Experiment

Nelson Marques 07721 at ipam.pt
Thu Apr 29 17:02:20 UTC 2010


As I probably said before, I started working in a hack to the Equinox
Radiance theme that according to it's author will be/is a featured theme
in Ubuntu 10.4.

I've called it Blue Abomination:
Blue > Because I changed it's metal/orange colors to blue.
Abomination > Because I didnt reminded of something better and it seemed
a nice thing considering I dont quite see myself as an artist and the
results could be strange.

I've also used this to test some more packaging and get more comfortable
with the packaging system, also to process the huge amount of
information regarding Fedora packaging.

During this time, I've done specific updates on the packages and I make
them available on: http://fedora-art.org. This is interesting because
I've been toying around with the information I pass on to the audience
and specially with the screenshots. I've got very positive feedback,
also got offers from artists to create metacity icons for the metacity
border themes. 

Strangely after yesterdays update, from 329 downloads, I got that number
almost doubled in a single day. The only thing I've changed from the
previous update was:

 * Screenshots (where I changed them from application screenshots to
full desktop shots - removed gnome-panel though).
 * Included a RPM and SRPM alongside with the TGZ. This apparently was a
win. I don't have stats on downloads, but the download is being
forwarded to my fedorapeople space. I wonder if there are any control on
hits we get there.

This to say, that eventually it seems to be a good idea to share outside
of our infra-structure.

I've also packaged the Equinox Engine for F13, which has always had a
higher number of downloads. I'm probably going to push this engine into
Fedora repositories in a nearby future.

For the rest if anyone wants to see my packaging (which probably isn't
complying with Fedora packaging), but this is a twisted experiment from
mine, they can find it here: 

http://nmarques.fedorapeople.org/packages/

The Fedora Art links are here:

http://fedora-art.org/content/show.php/Equinox+Blue
+Abomination?content=123506

http://fedora-art.org/content/show.php/GTK+Equinox+Engine?content=123488



Though this email might be a bit off-topic... I running this as an
experiment in how we can inject contents and promote them in artistical
communities. I'm going to try something out using the DeviantArt
platform soon (http://www.deviantart.com).

I expect to use the data obtained from this experiments in the future to
promote our artwork and share with other distro's, and most important of
all, prepare to launch a challenge to artists to contribute for future
releases in this field and who knows, join our design teams. The problem
is that other distro's appear to lead the way on this field. I believe
that providing a bit more of eye candy could increase our user base in
the future, which might not be a Fedora objective, but I see it as a
personal thingie.

Anyway, sharing some thoughts.

-- 
Nelson Marques
Evil Clown (http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/evilclown.htm)



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