One of the things I love about Fedora is that it only includes Free software. Despite the fact that any and all patent encumbered or non-open licensed software has to be installed manually, I can’t help but respect the project for taking a stand for Freedom.
That’s why I was extremely disappointed, almost hurt, when I opened the Fedora logo SVG file in a text editor and saw the header from Adobe Illustrator. I hoped that it was some kind of mistake, but it wasn’t. Don’t believe me? Check these out. I added the txt extension to the filename for easy readability.
fedoraLogo.svg.txt
fedoraLogo_infinity.svg.txt
fedoraLogo_logotype.svg.txt
The Fedora Artwork page is here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork
You can also check the SVG files here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/CDArt
How can I even begin to explain to someone why it’s better to use open source and patent free software when the distribution is partly built with proprietary tools? What does this say for Inkscape and other open source drawing programs?
10 Comments
While I appreciate the sentiment, I think this is a non-issue. I don’t think it is any secret that the Fedora logo was developed by a design firm called Capstrat, as part of discussions with the community. That Capstrat’s designer, Matt, decided to use Illustrator, while unfortunate, is again no secret. None of the artwork designed for Fedora 8 was done in tools that are not free and open source and available in Fedora though. You’ll find Inkscape SVG source files for all of Fedora 8’s artwork on our site for the theme: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F8Themes/Infinity/Round3Final
When you request a copy of the Fedora logo, you’ll get the SVG (SVG, you know, the open format? Not *.ai?) artwork that was originally provided to us by Capstrat. As the maintainer of the Fedora logo I will certainly make an effort to clean up the logo SVGs so that any Illustrator junk in them is gone, so in the future this won’t be the case. But I don’t really think we need to hide the fact that the logo wasn’t designed in Illustrator. We’re not happy about it, but, what’s done is done and it would be silly to design a brand new logo from the ground up in Inkscape and lose all of the brand recognition we have so far just because the original logo was done in Illustrator.
Perhaps you might look at the process by which Fedora 8’s artwork was created, in an open, source-sharing, Inkscape & GIMP using manner? And see that there really are no double standards here….
How many other “non secrets” do you have about Fedora?
Hi David, What do you mean? The entire logo development process was done in the open! See
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/014dec05/features/fedora/
http://digg.com/design/Draft_of_New_Fedora_Logo
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2005-September/msg00130.html <= you can read through the fedora marketing list during the time period the logo was created and follow the entire process!
We obviously took no steps to “hide” that the logo was originally created in Illustrator as the Illustrator tags are still in the SVG. So if you could elaborate more maybe I can address your concern.
Despite what was done with Fedora 8 and what will be done in the future, the logos were created with commercial, closed source software.
Is it really that big of a deal? No. Was someone keeping it a secret? Not really. Was James still shocked and disappointed that it is/was that way? Yes.
I think the point he was trying to make was that he was let down by the Fedora team for breaking their own standards. Not that anyone should be redesigning anything or resaving the files so that they show Inkscape tags.
It’s commendable for anyone to tackle a design project with Inkscape and GIMP. As a professional designer, I completely understand why Matt would use Illustrator.
There is an attitude that existed previously in Fedora and it still prevails somewhat in the FOSS community, (ESPECIALLY with regards to branding of things… look at the turmoil that Firefox’s branding has caused, it’s the whole reason Seamonkey exists) that what applies to code and how you license it and the tools you use to create it doesn’t apply to creative works like logos and artwork.
Fedora 8 I consider a breakthrough in that it’s the first release that all of the artwork for the distro’s branding was created openly, in the community, with shared sources, in the FOSS tools available in Fedora itself.
The logo comes from an older era in Fedora.
I’m sorry James, but I can’t change the past
but I can certainly keep trying to improve things for the future.
Hi Everyone, Thanks for your responses.
@Máirín
I remember the issue with Firefox’s artwork. I thought it was a bit ridiculous. I guess I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to FOSS, which is why I only use Fedora, and while I love Fedora, I hate defending it. I hate explaing to people why proprietary software is excluded but available… I’m sure you know the routine. Even though I hate defending it, I do it all the time, because I believe that it’s right to exclude proprietary software. That’s why I was so surprised when I saw the Illustrator header info. Thanks for opening the artwork development process, and for clearing things up for me.
@AZ
Thanks for summing things up. You definitely hit the nail on the head.
James,
I hate defending proprietary stuff in Fedora too. That’s why the F8 process for artwork is open today.
The real problem is that the artwork is served with the wrong MIME type, please change the server settings to image/svg+xml
Hi Stelt, which website? The Fedora wiki?
Máirín Duffy,
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/CDArt
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