Drew Jensen wrote:
Quick warning it's a Sunday email and I ramble a bit...
On 09/26/2010 07:46 AM, Christoph Noack wrote:
Hi everyone!
Am Samstag, den 25.09.2010, 22:21 -0600 schrieb Larry Gusaas:
On 2010/09/25 9:16 PM Harold Fuchs wrote:
Ah. OK Now I see, thanks. The icon for each type of *document* -
text, spreadsheet, presentation etc.
Yes, I agree. That's very poor and should be changed. Has someone
filed an issue? What Issue Number? -
I'll vote for it.
Issue #112141. Currently 240 votes for it. The new icons were
imposed on us by the ODF cabal and Oracle
despite protests and lack of proper community input. Despite
protests the decision has not been changed.
It seems to be a political decision beyond the control of the
developers or the community. So much for
the fiction that OOo is a community driven project.
Without being able to add something substantial at the moment; there is
also a request to the OpenOffice.org Community Council to discuss this
issue. Besides the issue, it might help to know more about the involved
parties.
In the agenda table, please scroll down to "2010-04-29#2".
The page:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Community_Council/Agenda
Bye,
Christoph
Hi Chris,
I've pretty much avoided this whole conversation, the color in icon
part of it anyway, but a good time to jump in and yes hijack this
thread perhaps.
I say hijack because, IMO, the root cause of the longevity and the
evolving tenor of this issue is not monochromatic icons. Nor is it the
absurd amount of time it's taking to all nod in agreement on a logo
and it's uses, or the broader question of Branding.
However, Branding may be the term that gets closest to the actual,
IMO, issues at play.
OpenOffice.org is FOSS - by definition then there is always the option
for members of the project to fork to another. There is in the end
nothing the parent project can do about it, short of keeping folks in
such a mind that they choose not to do so.
If however some segment of the project members do choose to do so,
there really isn't any way to stop them.
What the parent project can do is control copyrighted materials - the
branding.
Sun had, it appears, a rather liberal policy, by action perhaps more
then stated policy, when it came to who could do what with these
branding items. Which can be stated another way - they did very little
to defend their copyright claims with regards to OpenOffice.org
branding elements.
I recall that one of the first discussions I joined on an OO.o mailing
list was in regards to vendors on the internet selling download links
for OpenOffice.org binaries - pretty much a straight off scam, if
nothing else a totally un-ethical business. Time wise that was
somewhere in late 2004, early 2005. I will not make a long story out
of this point, as most reading here already know it. When however did
the owner of the project finally get around to enforcing the
copyrights - just before the Oracle buy out. Do you not think this was
Oracle insisting that Sun actually get about doing their fiduciary
responsibility with regards to the item for sale, OpenOffice.org. Of
course it was, IMO. A good thing for the common person, sure, the
driving reason for the action, less certain.
I think that of more concern to Oracle were the members of the
OpenOffice.org community already developing and supporting shallow
forks of the code. Those that used not only the code but the branding
elements also, being of most concern, yet not exclusive of those with
much different branding.
Right here I want to say one thing - there is nothing in any of that
which is inappropriate from the perspective of any organization
looking to acquire the assets of another.
Now, to expand a little and more conjecture on my part - there was
another process in play. The realization by many that the real
benefits of what started 10 years ago, perhaps the longest term
benefits, will be realized not by having a binary copy of
OpenOffice.org 5 on 51% of the desktops in the world, 10 years hence.
Rather it would be more important to have 51% of all documents created
10 years form now in an open standard format.
I think they are right. That doesn't mean that I don't want to also
see 51% of the desktops with OpenOffice.org, I do, and I believe that
was (is) true for the group of individuals who proposed the idea of a
more universal iconography for ODF mime types.
The problem here is that to do this right would take a lot of
interaction with other projects and that means a lot of time. Remember
though that in the discussions, particularly on the UX mailing lists,
the term 'urgency' was used a number of times. At one point someone
even said (paraphrasing here) "that if you knew what I know" as a way
to enhance this need for swift action in making the changes. Why this
urgency. My *guess* - a response to Oracle's assertiveness and the
realization perhaps that Oracle was not viewing OpenOffice.org as 'an
also has' asset in the Sun acquisition, but low and behold, they
actually had an idea of what they would do with the asset. The details
of which not necessarily married up perfectly with the FOSS sentiments
of many Sun employees. (another wild assumption on my part)
Eventually then a confluence of these different driving factors - the
desire to support ODF adoption, a good idea, the desire on Oracle's
part to create an unequivocal Oracle brand to the project and this
feeling in both parties for urgency. New logo, new color theme and new
icons - sooner rather then later.
Let's look finally at the new logo and it's use policy, or lack there
of. I personally asked to use the new logo on a pdf file to be
distributed for Document Freedom Day in March of this year - to
date...honestly...I have not heard any authoritative response. Because
they can't, it has nothing to do with me, it has everything IMO to do
with those pesky shallow forks.
OpenWorld is over - Oracle Cloud Office has been revealed and is
TTBOMK a proprietary software application, built with proprietary
tools, specifically JavaFX.
The Sun folks in Hamburg and the Oracle staff had to know that if this
was to be the Oracle plan that it would test the strength of the bonds
within the OpenOffice.org community. Here I do not mean only those,
like myself, acting as individuals, but that it would stress the bonds
with the different commercial vendors and non-profit organizations
that make up the bulk of the community.
The last word, as found in the referenced Community Council minutes
above, is that some modification to the icons, for UX reason, would
begin - that this will now include the wider community, but with
limits. OK, actually that's fair enough.
I would suppose that given the covers are finally off the new Oracle
product the time to openly discuss, in detail, the future of the
current OpenOffice.org code line is also finally here. Icons included..
Best wishes to all those that read this, those I know personally and
those for whom I have not yet had the pleasure,
Drew
Based on the distinction between the software and the data file types,
perhaps some stupid questions/comments ...
Oracle now owns the OpenOffice.org *software* and its branding. But,
given that ODF is an ISO standard, does Oracle also own it and its
branding? If not, who does?
If Oracle does own the branding for ODF then why doesn't it see that
poor branding will not be in its best interests and the sooner the
branding is improved the better? Grey-scale icons must be seen as poor
branding, no? Or are we theorising that Oracle might be trying to kill
off OOo by, among other things, poor branding? Even if it is, it surely
(???) doesn't want to kill off ODF as well. If it did, what would Cloud
Office use as a data format? I can't imagine Oracle inventing a new one
and I can't imagine it trying *only* to be compatible with MS/OOXML.
On the narrower point, it should not be beyond the wit of man (though
beyond the wit of this man, pace Neil Armstrong) to build an extension
that would change the icons for ODF files on "your" system. Would such
an extension breach anyone's copyright (or trademark or ...)? Of course,
it wouldn't have to be implemented as an extension. If it was just some
piece of non-extension software, would that change the answer to the
breach of copyright question? The advantage of doing it as an extension
is platform-independence but perhaps icon-changing is too
platform-specific anyway ???
--
Harold Fuchs
London, England
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: discuss-unsubscr...@openoffice.org
For additional commands, e-mail: discuss-h...@openoffice.org
