Workstation branding on login screen (GDM)

[Ryan Lerch]

On Oct 17, 2014 7:38 PM, Debarshi Ray <rishi.is at lostca.se> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 08:29:51AM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote: 
> > On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 11:10:02AM +0300, Nikos Roussos wrote: 
> > > Also I don't think the "Upstream doesn't put a logo" is a good argument. 
> > > We are not just distributing upstream. We are building a product 
> > > (Workstation in this case) and we can decide on our own what's best. 
> > 
> > Absolutely. We want to align technology and effort with upstream as best we 
> > can, but our goals (and therefore needs) aren't dictated by upstream, and 
> > sometimes they will diverge. A _cosmetic_ change like this isn't a big 
> > divergence in any way ??? but *is* a big deal for Fedora. 
>
> What I find troubling is that every few months there is this whole 
> branding debate driven by a 'this is Fedora, our needs are different 
> from upstream' ideology. Once it was the login screen, then it was 
> the logo in 'about' or Settings -> Details, and now it is about the 
> default shell chrome. 
>
> I find it troubling that Fedora's need to exert its brand is increasing 
> so quickly, and the lack of acknowledgement that such needs have been 
> granted so far

From what I can gather the issue that is being encountered here is that Fedora Workstation is being marketed as a product, yet nowhere (highly) visible on the product is the brand. As grateful as we can be for being "granted" the ability to put the fedora logo in the details screen, this is the physical product equivalent of having the logo on the front of the user manual.

The workstation product has an additional hurdle to overcome because of the nature of upstreams. Any downstream looks essentially the same as us. Without some better, more visible reinforcement of the brand there is no differentiation between Fedora workstation and any other distribution using GNOME. If we rely on the visual style of the shell alone as our branding element, then to people that know what the shell actually is you are running GNOME, not Fedora Workstation. To people that don't know what the shell is, you are running something called "activities".

All other desktop OSes that have strong brands have identifying features on their desktops to reinforce their brand: Ubuntu, Windows, OS X, Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Regards,
Ryanlerch


>
> Beginning to look like a slippery slope. 
>
> Cheers, 
> Debarshi