Splashscreen & Startscreen proposals for the 4.0

[Charles-H_Schulz]

Hello,

As the Design team has selected the startscreen and splashscreen for the
upcoming 4.0 release several members of the Board of Directors have felt
the choice was not acceptable for a variety of reasons (too white, too
simple, non-standard logo, not enough green...).

In general it is not up to the BoD to decide on UX and designs. The
reactions to the choice of the graphical elements for the 4.0 were,
however, quite vocal. I would therefore like to ask the BoD to propose
an alternative choice (and vote on it ASAP), which would be to ship
LibreOffice 4.0 with a slightly modified 3.6.x Splashscreen and
StartCenter (the modifications being the inclusion of the number 4 on
them) and then let the Design team come up with a new design for the
rest of the 4.x branch.

I realize that we're hijacking several processes here, but several of
the BoD members felt we had to come up with a solution. What's more, I'd
like to sincerely thank the Design team, among them Mirek and Stefan for
their relentless work and contributions; we hope that you will continue
to provide the LibreOffice project with your talent and passion.

Best regards,

[Stefan_Knorr]

Hi Charles,

I am not going to answer to everything here, just on specific point...

LibreOffice 4.0 with a slightly modified 3.6.x Splashscreen and
StartCenter (the modifications being the inclusion of the number 4 on
them) and then let the Design team come up with a new design for the

Our current splash does not have a version number on it. (And I believe
it should stay this way – if LibreOffice is out of date in an important
way, it will alert the user anyway [1], so I see little gain in adding
the number.)

Astron.

[1] On Windows and Mac.

[floeff]

Hello,

after having a call with Thorsten, and thinking a second time about it, I must confess that I have indeed changed my mind on this.

The board should only veto for a very limited set of topics, mostly legal stuff, and normally should not make use of its power as body.

I had, like others, supported a board vote in first place, and based on that support Charles posted this here. Thinking a second time about it makes me feel it was a mistake, and I'm sorry for that.

Rather, for the current discussion, let's talk between the marketing
team and the design team, at eye-level, and not with the board's
authority.

Sorry again,
Florian

[Charles-H_Schulz]

Hello Stefan,

Hi Charles,

I am not going to answer to everything here, just on specific point...

> LibreOffice 4.0 with a slightly modified 3.6.x Splashscreen and
> StartCenter (the modifications being the inclusion of the number 4 on
> them) and then let the Design team come up with a new design for the

Our current splash does not have a version number on it. (And I believe
it should stay this way – if LibreOffice is out of date in an important
way, it will alert the user anyway [1], so I see little gain in adding
the number.)

Well, the number would only be a suggestion as to differentiate between
the two splashscreens, but I'm open to suggestions of course.

best,

[Charles-H_Schulz]

Hello Florian,

Hello,

after having a call with Thorsten, and thinking a second time about it,
I must confess that I have indeed changed my mind on this.

The board should only veto for a very limited set of topics, mostly
legal stuff, and normally should not make use of its power as body.

I had, like others, supported a board vote in first place, and based on
that support Charles posted this here. Thinking a second time about it
makes me feel it was a mistake, and I'm sorry for that.

Rather, for the current discussion, let's talk between the marketing
team and the design team, at eye-level, and not with the board's
authority.

I'm against a veto, and I have written it elsewhere. I think it would be
a slap in the face of people who obviously don't deserve it. My proposal
and call to vote is very different, it is to come up with an actual
proposal. If we manage to solve it outside the board level, I'm the
first one to be happy (and I didn't like posting the call to vote this
morning); however both the timing and the fact that the initial proposal
has been merged in the main branch prompted for a "Notbremse"...

Best,

[italovignoli]

Florian, I think I have over-reacted, and I know this should not happen.
Being a volunteer, I know that I have not been a good community member
today, but I hope that this will prevent us from making mistakes in the
future.

We should aim to improve the process. In any case, social networks
cannot become a community tool, because people who refuse to engage on
mailing lists cannot be included in community decisions. The background
noise on social networks is terrible, and does not allow to discuss in
"business" terms (a system where you have "likes" is not a decision
system by any mean).

So, votes should happen only on mailing lists. We can decide to get the
random opinion of users on Google+, but it should be clear that this is
not going to have the same value as the same concept expressed on the
mailing lists.

[nthiebaud]

If I may suggest: wile I favor 'poll' to get input about what the
mebership at large thinks of different proposal... as _one kind_ of
input to the decision process.
I would rather not such poll to be 'binding' votes....

Unfortunately 'logo' and other design element are prone to
bikesheeding... everybody has an opinion, everybody is an expert... so
using 'us' the membership as guinea pig to get some feed-back is one
thing.. but delegating that decision to a 'general' vote seems not
that great to me.

Norbert