Our official home page and logo for the Git project

Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Junio C Hamano]

Recently, somebody approached Software Freedom Conservancy,
wishing to obtain our blessing for using the Git logo on some
trinket they are planning to make.  We joined Conservancy
earlier, primarily so that we have a legal entity that can
receive and pool the GSoC mentor stipend, and because we are now
one of Conservancy's projects, it was understandable that they
were approached for this request.

However, while we've been using the logo created by Jason Long
as our de facto logo (and git-scm.com as the de facto Git home
page), we've yet to formally adopt Jason's logo (or any logo) as
an "official" Git logo [*1*].

So, to clarify things -- and to make it easier to respond to
requests re: our logo in the future, we (myself, Peff and Shawn,
the troika who represent the Git community to Conservancy)
propose the following to the community members:

 - To officially adopt "git-scm.com <http://git-scm.com>" (and
   "git-scm.org <http://git-scm.org>") as our "project home
   page"; and

 - To officially adopt the logo that appears on the "project
   home page" as our "project logo".

We hope that neither is controversial, as these have long been
used to represent our project without any formal declaration of
them being official, and this proposal is to ask the community
members to acknowledge the status quo ex post facto [*2*].

Seconds?

[Footnotes]

*1* We already got an OK from Jason for use of the logo as an
official project logo.

*2* This doesn't imply any change in how things are run
day-to-day.  The source changes are discussed on this list, and
updated codebase will be pushed to the usual repositories
including git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git/.  Scott
Chacon will continue to maintain the git-scm.com site, as he
always has done, and if you have suggestions or fixes for the
site, you can send pull requests.

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Matthieu Moy]

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

>  - To officially adopt "git-scm.com <http://git-scm.com>" (and
>    "git-scm.org <http://git-scm.org>") as our "project home
>    page"; and
>
>  - To officially adopt the logo that appears on the "project
>    home page" as our "project logo".

For those like me who wonder what the licence of the logo is, the answer
is: "Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported"
( http://git-scm.com/downloads/logos )

I support both points above.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/

RE: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Junio C Hamano wrote:
>  - To officially adopt the logo that appears on the "project
>    home page" as our "project logo".

I have made my objections to that logo before, but here it goes again: bright
red is a horrible color for a logo, as it only looks good in limited
situations. I propose you use the logo I chose for git-fc[1] which has a better
color, and instead of showing commits going down, they go up.

Here[2] you can see how horrible contrast this brigth red makes.

[1] http://felipec.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/git-fc2.png
[2] http://felipec.org/contrast.png

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Andrew Ardill]

On 10 April 2014 02:43, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
> Junio C Hamano wrote:
> >  - To officially adopt the logo that appears on the "project
> >    home page" as our "project logo".
>
> I have made my objections to that logo before, but here it goes again: bright
> red is a horrible color for a logo, as it only looks good in limited
> situations. I propose you use the logo I chose for git-fc[1] which has a better
> color, and instead of showing commits going down, they go up.

It's normal for an organisation to have a collection of logos to
choose from, with one 'official' version. For example, a black and
white version is useful for print. Similarly, it's useful to have a
couple of different contrast level/colours that can be used in the
appropriate situations.

I think it is fair to say that the red version is the one people
recognise as 'git' and so should be kept as the official version.
There is nothing wrong with having alternates that have been approved
for various situations.

I recommend creating a git repository called git-resources,
git-marketing, or git-assets, to contain the various approved logos.
If there is not another location, or a more appropriate one,
https://github.com/git would be a good place to put this.

Regards,

Andrew Ardill

(I'm always concerned about making useless contributions to
conversations like this, but I think having a specific location for
resources like the logo will be very valuable).

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[David Kastrup]

Andrew Ardill <andrew.ardill@gmail.com> writes:

> I think it is fair to say that the red version is the one people
> recognise as 'git' and so should be kept as the official version.

