Reversion to Dapper Artwork

[m c]

Hey all,

I'd just like to say (not that I have any sway in these matters) I
strongly disagree with the decision to revert to Dapper artwork for
Edgy. [If I have gotten the wrong impression about this please ignore
the silly rant below]

While I realise it might not meet the sabdfl's expectations or other
Canonical management folk, and ultimately it is his distribution, I
think that it is a bad idea to abandon the new, community driven, Edgy
artwork.

It's Edgy - that was meant to mean that dev's could put new,
disruptive ideas into the distribution without fear that they may be a
little rough around the edges. I think the same should apply to
artwork - it was meant to be an experiment in community created
artwork, and although it may be a little rough around the edges in
places, I think the beta art and the implementations on the wiki
*rock*

In fact the sabd himself said [on the artwork] "I'm sure there will be
rough edges in Edgy - that's the point " [1]

The artwork may not fit with the 'brand' of Ubuntu as Canonical wants
it, but you can't escape from the fact that the community *is* an
essential part of the Ubuntu brand, and if you are trying to hide
that, trying to make Ubuntu seem more professional, by rejecting
community work to retain an image with certain (i.e. paying)
customers, then I can't help but feel that Canonical are abandoning
what makes Ubuntu so special to me and the many others who have
contributed far more than me in making Ubuntu as sucessful as it is.

I don't mean for this to sound like a paranoid rant, so now for some
less emotional arguments...

Many of the development changes in Edgy are 'under-the-hood' and not
overly visible to users, and sticking with Dapper artwork will
probably result higher unmet expectations of users as it is hard to
see overly changes from Dapper, save possibly the *shiny* new usplash.

Considering the vision of Edgy given by sabdfl included:

"So dream a little about Xen for virtualisation, Xgl/AIGLX and other
wonderful wobbly window bits, the goodness of Network Manager, a first
flirt with multiarch support for true mixed 32-bit and 64-bit computing
on AMD64, the interesting possibilities of the SMART package manager... "

... and as of these only AIGLX has been included in main, I believe to
the issues raised by [2] in communicating release goals, will only be
heightened by a lack of visual difference between Dapper and Edgy.

[1] http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/48
[2] http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/50

Thanks,
Mark