What Really Happened To Ubuntu's Edgy Artwork? 297
angrykeyboarder writes, "Many Ubuntu users expressed surprise, dismay, and disappointment when Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl) nixed the popular community-developed artwork during the beta phase of Ubuntu 6.10 ('The Edgy Eft'). Some Ubuntu community members were downright shocked, and many were ultimately dissatisfied with the final product. What exactly happened? Short answer: the Art Team was less disturbed than some other community members were. Linux.com has the scoop." Slashdot and Linux.com are both part of OSTG.
ok, I'm pissed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I found some... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I found some... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I found some... (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to Slashdot. I've been a loyal Apple user since the days of the IIe, but if I say anything negative about Apple, odds are good I'll get modded into oblivion. Likewise, I despise Microsoft, but if I suggest that perhaps they are not always pure evil, I better watch my ass. Go against groupthink and fanboys at your peril.
I'm not surprised he turned it down (Score:3, Insightful)
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Anyone else find it sad that a search for sarcasm on google returns the wikipedia link as the first result?
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No, it's just you.
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I could be misinterpreting things, though.
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WTF? Thanks for the links. When I heard that Ubuntu was not going to include some of the contributions from the community, I began to wonder what Ubuntu was really all about then anyway....until I read on and saw what the material in question is. There's a big flap about THAT!?!? Jiminy Christmas, so what???? I'll still probably continue to try new Ubuntu distros (and promptly dump them because they don't seem to like my hardware, ever) since the
Re:ok, I'm pissed (Score:5, Informative)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtwork
Now, assuming this is the art in question, which I wouldn't know for sure, not only is this a completely shitty non-article, it's also a terrible headline. The whole 'edgy' pun attempts to make it sound like they had naked women or something, when in fact it's plain old boring splash screens with round letters and glossy effects. Snore. I guess they had to do SOMETHING to attempt to make this look like it might be newsworthy, so why not throw a potentially sensational headline out there.
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https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/ Specs/ EdgyArtworkPlan/ Produce/ Incoming [ubuntu.com]
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Ubuntu 6.10 (The Edgy Eft): October 2006
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/releases [ubuntu.com]
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Thats one link found buried in the wiki. I never really noticed much difference. In fact, as an Edgy tester, a ton of the proposed artwork never hit the repo at all. This is partly because, as a glimpse at that single step in the process ("Polish") will show you, there's a ton of ideas floating around. However, much of the art concepts were incorporated. I vaguely also recall a page somewhere that pretty much had the boot splash concept a
Re:ok, I'm pissed (Score:4, Insightful)
Aiming high huh? Let's get some Junior College kids to skin an OS in a semester.
IHMO this is one of the major hurdle's facing Linux adoption outside of the IT arena. Very few people in the software development industry fully understand visual communication, interactive design, and or the design process. Interactive design is viewed as some sort of BS skinning process that can be pumped out by some peons in a few months.
Interactive design for an OS should be conducted by a team of professional interactive designers. They should understand visual communication, cognitive psychology, quantitative / qualitative usability research, and at least a CS101 understanding of what a conditional statement, class, etc is. These people should be given 6 months to a year (if not longer) to do their work. They should be paid a salary which doesn't force them to live in their parent's basements. Furthermore, they should work with software engineering to build an interactive design specification that is adhered to religiously and implemented as closely as humanly possible.
Themes are retarded. They almost always result in something spec'd by software engineers and turd-polished by a lame underpaid or inexperienced graphic designer.
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Of course, if you don't like the theme as it stands, search your repos for things like "blubuntu" or "tropic".
Yep, both blubuntu-look and tropic-look are there. However, there are multiple themes already installed; just select menu item System/Preferences/Theme. Easy. I prefer the default "Human" theme myself.
---
Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.
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I don't know that any of those were the artwork in question... but there you go. I know they're all from the same contributor, but art.ubuntu.com is really slow right now... for some reason... hmmmm...
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Screenshot? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Screenshot? (Score:4, Informative)
Screenshots (Score:2, Informative)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtwork
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Specs/EdgyArtwork
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Re:Screenshots (Score:5, Informative)
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Edgy is the name of the release! (Score:5, Informative)
"Edgy art" does not refer to "provocative art", but "art for the 'Edge Eft' release".
