On 04/15/2011 03:56 AM, Aleksandra Bookwar wrote: 
Hello, everyone,

I would like to invite you to these two particular discussions:

1) gnome-shell extension that adds a Fedora logo

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/design-team/2011-April/004233.html

2) customization of themes and colors in gnome 3 desktop in Fedora 15

http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/desktop/2011-April/007130.html
I don't have problem with the concept per se, but i have a problem with 
the fact GNOME shell on my rather powerful laptop (Core 2 Duo T9300 
2,5GHZ, 4GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro NVS140m) is very slow. When the first 
preview versions came out it was OK but the newer versions are very 
slow. If it remains like this in the final release i will have to change
 GNOME for something else or use the older gnome-panel. The new concept 
requires some time to get used to but after a while it feels quite 
natural. I don't like the default black theme but i recently stumbled 
upon this page - http://www.techdrivein.com/2010/09/top- ... -ever.html
 which contains a collection of gnome-shell themes (before that i didn't
 even know that there were themes for gnome-shell). Some of the themes 
there are very beautiful. So in my opinion the basic concept is very 
good but it needs some polishing - like improved responsiveness and 
better default theme and icon theme. I also hope that there is more to 
gnome than gnome-shell.
I think that these topics are important for promoting Fedora 15 to
end-users and Fedora Marketing Team should be involved.
Let me first start off by saying: I wish we had known sooner. While there was certainly discussion on the design-list about the impact of branding by modifying/replacing the wallpaper, and discussion of the fact that there would be no GNOME logo on the desktop, I don't think that everyone was *acutely* aware that there would be no room for *any* branding of *any* type on the desktop. I think more awareness of that would have greatly changed the outcome of the wallpaper discussion.

Also, I have no solution, and I'm just going to mostly rant here about branding. All views are obviously my own and not of my employer. :p

Branding is about exposure.  Yes, there is exposure when the browser page defaults to start.fp.o - assuming people don't change their start page, as many people do.  Impressions are made at start-up - and then quickly disappear after the computer boots. The wallpaper, while being part of our themed identity each release, does not have a Fedora logo - and people change their wallpaper.  The small icon, while admittedly incredibly small, is seen multiple times, over and over, every day, by the person using the desktop. And by others around them as well.  It is the singular thing that constantly, always identifies the desktop at a glance when fully booted up, as Fedora.

I suspect that *anyone* who works in a Branding role would say that to have no plainly, constantly visible connection to Fedora is a mistake.  We have worked very hard to build that brand, and to associate the infinity logo with Fedora.  To not have a desktop easily identifiable as Fedora on sight is just brand dilution, IMO.

Let's talk about this metaphorically for a moment.

There are many pieces that make up Fedora.  Think of it as cooking something: We have lots of ingredients.  We put them all together, and after it bakes in the oven for about 6 months, out comes Fedora. Yum! (Sorry, bad joke, had to do it.) Sometimes the ingredients are substitutable - empathy and pidgin, for example. Occasionally the ingredients are modifiable - as GNOME has been in the past. And those modifications to that particular ingredient are what made Fedora taste like... Fedora. 

GNOME 3 is an ingredient in Fedora - not the other way around.  I wouldn't expect that, if, for example, there was a GNOME 3 Remix of Fedora, that there would be any trace of Fedora branding anywhere.  Fedora is the major ingredient in a Fedora Remix - but not the end product.  Sadly, and I think mistakenly, the GNOME ingredient is theoretically no longer modifiable.  I don't know that that prevents us from bringing in another ingredient to help us retain the Fedora flavor that we know and love.

Imagine if Dell, who has spent a fortune branding their product, was told by Intel that, rather than having a Dell background as part of the out-of-the-box experience, there was to be no trace of Dell branding anywhere, and instead ONLY Intel branding can be present. That's not going to happen. Why? Because the physical computer is the final product.  I don't expect that, if, someday, Fedora worked its way into being an option for a PC that one might walk into Best Buy or other large consumer electronics shop and purchase off the shelf, that the Fedora desktop wallpaper would be present.  It would be the desktop designed by the manufacturer.   Why? Because rather than being the Final Product, we would now be an ingredient.

The mobile phone food chain works much the same. Would Motorola, HTC, and Samsung give up the the ability to have their logo or name etched or stamped into the case of a phone running Android? No. Do they live with the fact they have to put the Verizon logo on the phone before it gets shipped to Verizon and put into a saleable package that goes to a consumer? Of course they do. Despite the fact that the logos are small. Because *every time* someone looks at their cell phone, they see the words Motorola and Verizon.  Motorola doesn't say, well, they see the Motorola logo every time they boot the cell phone for a few seconds, and that's good enough. Verizon doesn't assume that everyone will simply leave their mobile browser defaulting to the Verizon wireless start page.

Look around you, at all your gadgets, and products, and food in your fridge.  Everything is *immediately* identifiable as a brand, generally. Imagine going to a store and trying to pick between Coke and Pepsi, if both of the cans are labelled "Carbonated Water and High Fructose Corn Syrup."  Saying that we can see the logo at startup is equivalent to to saying, "Well, if you happen to watch someone open their fridge, you'll notice that the white can of Carbonated Water and High Fructose Corn Syrup came out of a red Coca-Cola box." That's obviously not the same as someone holding the signature Red Coke can, or a blue Pepsi can.  Coca-Cola and Pepsi want their branding visible ALL THE TIME - that's not an accident.

And now we are essentially going to be Carbonated Water and High Fructose Corn Syrup.

There is no easy answer here. GNOME 3 has been intentionally designed, at least as much as I can read into what i've read on the design-list, to allow no trace of any branding of any type - other than the GNOME 3 look and feel.  And basically, in a nutshell, it sucks for us. Branding at boot-up.  and branding in a browser that some people may or may not use, that directs people to a page that may or not be set to go to start.fp.o, that they immediately use to go to *some other location on the interwebz*, is NOT the same as (a) having a Fedora look-and-feel and (b) having a logo, even if miniscule, making a constant impression and makes the desktop immediately identifiable as Fedora, because the Fedora Logo has brand value.  (Much more than a desktop wallpaper that, while being a compromise, is still completely devoid of a Fedora logo.)  And it doesn't just suck for us - it also sucks for everyone who does a Fedora Remix that wants to change the look and feel as well and logos as well.

Is trying to hack in a logo the right answer? Probably not. Is adding that logo into the corner going to really going to destroy the "user experience"? I can't say anything more than "probably not" to that either.  Can we brainstorm, at this point in the release cycle, about some way that is more permanent than a browser start page, to keep logo and brand impressions on people, and then implement it without impacting the schedule? Probably not. Is a wallpaper, which changes from release to release and has no identifiable logo and changeable by the user, in combination with a browser direct to a start page that people see for a few seconds, assuming they don't change it, enough to keep our brand in people's minds? I don't know. Does the loss of a piece of real estate that constantly shows our logo diminish the value of our branding? I think so.

Ideally I'd really like the GNOME folks to reconsider how their "ingredient" into other distros impacts the branding for those folks. But as far as I can tell from reading the design-list, it's not even something they're willing to consider or discuss. Which is a shame, because I would expect that the Debians and RHELs and openSUSEs of the world aren't thrilled about the idea of giving up their heavily-invested-in, albeit it small, but IDENTIFIABLE, constantly visible, constantly brand-reinforcing logos on the desktop either.

-robyn