Echo vs the destkop

[William Jon McCann]

Hi,

2008/9/25 Martin Sourada <martin.sourada at gmail.com>:
> On Thu, 2008-09-25 at 15:28 +0200, Hylke Bons wrote:
>> I think what Andreas means is that when you install an application
>> that is not in the default Fedora install, it's going to look out of
>> place.
>> All the most popular OSS packages now use the same icon style
>> upstream, which is a major achievement, but instead Fedora chooses to
>> do it all over again.
> I guess you are wrong here - you are talking only about GTK/Gnome
> applications, but Fedora equally supports QT/KDE applications, that use
> totally different style (oxygen). And because we want full desktop
> integration for both QT and GTK applications we are left with no other
> choice that create our own icons style that will not clash very much
> with either of them. The perspective choices were done by Diana when she
> started the icon set some years ago and we're probably not going to
> rethink them.

Fedora does not equally support QT/KDE applications.  And even if we
did, there is a difference between supporting the applications and
guaranteeing that they integrate perfectly with a GNOME desktop.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

Thanks,
Jon