Artwork conversations

[Rahul Sundaram]

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