A message from snwh (Suru icon upstream maintainer)

If they like.
Apparently, some developers already have the desire to design a suru version, at least according to Sam’s post.

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If they don’t like, then what? Are you going to infringe the rights of the app developer?

That’s between Sam Hewiitt and app developers for his Suru icon set. Not for Yaru. And, he had disowned Yaru.

Why do you say so? O_o

Sam says so…

…now there’s some rumblings that Ubuntu’s community-built Yaru icon set (which is a derivative of the Suru icon set I maintain) intends to ignore this and infringe upon applications’ brands by modifying their icons:

What the Yaru team seems to lack is patience for developers to do it themselves and the willingless to let developers make up their own minds on whether or not to fit in with Ubuntu.

…a community-led team have decided to step in and make a platform-wide decision just because they think “it’s ugly” to have mixed-style icons.

…the entire point of the GNOME icon refresh initiative is to address visual mismatches between third-party app icons and GNOME icons and we been have reaching out to developers to see about updating their icons to new design—this is the appropriate approach for a platform visual overhaul, by the way—which could always use more help on.

and, it is his Suru icons…, best ask him.

Let’s pause this thread here for 24 hours, and let some folks cool off.

Many folks who are close to a project have a visceral reaction to this kind of post, and this kind of discussion. That’s human. When we pick up the conversation, let’s talk about solutions and compromises that are achievable: Not everyone will be thrilled, but everybody knows they were listened to, and nobody feels exploited.

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I’d like to know @mpt’s thoughts on this article’s contributions and/or perhaps @didrocks if they’re feeling bold. I think Matthew has said before that maybe the forced-shape idea itself is flawed and he’d prefer if Ubuntu retreats back from that? But if we do, do we use GNOME’s icons and is Yaru Ubuntu-y enough without the icon theme, especially considering Yaru (the GTK and shell theme) could transition to being a more minimal difference from the GNOME reference (Adwaita) in accordance with a theme API (though this is just speculation at the moment), or does Yaru need to create completely new icons?

Despite what @snwh says in his article about how he thinks community designing is poor compared to professional designing, I think it would be preferable if Canonical employees didn’t have to impose their opinion on this matter, but I think it would be good to hear their thoughts and reasoning regardless to be considered by the whole community and as valued as a community voice would be.

We may not be professionals, and we need to think about how Ubuntu looks to non-users, whether we’re drawing users in or not, but it’s ultimately Ubuntu users, not design professionals, who Ubuntu should aim to please, and I think the comments on OMG!, for example, seem to be in support of the Yaru squircle theme being for all applications. I think it’s reasonable too, given the salient comments about Windows 10’s app icon backgrounds being considered acceptable! But I also understand that Sam and others would like Ubuntu to go full GNOME upstream like Fedora (no extensions, Adwaita theme, and default icons), but I don’t know how they think Ubuntu could maintain its separate image without some theming customization or similar, @snwh?

This wouldn’t help those of Sam’s persuasion on this matter, but perhaps Canonical could run a consultation/poll (on Ubuntu Insights and big enough that OMG! would hopefully run an article on it) on the issue, as it has done for GNOME Extensions in the past, so that we could get a better idea of what the community feels about this matter, not just what the loudest voices on OMG! and on the forum think?

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Few things to think about,

  1. backslapping doesn’t always help,
  2. Suru icon theme is not an end by itself - it was once needed only as mobile icons,
  3. It is not a squircle, that is, not a square and circular corners, but a rectangle and circular corners,
  4. there’s nothing wrong with ubuntu-mono-dark icons.
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Please take “Which is nicer?” to an appropriate thread.

That is NOT what this thread is about.

Two irrelevant posts deleted.

Honestly, thinking about it, I really am in favor of dropping the Suru icons in favor of the stock gnome ones, esp. since the icons have gotten sooooo much better. Maybe we could do minor tweaks like palette swaps for the apps we ship by default, or in some way render the svgs differently to add suru-like outlines or dynamically swap palettes?

