango icon theme has similar goals, is complete, and
> has an active community.
> 
You got me wrong. What I was trying to say is that Gnome Icon Theme
(which is current gnome upstream, Tango is IMHO worse in case of
coverage) is designed for gnome, and oxygen is designed for KDE and
there is zero probability that gnome switches to oxygen or kde to
tango-styled icons. Echo wants to be fit for both. We cannot just prefer
one set to the other, it would be unfair to the one that would not be
selected, also we'd like to distinguish Fedora look and feel more from
other distributions.

> One problem with icon set proliferation is that it makes it very
> difficult for applications shipping icons.  Remember that not all
> icons on the screen are part of an icon set.  In fact, one of the
> specific goals of the icon naming standard was to reduce the number of
> application icons shipped in the theme.
> 
In my opinion it's applications fault. The day icon themes were born to
the world, people should have accepted the fact and make it possible to
change every icon on desktop by looking them up in icon themes. It's not
only because the Echo icon theme, we can replace the upstream icons if
needed for Fedora, the biggest issue I see there is that it effectively
blocks creating themes designed specially for people with disabilities,
like HiContrast icon theme.

> We also fail to support the art communities upstream.  Andreas has
> practically begged you to work with him upstream.  We simply don't
> have enough good artists around to have turf wars over icon sets.  I
> will join him in asking you to work upstream.
> 
Echo *is* an upstream, even though it's done by Fedora artists and for
Fedora. We are interested in creating the Echo icon set, not the Gnome
icon set, nor Oxygen icon set (otherwise we'd be already working on
these), yet we'd like to help others as well. That's why we try to work
with upstream applications to support icon themes better.

> So, I think that the stated reasons for creating a new icon theme are
> not strong, the icon set is incomplete and inconsistent, makes things
> more confusing for application developers, and further fractures our
> already small art community.
> 
Yet we have already many supporters in our user base, both from KDE and
GNOME camps and every new release many people are disappointed that Echo
is still not default. I know that's not a reason to include it and
that's why I'd like it to be voted on by the camps that have most to say
about that - Art Team and Desktop Team (and in case of KDE also the KDE
SIG).

> > Though I would not be against it, if there were enough people working on
> > redoing all the icons with the "better" perspective.
> 
> Consistency is not the only problem with the Echo icon theme.  I
> propose that we officially switch back to using the upstream icons
> while we continue to discuss whether a new icon set is in the best
> interest of our larger community and the Fedora "product".  Meanwhile,
> the Echo icons can be improved, completed, and made more consistent.
> 
That will be decided by both Art and Desktop teams. I'll accept whatever
way they'll decide to go, but the decision is still about a month ahead
of us - and that's a plenty of time.

> Thanks,
> Jon
> 
Thanks,
Martin
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