All Ubuntu releases are named with an adjective and an animal, and they have to alliterate. I have no idea why.
Sheesh.
Re:Edgy is the name of the release! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Edgy is the name of the release! (Score:4, Funny)
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And here I was looking forward to seeing something that some overly-zealous conservative twit thought was immoral or something.
Curse you, write-up writer, curse cauliflower, and curse the Olson twins.
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is this irrelevant or what (Score:5, Insightful)
sorry, this is a part of OSS culture I entirely fail to understand. Like, when there is a new version of distro X and some OS News sites have nothing better to report than a 15 pages of hires screenshots of the default desktop etc.
You mean you install a new distro and then judge its worth by the look of the default theme? You don't change the theme first thing? You don't know how to install a custom theme if you don't like the preconfigured choices?
But then again, my boxen run headless 98% of the time, so why should I care...
Re:is this irrelevant or what (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:is this irrelevant or what (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:is this irrelevant or what (Score:4, Insightful)
I use my computer 80+ hours a week too. But mostly, I'm looking at what's in the windows, not what's around the edges of them.
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left (1280x1024) - firefox
right (1920x1200) - emacs/eclipse depending if I'm programming C, python or java at the time, + some random rxvts to alt-tab to
I don't think I have seen my desktop background in months: who cares about themes! As long as windows have some sort of a (small) title bar and (even smaller) borders that I can use to resize them I'm as happy as can be. All these screenshots of people with 4-5 windows taking up 1/4th o
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It's the AOL-ization of linux. Lots of people without much technical ability, but lots of time on their hands to talk about it. So you get a focus on the trivial because all they can understand.
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First impressions matter. It isn't fair, but it is true.
Custom themes are fine for personal and home use. Less so, perhaps, outside the cubicle, in the library or on the shop floor where dozens of machines may greet the visitor and systems must be shared.
But then again, my boxen run he
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hm, with OSen first impressions have been long since forgotten when you really have reasons to to get angry. Like, trying to upgrade SuSE from 9.1 to 10.1 on a remote server. Or the versionitis (or lack of it!) after years of updates. How long will you have to wait for the most recent version of clamAV being available for your distro? How does this particular distro fare when it comes to strange keyboards and funny characters cause of exotic langu
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I guess the lame-filter ate the sarcasm-tags
Ooohhh, Shiny... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what direction was required for the art, but the samples have that "ooohhh shiny" web 2.0 feel to them so they just must be better :p
Meeehhh, it will all change again anyway when everyone jumps on the Web 3.0 graphic design bandwagon or whatever the next hot trend will be.
What? I'm shocked too! (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should this happen? Why should "some community members" be shocked if Ubuntu is being developed as "an Open Source OS?" And I guess they were following Ubuntu's development pretty closely.
I need this question answered: Is Mark Shuttleworth a benevolent dictator in Ubuntu's Development?
Re:What? I'm shocked too! (Score:5, Insightful)
KFG
Reminds me of a certain CSS redesign contest... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm...sort of reminds me of the Slashdot CSS Redesign Contest [slashdot.org]. Need the Slashdot "Shade of Green" and Coliseo font. Basically it has to be very similar to the old one, but better. Sometimes it fades into the background once the hubbub dies down...as people realize that visual continuity and product branding do count for something...
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Oh yeah, you hardly notice the new
If you
don't
mind
reading
stories
two words
at a
time.
Center column squishing bug is alive and well after several months.
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Ever wonder why the icons look nice? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://iconfactory.com/design/detail/ubuntu [iconfactory.com]
By one guy. Working directly with Mark.
My suggestion for the art team would be to establish someone as an art director. Someone that Mark trusts to implement his vision. And then have that art director give specific tasks to the designers that report to him.
It sounds like they're heading in that direction by giving Frank Stroep the title of "Artist in Chief". His task now is to tell people what he wants. And if you think it's easy being a hard ass when it comes to design & the people who do it, let me assure you IT IS NOT.