Edit: This is the app icons, not the symbolics or folder and files. Those we should keep!

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1 Irrelevant post deleted.

While the appearance of icons is important, it is not the subject of this thread.

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I understand Sam Hewitt’s feelings that it is better for the open source community to work on making the GNOME project better instead of forking and theming, basically fragmenting the Linux desktop. I, for one, was happy that Ubuntu was again reverting to GNOME Shell, because I liked it, and I think that working together is better than constantly creating different takes on the same thing.

That said, I do think GNOME should at least provide minimal branding options in its very core, if only the option to change the color schemes in de Shell and the GTK theme, and the option to replace the icons. After all, giving volunteers and people the creative freedom to start working on their own ideas about the ‘desktop of their dreams’ is, I think, core to what free software is.

Moreover, it is largely thanks to distributions provided by Canonical, Red Hat, and what have you, that desktops are able to thrive. We should at least give the distro providers a bit of freedom to brand the GNOME experience a bit. This should be part of the core functionality of GNOME, I think.

I can imagine Ubuntu - and the Yaru theme in particular - moving even closer to Adwaita and the vanilla GNOME experience, whilst maintaining a bit of branding. See for instance Pop_OS. What Pop_OS does with GNOME is very minimal, still is undeniably GNOME Shell, but it is branded in a nice fashion, with a nice color scheme, icons and default font and some nice wallpapers.

By sticking close to the vanilla GNOME experience, the default Adwaita theme can also always be provided out-of-the-box.

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Ubuntu should have branding and style.
Otherwise it will become Debian GNOME or homeopathic OS :slight_smile:
From Ubuntu will only 20 MB.

In addition, pure GNOME isn’t very comfortable.

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Ubuntu is not there to provide Gnome a showcase. Ubuntu is Ubuntu, so should have a unique look, feel, work experience and all. Ubuntu is a brand, has to stay that way. At least that was the idea since the beginning. Yaru app theme is from Ubuntu community, but not the icons. So, it maybe better, if Ubuntu community create its own icon theme, and let go of the Suru theme. There won’t be an upstream developer then to complain, would there?

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Hi all,

Here’s my thoughts on the this topic:

I think it is a sensible effort to drive for consistency across desktop icons for applications. As we ship more and more applications as snaps, and ideally directly from the upstream developer, then maintaining that icon consistency will become harder and so getting those icons upstream should be a goal. As a side note, the script idea to allow any icon to be augmented to look more integrated is also a nice idea, and could be something which becomes more and more useful in the future.

There is indeed a requirement to be careful around using trademarks in this way, for example Mozilla specifically say:

“Don’t alter a Mozilla logo design or combine it with other images.”

But perhaps they would allow it in this case? We should reach out and ask them, and I can help with that. Ditto Chrome, etc.

Later in his post, Sam points out that GNOME have an icon refresh initiative. I’ve looked at those new upstream icons, and they look really great. I would love to see us get aligned with GNOME on that front. However, please read on…

Regarding Ubuntu dropping it’s visual identity: No.
Ubuntu has spent a lot of time establishing it’s look and feel on the desktop, and that thought and consideration carry through to server and CLI based initiatives. The desktop ‘feel’ comes from extensive UX research and is backed up with evidence which has been shared with the GNOME design team where it is relevant. When we switched to GNOME Shell we took the decision to preserve as much of the feel as we could, and that was the right thing to do for our users (since they told us that’s what they wanted) and we firmly believe that it was the right approach. We’ve always been upfront and perfectly clear & open about our plans.
Nothing is changing here.

The ‘look’ has always been an important part of Ubuntu desktop, something that the Yaru team understands deeply. We want to keep the “In the wild” recognisability of Ubuntu desktop. As Ubuntu users we get excited about it, at least I know I do, and it helps to build and reinforce our community. We’re always going to want to be able to make Ubuntu stand out.
The Yaru team have moved us on to a new iteration of the look of Ubuntu desktop while keeping that familiarity which has been built up over the years.

