Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Tango anyone?

So what does everyone think of the Tango Project? Is this something that the KDE community should contribute to? There has been a general discussion at KDE-Artists.org and we would love to hear more opinions. We have also created a board for Tango in the "Open Source" section (go to Tango anyone?).

We have been receiving some artwork requests from third party non D.E. specific applications. Take a look at Jpodder. This collaboration is completed and serves as a model for what is possible. We think this is great and hope to see a lot more third party applications seeking artwork as a result.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

I could cheer now and laud this new cross-platform project, unification and collaboration in general. Because from a first look, isn't attacking other people's efforts just trollish? Well, I don't cheer. And I want to tell why.

Thinking a bit about the intention and the possible usefulness of the project will help.

Who's initiating it and why?
The tango project has been initiated by Novell with an obvious majority coming from a Ximian/Gnome background.
Speaking a bit more about Novell, with their imho not well thought out buy-in into the Linux market with competing technologies (Ximian/Gnome and Suse/KDE) they got huge problems with integrating both into one, which means dropping half of their software stack (and so half redundant development). And it's not only technology but also a fair bit ideology behind these different desktops. To fix what they cannot fix the try it by changing the visuals of the programs. Clever move or last hope?

With an obvious resulting identically looking desktop, to give it more consistence and professional look, probably to appeal to "corporate users" especially. This comes from Gnome/Ximian, after all - they always pushed for a "corporate desktop". Well, now they're with Novell and got KDE on board too, so they got to make it look the same. It's Novell's coloured glue for fixing what can't be achieved technically.


Can KDE profit, too?
KDE couldn't bother less for someone's motives if it was helping KDE, too.
But with the above in mind I think the project is unhelpful if not counterproductive.
It undermines KDE own identity and it's own efforts, namely Appeal and Oxygen icon theme. This work that is done on behalf on Novell is left for Linux distributors, not for the desktop projects itself. Again, note who is the one who has the needs. Other, less internally divided known Gnome or KDE distributions like Red Hat or Mandriva didn't come up with these things. If it was just for the specifications, these are helpful. But a complete icon theme?
Jumping on it would mean bundling KDE's ressources for what is not in KDE's own interest. And it has a fixed look, so it won't change in the near future (or at all?), especially not when one recalls the needs (identical, corporate desktop). It won't anyone make drool. It's boring. And it makes KDE stop shining in every way. Remember the claim "Breathtaking beauty"? Forget it with tango. It's just a mishmash. It's just half KDE, half Gnome (read it up in their design FAQs). There's nothing new or ground-breaking to it. And then there are these archaic Gnome icons like the folder icon which provokes thoughts of the time before Windows 3.1, and the arrow's green which makes me think of nausea. And they've thrown in Gnome's peculiar colour mixture of brown, grey, ochre and a good chunk of dust. Just my opinion? Many KDE users probably are KDE users also because of KDE's look, not the Gnome one.
In general, judging from what is available (http://tango-project.org/Tango_Icon_Gallery), it looks more shifted towards Gnome's icon look.
But to put this text to an end, the KDE logo:
http://jimmac.musichall.cz/images/blog/kde-tango.png

I could think of this as a cel-shaded, cartoon looking icon set on kde-look.org (motto: use it if you like it). But the future standard desktop theme, on everywhere you look, on every desktop?
Imho: It's shallow und unattractive.

Anonymous said...

It should be noted that the Tango project publishes its stuff under the Creative Commons Share-Alike license which is not free according to the Debian Free Software Guidelines and should not be included in Debian.See http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html

Anonymous said...

In my opinion ruining the KDE logo by changing the official colors is simply bad. If you want to make a Gnome version please at least keep the original colors. This one looks like a pair of jeans that went through the wash one too many times

Anonymous said...

I personally think the Tango Project is a lovely idea. It fills a lot of gaps in the linux icon world, and given some time could easily prove itself to be a worthy goal to be working on.

Its nice to see that a lot of the great GNOME artists, such as jimmac, tigert and Garret LeSage (off the top of my head) already lending their talent and skill.

This is certainly something I shall be watching and maybe even joining in on. They've made contributions quite easy, especially with their Friday chat and creativity evenings over in their IRC channels where people join and work in Inkscape.

Kind regards,
Pascal Klein

Anonymous said...

I love the Tango project and I think that their icon set is a very attractive one. As a Gnome user trying to make the switch to KDE, it's definately a major thing that's holding me back. I realize that this is a matter of personal taste, but maybe the tango-project leans towards a more Gnomeish look because mostly Gnome artists are supporting the project? KDE artists helping out could only make the project better imo. and making a beautiful desktop for everyone, Gnome/KDE users alike.