Re: suggest an icon for selinux (e.g. setroubleshoot)

[John Dennis]

Thank you everyone for your wonderful suggestions, it's been a treat
to read though and consider. I tried to condense and summarize the
thread with some editorial prerogative with the hope of narrowing
things down so we can get a few images to review. If you have artistic
skills and would like to submit a contribution that would be
wonderful. We'll also take a few take a couple of ideas to our graphic
artist Diana Fong and see what she comes up with.

Some of the suggestions, at least for me, did not intuitively invoke
an association with protection (e.g. the bota flask). Other
suggestions seemed too generic leaving one wondering without ambiguity
what the image was trying to tell me, e.g. watching eyes, keys in
locks, shields, etc. While some of these images do in fact invoke the
notion of protection they've also become quite overloaded, e.g is the
icon for my virus protection?, my key ring?, my authentication logon?
etc. It has to somehow be distinctively unique so the user does not
confuse it with something else. More to the point we also want to
train people to associate the image with SELinux exclusively, I don't
think we can do that with something like a key in a lock. Finally we
should bear in mind the audience will be international.

Let's do a straw poll vote:

A) Star fish inscribed in a circle (pentagon)

B) Golden key inscribed in a pentagon

C) Mousetrap

D) Gecko in a trench coat with the collar turned up

E) Crossed swords

Here is some of the contextual background:

Richard Irving:

    how about a star fish, inside an unbroken  circle ?

    starfish inside a pentagon.instead of an unbroken circle, just
    different enough from the original to be unique. It would then
    symbolize "isolation and containment".... aligning the stars legs
    to the corners of the pentagon, isolating each 5th of the pentagon
    from the other.

    there is the idea of a simple old fashioned "Flask" ...

    The flask (Bota) has an outline that conforms with many of the PHI
    curves, such as the nautilus, that trademark the Unix
    philosophy... (debian logo, the snail shell.... etc.) So does the
    pentacle, obviously.

    The bota flask, with the alternating black and white pentacle, on
    the side with the Key superimposed over the pentacle... gives one
    an excuse to make the key "Golden", as well.... (this is rather
    simple)

    I also like the black and white alternating pentacle on the edge
    of the seal, it is distinctive symbol.

    The Golden key about to be inserted into a lock, the keyhole is
    located in the center of an alternating pentacle, perhaps in the
    interior pentagon. With a golden or red capital "I", as the
    keyhole.... but the lock outline, describing the symbol PHI, using
    the I (the keyhole) as the center I of the phi symbol. (The
    outline of the lock forming the oblong O around the I)

    A subtle derivative might be a Gecko in a London Fog, with the
    collar turned up....

    PPS: The crossed swords have my vote, if you don't like the
    starfish.

Marc Schwartz

    A gold key, the shape of which is consistent with the key in the
    NSA logo being held onto by the eagle. Superimposed over the key
    is a red exclamation point or perhaps a red "I" information bubble
    icon.

Nicolas Mailhot

    I propose an Horus eye since selinux checks the system against
    forbidden accesses.

    How about a comics-like mousetrap squeezing a bad guy (complete
    with mask/scarf/black fedora/whatever) ?

James Morris

    What about something with a honeycomb structure, to suggest the 
    compartmented nature of an SELinux system?

Dan Walsh

    Another suggestion would be a shield, think Middle Ages.


-- 
John Dennis <jdennis(a)redhat.com&gt;