The ongoing Fedora Forum discussion

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

So here's a snippet from this thread on FedoraForum.org, from jspaar:

"But trying to spin this like it was an open process in which the 
community was highly involved? As Greg DeK. spelled out in the marketing 
list discussion, he has paid a professional to do it according to Red 
Hat's specs, and he has signed off on the result (allowing for minor 
tweaks) before 99% of the "community" has even become aware that it 
existed."

(http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showpost.php?p=370607&postcount=69)

This is a fair point -- to an extent.

We wanted enough input to validate the direction the logo should take.  
The mechanism we used to gather that input was the Fedora marketing list.  
Why?  Because this is *precisely* why the Fedora marketing group exists.  
And yes, that *necessarily* excludes 99% of the Fedora community -- but it
*includes* the 1% who care enough about the direction of Fedora's brand to
get *directly* involved.

And *those* people were *highly* involved in the process around this
decision.  These people were submitting logo ideas -- some good, some
not-so-good, some not-at-all-good -- for *months* before we commissioned
this version -- and that *very* active debate *directly* informed Matt's
choices, as he made clear in his top-notch presentation.

But, y'know, it's not code.  It's a logo.  In code, it's frequently the 
case that "one way is better."  In design, that's *almost never* the case.  
Therefore, our process was to:

  1. Gather input;
  2. Designate someone to create the logo;
  3. Validate the logo.

It was all done completely transparently, too.

And because there are roughly as many people who like the logo as who hate
the logo, and because that is generally true with *any* design task (as
most designers will tell you), and because people generally respect the
thought process that led to the logo, the logo is probably a winner.  
Matt Munoz, the talented designer who came up with it, has the final say
at this point -- because as jspaar also points out, "benevolent
dictatorship is necessary or nothing gets decided."  In this case, that
guy is Matt.

That's basically my last word on the matter.  Feel free to repost links to 
this message all over teh intraweb.

--g

_____________________  ____________________________________________
  Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have
 Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent.  the
             Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the 
                     ] [ dumb.  --mcluhan