OpenSolaris logos, colors & curtains
Over the past couple of weeks there's been a great amount of emails on the Advocacy mailing list about logos and colors for OpenSolaris. From what I understood, a design company was hired by Sun to come up with a logo for OpenSolaris. I sent out an email asking for someone to clarify if this was for OpenSolaris as a whole or OpenSolaris as Indiana. I didn't see any replies, but given the rush that's being put into this and the upcoming May release of Indiana, it's clear that this is for Indiana.
Okay, nothing new here. Sun's just moving ahead with their OpenSolaris == Indiana without putting it to a vote in the community. Strike three on my count (Previews 1,2 and now this).
But fair enough, they're doing it, most people don't like it and it sends a really bad message out there, but they're doing it.
But (1) there's supposed to be 60k people in the community, how difficult would it be to find someone talented enough to come up with a good logo? (2) Most OSS projects I know came up with their own artwork (and still do), how lame is it to hire a third party to come up with it for your community?
And, most importantly IMO, (3) why are we talking about colors when there's so much more to do to raise awareness, adoption, grow the community and make OpenSolaris widely the best OS out there ?
It's like a committee to design the new curtains of your data center when no one is using it.
What constitutes a strike? (I disagree with your "most people don't like it"--I would agree that some people don't like it and some people seem to. Similarly, we've reached some consensus on ogb-discuss to not say "Sun", when we mean specific project teams and their members. Please respect this consensus.)
I don't feel comfortable questioning the various folks in Advocacy about how they should get new logos, or advocate for OpenSolaris. You might review past threads on mascots and new homepage graphics. Although we have 98 000 registered users, I don't think we've seen a strong subgroup of artists among them. Perhaps someday...
Posted by Stephen on March 20, 2008 at 09:09 PM PDT #
I'm not on OGB discuss and wasn't aware of such consensus. I also don't know who, person or team, is responsible for Indiana == OpenSolaris without a vote. I understand the reasons for this consensus and would promptly update my post if someone could provide me the correct information.
I've been on advocacy for a while and seen/participated on many threads about logos, graphics and mascots. I'm not the first to suggest widening the creation of such material to a broader audience, through a contest or whatever other mean, you must've seen others suggesting it yourself.
I disagree that we don't have talented people around, just check the many OSUG logos (the Bangalore one is a great example). And if we haven't seen a strong subgroup is because no one has encouraged it - through, for instance, a contest.
Posted by Rafael on March 21, 2008 at 06:10 AM PDT #
hey, Rafael. It's clear the past few months have been challenging for us as we build the user and developer community. We've certainly have made some mistakes along the way -- and we will make more, I'm sure -- but I think most people are trying to make this all work. I think a lot of what you may be experiencing is natural confusion as we all try to figure our way around here. We try things and then change things and then try again. I know I certainty feel confused at times. We'll get it right. :)
Posted by Jim Grisanzio on March 21, 2008 at 05:23 PM PDT #
Hi Jim. I understand.. and I think it's clear that I have also a good way to go here, I apologize for letting this confusion get the best of me while writing this post - the harshness was uncalled for. Indiana is something that I've personally advocated to Sun's ELT months ago and widely across the Brazilian community, but I'm having a hard time understanding some of the choices made since then. Thanks.
Posted by Rafael on March 21, 2008 at 05:27 PM PDT #