Who is "people"?  I never associated anything with it.  I had to look at
the actual web page to see what people are talking about.  It's far too
arbitrary and could be anything.  If somebody actually took the pain and
oriented the branching symbol on a suitable background shape in a manner
where it formed a stylized letter "G" or even something obscure like a
Game of Life Flier or anything, one would be closer to have something to
talk about.

But as it is, it is just an arbitrary dump of lines and circles with no
rhyme or reason without an offset border and consequently with an edge
in a saturated color bleeding unfavorably into basically every
background.  If that is supposed to allude to being on the bleeding
edge: too smart for its own good.

I mean, people discuss whether it would not be better upside down.
That's nothing you would even consider if that thing had enough sensibly
or recognizably arranged elements to function as an actual logo.

I mean, _Emacs_ has a nice logo.  And even back in the eighties, the
crude "kitchen sink" logo it employed then was at least a good joke.

I think that more effort should go into that or any other logo in order
to create something identifiable and cohesive.  With regard to logos, my
all-time favorite still is "Sun".  Too bad it's history.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Javier Domingo Cansino]

I have never thought on that logo as the Git logo (the red one), and
thought it was [1]. Mainly because the logo itself has git inside.

I have to agree with David Kastrup on that I see no connection to git
only by the image (red one). Maybe is because I am accustomed to the
older one[1] I started with.

BTW, I don't know if the old logo I am accustomed to has ever been
used by the project officially, but I always thought it was that one.

Javier Domingo Cansino

[1] Git logo: http://git-osx-installer.googlecode.com/files/GitLogo.jpg

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Jeff King]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 10:24:24AM +1000, Andrew Ardill wrote:

> It's normal for an organisation to have a collection of logos to
> choose from, with one 'official' version. For example, a black and
> white version is useful for print. Similarly, it's useful to have a
> couple of different contrast level/colours that can be used in the
> appropriate situations.

There are a few options at

  http://git-scm.com/downloads/logos

for matching the logo to the background.

> There is nothing wrong with having alternates that have been approved
> for various situations.

I'm not sure if this is how you meant it, but I want to emphasize that
there is no "approval" necessary for using alternate logos. Saying
"let's recognize this one as an official logo" is not meant to shut down
the use of others. It is only meant to say "when people ask for an
official logo (e.g., GSoC does so), this one is a good answer".

That is not to say that proliferation of logos is a good idea either.
The point of a logo is recognizability, and if there are dozens of git
logos, chances are that most of them are not recognizable.

> I recommend creating a git repository called git-resources,
> git-marketing, or git-assets, to contain the various approved logos.
> If there is not another location, or a more appropriate one,
> https://github.com/git would be a good place to put this.

I think the logo page above is a good start for variations of that
particular logo. I'd prefer not to put other random logos there unless
they also get wide enough use that they are recognized by the project.
But I have no objection to a repository of random logos.

The git-scm.com page is mostly targeted at end users: what is it, how do
I get it, where is the documentation. Things like a logo repository, or
developer information is spread across various wikis and other sites.
If there's interest, we can make "dev.git-scm.com" for such things, or
host repositories under http://github.com/git. But we would first need
content to put there, and somebody would need to step forward to
organize and maintain that content.

-Peff

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Max Horn]

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My two cents: I like git-scm.com quite a bit. As for the logo, I think it's nice and simple, and based on experience I think that for every logo you'll find people who object to it. E.g. the red color of the log on git-scm.com looks great to me, while I dislike e.g. the color variation Felipe is using.

While we are at it, can I please get that bike-shed in turquoise with a hint of ocean blue mixed in?

Max

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Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Jeff King wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 10:24:24AM +1000, Andrew Ardill wrote:
> 
> > It's normal for an organisation to have a collection of logos to
> > choose from, with one 'official' version. For example, a black and
> > white version is useful for print. Similarly, it's useful to have a
> > couple of different contrast level/colours that can be used in the
> > appropriate situations.
> 
> There are a few options at
> 
>   http://git-scm.com/downloads/logos
> 
> for matching the logo to the background.

That doesn't change the fact that bright red is a horrible color, and
that bright red is used *by default*, as you can see here[1].