If this doesn't happen, they'll end up taking the "design by committee" approach. The result of this kind of process is something that no one loves -- a lowest common denominator. Sort of like when software is designed by a committee
For what it's worth, I'm a principal in the company that did the Ubuntu work -- so I speak from experience about this stuff
-ch
Incremental improvement, no revolution (Score:2)
Efty's new boot up logo looks much better than the old one, and I am happy that they got rid of all the boot up messages on start-up, which was just distracting crud.
Nice one -- on the computers I installed it on, it just worked and the upgrades went smootly. Your milage may vary of course.
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I always found it annoying that Windows by default shows nothing but a little green/blue thingy scrolling around -- that doesn't even show boot progress.
Before Edgy, Ubuntu has always showed nonverbose messages about which services it's starting, etc. I couldn't understand these messages when I first started using Linux (I started with Ubuntu Breezy) but after 6 months they were informative and useful to
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But for the sa
who flippin' cares - just install vista! (Score:2, Funny)
Still needs work. (Score:2)
The Ubuntu name also fights with the graphic. It looks like each element was designed by two different people and forced together.
I'm assuming this is the artwork.. (Score:3, Insightful)
As for the complaining, I'm a bit perplexed: That sounds like a legitimate enough problem. Unfinished artwork and effects can make a distro look amateurish.
Besides, I thought the point of OSS is the flexibility that comes with it? Are these Ubuntu users going to be forced to use it.
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So if you've got something more useful and less trollish to say, please, spit it out.
Backgrounds and splash screens (Score:3, Interesting)
O. Wyss
They are in the repositories! (Score:2, Informative)
Fairly amateurish artwork (Score:2)
What IS disappointing about Edgy Eft is that the release was at first intended to be edgy and risky, because they had the Long Term Support release, Dapper Drake, to suggest to anyone wanting something conservative and stable.
In the end the only thing edgy in the release was the new event based startup system which isn't yet that visible for the end-user. People can say what they want about 'Edgy Eft' just being a name, but it was fairly cl
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Re:porn? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Funny)
It wasn't even intended. It was just a GUI malfunction.
KFG
Re:Ending life good, creating life bad. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I salute you, sir!
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And it is even cheaper to educate people about sex in the first place.
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Perhaps my sarcasm detector is malfunctioning, but have you turned on a television or played a popular computer game in the last, oh 50 years?
As an example, today's FPSs look almost identical to some of the training simulators I used in my unit a few years ago minus any of the moral context and maturity of the personnel. Give Lt. Col. David Grossman's "On Killing" a read - it's quite an eye-opener if you haven't thought too
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Violence is obviously wrong, and you can usually rely on that as enough of a disincentive to discourage it. Even if you can't, the availability of bazookas also limits it. Sex, on the other hand isn't obviously wrong like violence, but it can lead to unwanted and unconsidered consequences - pregnancy, disease, etc, as well as increasing the complexity and intensity of a relationship. It has to be discouraged because it's so available - whereas violence of the action-movie sort remains remote; the viewer is rarely going to be in a situation where they could emulate it.
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However, I would still suggest that the froth-at-the-mouth-whore-of-Babylon scaremongering that tends to surround sexually explicit content (in all media) is perhaps a little disproportionate to that found around violent imagery.
I see your point and agree that the emulation of sex acts is more likely than those of violent acts but bare in mind that there is little substantial evidence that emulation is an issue anyway. If
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Funny)
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Yeah, population growths in western countries are low, but I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about birth rate vs murder toll. In other words, the amount of screwing versus the amount of killing. In most countries, there's still more sex than murder, and murder carries a harsher penalty than having sex. The position of the original poster (that western countries hate sex more than they hate murder) is patently false when looking at the actual acts - it's only referring
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Those who differ from the norm always consider themselves superior rather than inferior.
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When did taking a dump last profoundly change a relationship?
How big is the market for pictures of people eating lunch?
Do you get spam offering mouth enlargements?
How often to people seek psychiatric help over luncheon problems?
