Re: Minutes of the Board meeting of October 29th, 2013

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Vincent Untz <vuntz gnome org> wrote:
...
> > Yeah, so the thing that I think we really miss is some examples of
> > what is cool to do. Like examples of t-shirts and stickers, and
> > original designs based on the logo. My understanding is that this
> > would require some work from the board...
>
> What about all the goodies we had at FOSDEM and GUADEC in the last 7 or
> 8 years? :-)

There are certainly good examples that we can use there. The trick
will be to make sure that the guidelines and the examples are aligned,
of course.

Again, I think that a more detailed set of visual identity guidelines
would help here, since it will enable us to articulate a common style.
It might be worth holding off making any major updates to the existing
guidelines until that's done.

> > Right now the guidelines are pretty unfriendly (especially the
> > guidelines for third parties, which is one of the things I don't like
> > about them) and only really cover what you can't do, rather than what
> > you can. The new page I wrote makes an effort to do away with as much
> > unfriendliness as possible, but could be more welcoming and
> > accessible.
>
> Just to give an example of what we do in openSUSE:
> http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Trademark_guidelines
>
> To be clear, this page is clearly not the most friendly page out there
> (too complex), but it explicitly gives many examples of what can be done
> without requesting permission.

I agree. Examples are good.

> > > > In the Ubuntu GNOME case, I think it's fair to ask about the logo,
> > > > irrespective of the trademark guidelines. Their logo [1] is
> > > > essentially the same as the GNOME logo itself; some differentiation
> > > > seems beneficial for both them and us. We don't have to be unfriendly
> > > > about it, but then a dialogue about how they can help to support the
> > > > GNOME brand doesn't seem like a bad thing.
> > >
> > > Of course it's fair, but to be honest, I'm fine with them using our
> > > logo. Fedora and openSUSE both use our logo too:
> > >   http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options#desktops
> > >   http://software.opensuse.org/131/en
> > >
> > > Sure, the context is slightly different, because you see all the flavors
> > > on the same page for Fedora and openSUSE, while it's not the case for
> > > Ubuntu GNOME. But it feels the same.
> >
> > The seem like different types of cases to me, to be honest.  Using the
> > GNOME foot as a logo for an independent project seems of a different
> > type to indicating that GNOME is featured in a piece of software. (The
> > latter is stated as fair use by the third party guidelines, fwiw.)
>
> Here's the thing: I don't see Ubuntu GNOME as an independent project,
> but as the result of the work of the GNOME team in Ubuntu, in very much
> the same way the GNOME team in openSUSE is able to produce a pretty good
> openSUSE+GNOME-based live image. And quoting their wiki page: "Ubuntu
> GNOME is an official flavour of Ubuntu, featuring the GNOME desktop
> environment." [1] That seams to match pretty well what you wrote above
> about Fedora and openSUSE.
>
> And really, coming back to one of my initial feeling: I actually want
> them to use our logo so they can help promote GNOME!

Of course Ubuntu GNOME can use the GNOME logo, and they can have a
logo which itself includes the GNOME logo. In doing so, they can
articulate that they work in collaboration with GNOME, and they can
help to promote the GNOME project.

A logo should communicate the identity of the project (or the product)
to which it belongs. Ubuntu GNOME isn't solely a product of the GNOME
project, so I don't t think it's accurate to use the GNOME logo alone.
In fact, I think that a different logo would be beneficial for the
Ubuntu GNOME project, since it would help them to make themselves
recognisable.

Allan