I just read the post here by Owen and it specifically says "request."
Anything else is reportage or inference.
Is it? I wasn't attending the meeting but it really looks like it is being pushed through to me. I mean, honestly, who on the Design Team would be in favour of this and why? I strongly urge those who are to speak out. I am not saying this is a conspiracy, all I am saying is that it's against how I understood we've done things in the past and it takes away a big hallmark of the Design Team work for a reason that surely don't benefits the team members as design contributers.
It's precisely because Owen understands the visibility of the
wallpaper that he went to great length to explain the nature of his
request. So it's unfair to say anyone's not sensitive to that,
because that seems to me to be the entire reason the request was made.
I'd hope we're not becoming a team or project that has no ability to
constructively address requests or find ways to promote great free
software.
Maybe we as the Design Team should vote publicly on the request then.
Check out Owen's request again to see if it helps clarify this. He
indicated this is a one-time branding opportunity to help GNOME 3 with
marketing their release, and specifically set out reasons for the
request.
How exactly is it that they need marketing? They will be the default in Fedora and the official future of the Gnome project. I can see how Unity needs branding and a marketing boost, but that's because they aren't the official upstream shell. Did people need to explicitely advertise Nautilus when Gnome 2 came out?
I'm not trying to appease anyone, I'm simply saying why I personally
feel this could be a worthwhile one-time concession. Agree or
disagree, but it's not necessary to attach conspiracy theories. I
found out at the same time you did (well, later really, since I came
into the discussion late, not being at the meeting, for which I
apologize!).
Sorry, I really didn't want to make it sound like a conspiracy. It's just that they way Mo talked about this special request looked a bit odd in the IRC logs. Once again, I am sorry I couldn't be there and ask the questions in person at the time.
And personally I think creating wallpaper is not the biggest
responsibility for the Design team. It may be one of the most widely
visible ones, but it's not the most important IMHO. I think the most
important responsibility of the team is handling the many requests for
design from the community that come up regularly, both connected to
releases and for completely ad-hoc tasks. Those requests help Fedora
contributors have amazing presence at shows, create cool displays,
attract people to the project, and so forth. Wallpaper is part of
that responsibility, traditionally, but I don't think it's the
overwhelming majority.
OK, we definitely have a different view of the team then. Maybe it is because I haven't been on board that long. All I know is that people outside Fedora think that's what we are doing... May be a communication / PR issue then.
Fab