Default Theme v. Community

[dave]

Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 11:08:06AM -0500, Jason Bradley Nance wrote:
> 
> 
>>However, it seems that the developers have come down and very politely and
>>eloquently said "too bad".
> 
> 
> I disagree with this assessment.  On what concrete evidence is it based?
> 

"Too bad" might be a tad strong, but I get the feeling the developers 
aren't taking this issue anywhere near as seriously as the rest of us. 
This is due to the near-total lack of an official response. From Mark 
Shuttleworth, we got "this is exactly what the mailing list is for, 
we'll see what happens" (*not* his exact words, but what I got from it), 
and that was it. I have no idea whatsoever what Canonical's position is 
on whether or not this theme will remain on as the default.

Someone posted earlier that the theme issue was being discussed on 
ubuntu-devel. I searched that list using Gmane, but couldn't find any 
thread that looked as if it might be related. Of course, I may have 
overlooked it, please correct me if I did.

Again, to reiterate, the theme is not acceptable in many settings. I 
think we've gotten that message loud and clear. Even so, I started to 
second-guess myself a little bit. It's not that bad, I told myself. It's 
no big deal. So, I switched back to the theme in question. I brought my 
laptop to work, as sort of a little experiment, since my workplace is a 
little more liberal than most. I booted up and inside of 5 minutes I had 
changed my background back to the tame ubuntu background. I couldn't go 
through with it, I couldn't let anyone see it.

Also, I asked my wife what she thought of the theme. She told me that it 
reminded her of an advertisement for a spa. She doesn't have issue with 
the models, their proximity to each other, or their lack of clothing, 
and neither do I. But she did say that she didn't care for the theme in 
general and would not use herself. She'd only use personal photos of 
loved ones on her background.

I sincerely hope Canonical isn't simply riding this storm out. I'd like 
to know what the official word might be, or if it's even being 
discussed. It will play a real part in whether or not I am willing to 
actively promote Ubuntu to friends and family. I will definitely 
continue to use Ubuntu as my distro of choice no matter what happens, 
but, at this point, I'm not sure I'll tell anyone about it.

Dave