@fale filed Fedora-Council/tickets ticket #424. Discuss here and record votes and decisions in the ticket.
I’m in favor for the spin with no reservations. I’m lightly for approving “Fedora Sericea”, but as more names proliferate it is making me second-guess my previous thoughts on branding for all of these different ostree-based desktops…
Firstly, it is very cool to see Sway getting more momentum and love in Fedora. Maybe I finally need to transition from i3 to Sway.
I wouldn’t block the vote on this but I also share the concern. My experience talking to other people at conferences or in one-off encounters has proved this to be difficult. Usually I am describing the desktops “like Fedora Silverblue but {desktop env here}
” or “an OStree-based version of Fedora with {desktop env here}
”.
Not sure this is a problem we will solve here now, but it would be worth more discussion.
We started expressing the same concern back in August, when we conducted an user survey and “Please, don’t invent a new name, we can’t even remember the existing ones!” was one of the popular responses
If it helps convincing you, there’s also Vauxite - XFCE OSTree build that may turn into an official spin and Sodalite - unofficial Pantheon variant.
And I believe I heard that i3-sig was interested in making an OSTree variant of i3 spin. Justin could know more about that.
I personally not mind keeping or changing the name.
In the long term, I see as very problematic if every ostree spin has to come up with a different name, since I think we will have 5+ ostree releases before F40, and probably 10+ before F45.
I would also like to point out that a similar conversation already happened here
My only request/comment is that if we decide for a single naming convention (eg: Fedora Silverblue with {Desktop Name}) we then retroactively apply to all current versions as well, otherwise it would become even more confusing for users.
I also share the naming concern, but that’s not a topic we can decide now. It will require a lot of thought and maybe some expert research.
So for now, I’m in favor of the proposed names. (Sericea should probably be checked for trademark issues by Legal, but a quick search doesn’t show any issues)
Yeah, realistically I see this as the only due diligence required to approve the ticket.
I’m going to put a proposal in the ticket. @council members, please vote there on that, or propose an alternate. Since this is a trademark decision, we’ll use the formal consensus process: at least three council +1s during the time period, no valid -1s.
And because it is the end of the year and everything is slow, let’s make the voting period until the end of Monday, the 12th, to give everyone a chance to weigh in.
Update: I actually have some questions first…
Oh, wait, @fale, I have one more question first… we have:
- KDE Plasma Desktop Spin
- Xfce Desktop Spin
- LXQT Desktop Spin
- Mate-Compiz Desktop Spin
- Cinnamon Desktop Spin
- LXDE Deskto Spin
- SoaS Desktop Spin
- i3 Tiling WM Spin
For consistency, rather than “Fedora Sway Spin”, this should probably be “Fedora Sway Desktop Spin” or “Fedora Sway Window Manager Spin”. Does the team have a preference?
Oh, and, um, as I was typing that, another question arises.
My understanding is that Sway is an independent project from i3, but meant as a drop-in replacement. (The web page says so.) Given that, should this be a separate spin? Or would it be better combined with the existing i3 spin, making a “Fedora Sway/i3 Desktop”, and choosing between the two based on wayland-or-not?
I think we should use the same naming as i3, so “Sway Tiling WM Spin”.
Yes, it should be two different spins, since the two projects are completely independent (and with very different handling).
Also, all packages are different, since i3 chooses all X11 packages, while sway all wayland packages (where possible).
I agree that keeping them separate is better. The main gripe with combining them is that now our users have to install both X11 and Wayland packages instead of getting a leaner base image that only has the parts they need. Speaking from my time when I was helping more to build the i3 Spin, everything @fale explained here makes sense.
While it won’t get resolved here in this discussion thread, I believe there are many ways the work of the two groups could be closer. Not all packages are different. Beyond the backend of display managers, we share a lot of common tools and components across our Spins. It is a drop-in replacement after all…
Okay, sounds good. Let’s vote!
I’ve voted to approve my own proposal , but I still have thoughts. Rather than splitting discussion too much, I’m going to put them in https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/naming-on-os-tree-based-variants/44629/1. See you there to talk about more general branding issues for ostree-based variants, including these.