On Wed, 18 May 2011 11:24:30 -0400
Máirín Duffy wrote:
On Wed, 2011-05-18 at 15:58 +0200, Martin Sourada wrote:
> Still there's absolutely no need to go out of your way and design
> something completely different.
Actually there was, let me explain. I started working with Tatica's
latest file around 5 PM last night. I exported all the individual
elements she and I had created (we had worked together on the
wallpaper before I left for SXSW + Wedding + Honeymoon + Red Hat
Summit) to fit a 1920x1200 wallpaper size, then I pulled them in as
individual layers in the Gimp and started styling them.
The problem is it is a very challenging composition. It got to be 1:00
AM, I was not making much progress. I was trying to fix the aurora
graphics that I'd done in the original SVG. I ended up taking some
stock smoke photographs, colorizing them, and trying to make them
into a nice-looking aurora. Since it was getting late and abstract
compositions are a lot easier and less-challenging, and since if we
were going to do a 0-zero day it really had to be done today
(Wednesday), I stayed up until 3 AM to style the auroras into an
abstract wallpaper that could be used.
If I had maybe 96 hours to work on it, absolutely I wouldn't have had
to 'go out of my way' (except I really just worked with aurora
designs, which was actually on the way) to do something 'completely
different' (again, working with the original aurora layer from the
current wallpaper.)
I understand that, still I think it is not wise to change the design
post-GA. In my humble opinion it would be better to just take your
time, if that's what you need, and target not 0-day but
maybe the first week and polish what's there instead of throwing most
of it off. I believe anything other than that would create lots
of negative feelings and/or negative feedback.
You can see the evolution in the XCFs and other files here
(currently
uploading):
http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/art/f15/2/
Thanks for that :-)
Our last team meeting was March 1. After that I had to take care of
SXSW, prepare for my wedding, get married, take a honeymoon, and then
work day & night in prep for the Red Hat Summit, then go to the
Summit. Understand this timeline first.
Now I want you to look at the log from that meeting:
http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-design/2011-03-01/fedora-design.2...
Tatica worked her butt off. You can see from the log (and the ones
before it I am sure) that I helped her while I was here. Who helped
her while I was gone?
Answer to that question is, sadly, no-one. The most I produced was
feedback and packaging. I tried fixing some glitches, but gave up after
seeing that every action, even as simple as selecting an object, takes
a lot of time (on the order of few minutes) on my ancient hardware :-(
Come to think of it, I'm not sure how many people knew you were simply
away and not MIA, but I recall at least blog post about your wedding
and Tatica mentioning your honeymoon. Seeing back on what was (not)
being done during that time, it would be perhaps a good idea to have a
vice-leader (or backup-leader ;-)) who could help managing things (like
IRC meetings, "bugging" people about deadlines, ...) in your absence.
This is from March 3:
http://tatica.fedorapeople.org/Themes/F15/sky-background3.png
At this point I remember distinctly Tatica saying, again before I
left, that it wasn't finished and needed more polish, and I remember
her mentioning polish ideas that don't look like they were applied in
the final product. I didn't think then that she would disagree with a
last-ditch effort to apply polish for F15.
The goal here is to collaborate and work together using free software
tools to make Fedora look great. The goal is not to enact a
conspiracy, hurt anyone's feelings, or disrespect anyone's work. I
would have thought coming from me, this would have gone without
saying, and I'm hurt and confused as to why so many have interpreted
this effort so very differently.
People who know you well enough probably wouldn't interpret it the "bad
way", but from an outsider point of view it certainly looks different
than intended.
> Please don't take it offensively, I just don't feel that
throwing >
something - that was already done and that will be present on every >
Fedora 15 Review that does feature other than gnome desktops - out is
> the way to go, irrespective of what change in quality it delivers.
I feel as if there's a lot more respect here for process than the
outcome of the process.
Well, I'd say, for me they're both equally
important. We are promoting
doing design the opensource way, so the process should be very
important to us.
In the end how much does it matter that
reviews show a different wallpaper? Are reviewers more important than
Fedora users?
Erm, I don't want to start the branding flame again... So I try to be
quick: the users look at the reviews, see the wallpaper, then install,
update and see something *completely* different. Would they feel happy?
Or sad? Or confused? Or deceived? I don't know, but one should always
have in mind the worst case scenario before making big decisions.
Martin