That all said, I don’t think that icons are the hill we should die on. The upstream GNOME icons are looking sharp. We could get uniformity by using those icons if we think it will look right, and present a bit more GNOME in our desktop at the same time. Yaru is in development. It will continue to try out ideas. We can try the Yaru icons and we can try the GNOME icons, and we can see what we think looks best in each case. We can provide feedback upstream where we find something amiss.

Of course, Ubuntu desktop is much deeper than just the Ubuntu desktop session. I feel it’s worth mentioning that by offering the “vanilla GNOME session” Ubuntu are one of the few distros giving totally unfettered access to the GNOME desktop for those people who want to use it, still built on the solid underpinnings of the rest of Ubuntu. If you want pure GNOME, Ubuntu is a great place to experience it.

Finally, and not really related to icons, but since I’m here anyway… I don’t like the suggestion in the blog post that Ubuntu is not “working together with GNOME on making the desktop experience better”. We very clearly are. Ubuntu desktop engineers are tackling hard problems within the GNOME desktop as well as triaging bug reports, making decisions about which ones are the most impactful and fixing them. Ubuntu has a huge user base, and the bugs that we are fixing in GNOME are making a real difference to GNOME users everywhere. We have five people in the GNOME Foundation, we attend GUADEC, Canonical is on the GNOME Advisory Board. This is not the ‘us-vs-them’ scenario I feel that Sam is presenting in his argument. Ubuntu is pulling its weight on GNOME.

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I can’t remember sorry, was this in one of the two surveys? A reference here (if possible) would be great for the sake of having confidence in Ubuntu’s current approach!

I think I’ve seen mention of bugs (might just be babyWOGUE saying that but perhaps also others) which make the vanilla session (to them) not worth using over a vanilla install on another distro (the main example being Fedora) but unfortunately don’t seem to want to report this bugs. I should probably use the session more and report bugs I come across… I do think though that having it only as a command-line install where you have to know the command to install the session, then know how to switch to it, is not a particularly user-friendly way of getting the session, but desktop environments aren’t listed in Software, as far as I’m aware? Perhaps there should be a dedicated app for switching between Deb-based desktop environments? But I don’t think I have the time or ability to make this so is just a suggestion :slight_smile: Alternatively, more work perhaps could be done on snaps of desktop environments (since these can be more readily surfaced in Ubuntu Software and more easily updated and used since they can have isolated applications etc?). There is an edge snap of KDE Plasma but it’s very buggy at the moment (e.g. I can’t run snaps within it) and not confined.

@snwh for the sake of ‘right of reply’ hopefully you’ll read this (ideally all of Will’s comment) and consider responding either here, on your blog, or elsewhere :slight_smile: I’d also hope that you’d consider looking at commits to GNOME and seeing Canonical’s comments there (even Canonical/Ubuntu/Shuttleworth critic and GNOME observer Alex (‘babyWOGUE’ on Twitter) would concede that Canonical/Ubuntu have certainly upped their contributions since the switch to GNOME from Unity) but also on the Ubuntu Desktop team’s Trello and on this Discourse for evidence of a huge number of contributions from Canonical/Ubuntu, particularly obvious in @vanvugt’s performance improvements. Also, if you’d like to see even more convergence between the Ubuntu session and the GNOME session on Ubuntu, perhaps you could persuade GNOME devs to create a theme API (even though one was said to be impossible, though Adwaita Dark is part of GNOME…) that allows minor colouring changes? Yaru could be made conformant with that, and thus perhaps more acceptable in the eyes of yourself and others? Is just a suggestion :slight_smile:

I also find it irritating that Ubuntu is so consistently slated for deviation from GNOME and not really other distributions, is this because Ubuntu probably the most popular distro and so an easy and impactful target? Do you also condemn elementaryOS, Endless, Deepin, Mint, Zorin, and Manjaro for what they do and have done to the GNOME desktop? Edit: yes he does!

