John Baer wrote:.
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.
Things definitely need to improve there.
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.
I wouldnt calling installing proprietary drivers by default and building
proprietary infrastructure as doing open source better than anyone else.
Popularity has usually nothing in common with principles. The example
was that there are similarities elsewhere in the Linux distribution
world and such issues are not unique to Fedora. It is not a
justification, otherwise everybody would be repeating the same mistakes
but one of the moments where we need to take a step back and look at the
big picture.
Ok, so how do you make it work?
Being more explicit about the process and expectations would make it
better. The less we have to assume and make guesses, the better it is.
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.
I would doubt we can clearly define in black and white terms at what
point we can draw that line but I understand your point neverthless. Ask
questions. Get answers before you spend time on something. Over a few
releases, we would have enough answers and understanding on how things
work.
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.
If there are variations from the guide, point them out. Either the
guidelines or the artwork would need to be fixed in that case.
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?
Our schedule is described in http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/7/.
My expectation would be the first cut in Test 2 for artwork and more
polish by Test 3. Atleast that is what I suggested when the discussions
happened earlier.
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.
No. We dont intend to provide release schedules for the next release
before the current release is done. It depends on each other and we dont
really plan for two releases at a time.
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?
... because that might not have been the intent? What is obvious is
that you spend time on doing things with some expectations which could
have easily been avoided. That is a pretty big screwup on leadership.
Apologies for that.
Will that always be the case?
I would say we need to determine that based on the quality and polish of
the artwork produced. It the community can produce the artwork that can
directly get into the distribution, I see no reason to stop that.
What is the intent for “echo”?
It has been discussed in the list extensively. The intent is to provide
more icons and see if it can be set as the default for the general
release if it works out well.
What about
artwork for the doc team?
What about them?
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?
I am a very strong supported of Free software. There are good tools like
Inkscape and Blender but there are still gaps.
Dog fooding would be good but if the artists are familiar with other
tools and need to use them, I dont want to absolutely forbid that. We
can be more inclusive. "Fedora" btw is the folks here.
So there you have it Rahul. The problem has little to do with artwork
and everything to do with process.
As I said in my earlier mail, I agree with you on that.
Rahul
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