Do you think "agile and developed" is a synonym for "adolescent"
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Insightful)
More talk of sex, I say! Fewer young people learning about it through rumor, innuendo, porno mags passed around, and spam email that lead them to believe every woman is a "slut in heat" and that "every man has a horse cock." Treat and address sex in a healthy manner, shown in a contextually appropriate setting where potential consequences are considered and you may not have children having babies because they are driven by their hormones with no information.
Put it this way, if the only people you ever see having sex are in a plastic, promiscuous, consequence free world with crappy disco music, what examples do you have of healthy sex life between monogamous, loving adults that RESPECT each other. If all our other behavior patterns are learned by observation and emulation of parents and other role-models, why is sex the single exception? People have no idea of what role sex should play in their lives in the real world and are left with only basic hormonal urges and porno movies for guidance. That makes no sense to me. I mean, that kind of plan worked so well with prohibition and all....
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You know why?
Because they don't have relationships without sex!
Only scared teenagers do, and when the hormons gets the better of them, and they always do, they will have sex, wether their parents want it or not, and if they are not prepared for it they will not be prepared, and then it leads to undesired consequences (teen pregnancy).
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The grandparent said: "Turn on the TV/computer game, look at all the killing!"
I said: "That's not killing, that's simulated killing; murder is still illegal in the western world"
I appreciate that violence can lead to desensitisation, and that desensitisation makes a person more capable of performing the acts that they were desensitised to. All I was saying is that the reason people are more worried about sex than violence is that (in general,
Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Insightful)
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Hmm, I watch Naked News every afternoon. On my desktop I have a picture of Jessica Alba laying on a bed naked. My wallpaper usually alternates between a random naked girl and any good Jessica Alba [sexydesktop.co.uk] wallpaper I can find.
Just about any if they're different from the mainstream. Ie, not white and "Christian" [kuro5hin.org]*.
* Read the link to see why I put Christian in quotes. Here's a quote:
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Re:Sex Bad Violence Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Not saying that's a wonderful place to live, but shouldn't we focus on state-organized executions in Texas first?
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Nothing sounds better to me than -current and -stable.
What about -useful? It boggles the mind that OpenBSD doesn't support IrDA [wikipedia.org] or IPX [wikipedia.org]!
How can you live with an OS that lacks these fundamental and necessary technologies in today's world? I mean, what about reading IR codes from VCR remotes? What if you want to play StarCraft with a person that is at an early patch level? These are important questions that need to be addressed!
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If quirky names and art issues make you feel vindicated in your choice of Operating Systems, you certainly are a picky one, my friend. Thankfully, I'm quite happy with my feisty Linux as it is.
By the way, interesting link to the OpenBSD lyrics thing. I'm not big on the rap part, but I liked the electronica part of the first song. All the songs are very geeky. I like it.
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Neither did Windows run under DR-DOS, it gave same horrible made up error to stop you from using non-microsoft OS software.
Why should it be any different this time around?
On the bright side, Ubuntu runs fine under VMWare, and even Windows XP runs nicely under VMware under Ubuntu.
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Don't you remember when Ubuntu hit the big times (I think it was version 4.10) and they put out that desktop wallpaper of the group of interacial people where they were all topless (even though the bottom edge of the screen covered everything up)? There was a bunch of controversy over that making the OS "family-unfriendly".
Re:Why not include them (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Shuttleworth is the CREATOR of Ubuntu. Head honcho. What he did was to roll back the artwork to a Dapper variant, CHANGING the DEFAULT theme that was to be in Edgy.
2) Blubuntu is in the repositories. If you want to use it, then install it and use it. Like you said, Linux is about choice. But at least know what you are bitching about.
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It's not that I have a problem with the images per se, or anything against macs. I'm own a mac, and I'm using it right now. I like my mac, but come on! EVERY DAMN RELEASE of an oss interface is a copy of something else. This isn't art. It's a damn ripoff. How come apple and even microsoft come up with original art, and it's impossible for the oss comunity to do so? Obviously there are talented artists, the images speak to
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DVD version (Score:2)
Ubuntu DVD on Amazon [amazon.com].
About your second point, currently it is only available in the US though.