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Three off-topic posts removed.

  • The subject of this thread is NOT the appearance of icons.
  • Do not call other folks names (like ‘troll’). Constructive engagement only.
  • It’s NOT about who is right or wrong. It’s not about ignoring the main thrust of a point in order to nitpick. It’s about finding a way forward for everybody.

At the moment, the play on the field seems to be how to find a balance between “consistency across the desktop” and the technical debt and bad feelings caused by modifying upstream icons. A balance that both the Ubuntu community and upstream designers can be happy with.

Reminder: A core element of @snwh’s post is his call for just such balance in The Force.

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I was willing to give Sam the benefit of the doubt because I talked to him about it and I can see where he’s coming from and what he meant, but this tweet is absolutely uncalled for and completely absurd.

I wish the rest of Yaru efforts and GNOME efforts the best in order to hopefully reconciliate, but this sort of aggressive, taunting behavior has left me completely disfavored in GNOME development, and as such I’m closing my GNOME GitLab account and leaving all GNOME communication channels.

If GNOME Design consensus is that they want Yaru to be more cooperative with upstream, posting outreach material that mocks Yaru isn’t the way forward. Although I do definitely disagree with the squircle icons and would like to see less deviation from upstream application icons for the desktop, if this is the way newcomers are treated it is not a community and ecosystem I wish to engage in or develop for.

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(All this is purely IMO - I try to help the Yaru team out on an ad hoc basis but don’t speak for them.)

@ian-weisser

“bad feelings caused by modifying upstream icons”

IMO, because of what icons are, they’ll always have foreign elements from the desktop theme behind them.

Even when the desktop doesn’t use an organising device like blue tiles (Windows 10) or squircles (various iterations of Ubuntu), the icon will at least appear on top of the wallpaper. That has patterns and colours of its own.

Aside from personal taste, I’m not sure how putting an unaltered icon on a green or grey squircle is worse than putting it on a dark purple rectangle (i.e., directly on the Ubuntu launcher).

Actually redrawing icons to fit the aesthetic of a theme is a different matter, and I’ve experimented with that myself - at least once successfully (the maintainer of an app said we could do what we liked for Suru and actually liked our new icon).

But the blog post and tweet have called Yaru out for early experiments that put official upstream icons on top of coloured squircles. I’m surprised if that causes bad feelings because of the very nature of how icons work. They’re like stickers that get put on someone else’s desktop. They’ll appear with foreign elements behind them. The lawyer for another major app was perfectly happy for me to proceed with the mockup I sent, showing their (fully trademarked) icon on a Suru squircle. I guess they knew it would always appear on something that wasn’t part of their brand.

Also: not all icons are fully trademarked. It would be good if we could assume straight-talking when we read licences. They should be honest statements of what the creator is happy for people to do. If someone puts out a basket of apples with a sign saying, “Help yourself! Do what you want with these apples! You can even sell them if you like!” - it’s a bit unhelpful if there’s an extra layer of etiquette around what people should really do with the apples (especially when the farmer hasn’t complained yet, and it’s someone else feeling aggrieved on the farmer’s behalf).

Often, in the world of open source, the T&Cs are as liberal as that sign. When they are, it would be helpful if we could take it for granted that people would be fairly relaxed about a coloured shape behind the icon. But it seems we have to second-guess ourselves?

I’m happy to reach to developers and ask about icons. But, in cases where the licence says, "Help yourself! Do what you want!" then I almost feel a bit self-conscious, asking for permission to put the icon on a squircle. Example: in the video, the use of GIMP struck me as an odd choice, when the readme for that logo is so generous (“the use of Wilber.xcf.gz is free, though it would be kind of you to mention the original author… enjoy”).

Like I say, all IMO - but I think redrawing an icon and putting it as-in on a squircle are two very different propositions.

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