Hi,
On 10/02/2014 10:38 AM, Ray Strode wrote:
The user knows they're using Fedora
This is a flawed assumption. A few cases to think about:
- Stephen's aforementioned lab situation use case. I'm sitting down to
work in the computer lab. I didn't install the machine, I have no clue
what it's running.
- Developer use case, I have multiple VMs I'm working with; maybe I'm
testing software on different OSes. I'm trying to locate the correct VM.
(This works in the physical case too. I'm a lowly sysadmin who has been
told to go 'reboot the Fedora machine' - which one is it?)
- This is just a modified version of the lab situation case - but when
I'm doing outreach with the Girl Scouts or at local schools, often the
kids go home with a live USB of Inkscape and Gimp and all the software
they learned how to use. We didn't talk about the OS much at all. Maybe
their parents or friends want their own cweet USB key setup too. What
are they using? What do they Google for? How do they figure it out?
, and if they like Fedora they'll "sell" it to their
friends and colleagues for us.
Last use case above - they are trying to sell it but don't even know
what it is that they have.
Even worse - they have this thing, they don't know exactly what it is,
and they don't know how to get help for it. If you're a girl scout who
took an Inkscape class with me 6 months ago today, and you run into a
problem with your LiveUSB stick - where do you even start to go for help
when all you have is the desktop / stick itself (if you're lucky and
it's still booting?)
The brand is picked up implicitly through osmosis merely by using the desktop.
But it's not, because other distros use GNOME shell, and even if it's
not the default desktop, it gets shipped configured as the default in
these use cases (outreach program producing Live USBs / other media, lab
workstation situation.)
The only Fedora-specific thing on the desktop is the wallpaper, and we
don't put the logo on that (more for legal reasons than anything else -
we openly license the artwork and we can't do that if it contains
trademarks.)
You can argue that logos will help us differentiate our product from
other distributions, and while that's an important goal, it's also a
little short sited. In the bigger picture, we need to differentiate
ourselves from the real competition (OS X and Windows), and we can
achieve that by providing a superior user experience and a better
developer story. If we can get a share of those developers that
currently aren't using linux at all, we'll win against all the other
distributions anyway, since there are so many more of them.
I'm not saying we should have no logos, but they shouldn't ever be in the user's face. They should be a subtle signature of our masterpiece not an ad for our product.
Yes, like the "Ford" emblem on a car. Not like the "Ford" emblem on a
sponsored NASCAR. Big difference, and I really don't see ANYBODY
advocating the latter.
~m
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