Moreover, even the black ones have the issue I already mentioned; they
picture the equivalent of two root commits (with no parents) that are
immediately merged, and the history continues, but who is interested in
the initial commits? And who has multiple root commits? No one.

I am willing to bet whomever designed this logo had never used Git in
his life.

My version of the logo is the equivalent of to head commits that diverge
from a common one, which is extremely common; everybody works on the
latest commits, and has multiple branches.

This is so obvious and simple, that I bet nobody even bother to analize
the logo, they all though "OK, I'm not a designer, it's a logo,
anything's fine for me".

Secondly, the logos that are not black, are bright red, which is
horrible; not only do they look bad in almost every situation due to the
contrast, but in a Git's mindeset red implies old, a minus, the hunk
removed, an error, which is not good. Even in the old logos[2] (whick
even gitk is using), there was always a "-" represented in red.

In my version green is used instead, which represent progress, a plus,
the hunk added, success.

> > There is nothing wrong with having alternates that have been approved
> > for various situations.
> 
> I'm not sure if this is how you meant it, but I want to emphasize that
> there is no "approval" necessary for using alternate logos. Saying
> "let's recognize this one as an official logo" is not meant to shut down
> the use of others. It is only meant to say "when people ask for an
> official logo (e.g., GSoC does so), this one is a good answer".

Yes, but that doesn't mean we should shut down our brains and just
accept anything as the main official logo (of which most of the
alternates would be based on).

I would actually like you (everyone) to be honest and answer this
question;

Have you actually analized the logo? Or are you just arguing against
change, because the logo is already used by git-scm.com, and related
stuff?

[1] http://felipec.org/contrast.png
[2] http://git-osx-installer.googlecode.com/files/GitLogo.jpg

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Max Horn wrote:
> As for the logo, I think it's nice and simple,

You don't think red represent an oldness in Git? Whereas green
represents progress?

> and based on experience I think that for every logo you'll find people
> who object to it.

So we should just accept any logo without thinking about it?

> E.g. the red color of the log on git-scm.com looks great to me, while
> I dislike e.g. the color variation Felipe is using.

If you don't like my variation that doesn't mean we should accept the
red one; there are many shades of green to begin with.

Also, there's more than the color to think about; look at the order of
the pictured commits; they don't make any sense.

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[David Kastrup]

Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:

> Secondly, the logos that are not black, are bright red, which is
> horrible; not only do they look bad in almost every situation due to the
> contrast, but in a Git's mindeset red implies old, a minus, the hunk
> removed, an error, which is not good.

Actually, the best restructuring commits I tend to do to the LilyPond
parser (one of my main work areas) as well as several other areas tend
to remove more lines than they add.

Not overly relevant to this discussion, of course...  But as a
programmer and architect, I tend to cherish the "less is more" maxim.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Vincent van Ravesteijn]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Felipe Contreras
<felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Moreover, even the black ones have the issue I already mentioned; they
> picture the equivalent of two root commits (with no parents) that are
> immediately merged, and the history continues, but who is interested in
> the initial commits? And who has multiple root commits? No one.

[..]

> My version of the logo is the equivalent of to head commits that diverge
> from a common one, which is extremely common; everybody works on the
> latest commits, and has multiple branches.
>

The red logo looks like a merge to me, and a merge with master means
'success' to me.

Branching off means new attempts, but they may or may not end up in master.

Vincent

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Max Horn]

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On 11.04.2014, at 15:29, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:

> Max Horn wrote:
>> As for the logo, I think it's nice and simple,
> 
> You don't think red represent an oldness in Git? Whereas green
> represents progress?

No, I don't think that.

Perhaps you think that, but if that is the case, it is based on your own sociocultural background. Hey, and let's not forget that supposedly 8% or so of all males are red-green blind... ;-)

> 
>> and based on experience I think that for every logo you'll find people
>> who object to it.
> 
> So we should just accept any logo without thinking about it?

No. You (well, everybody) should just take a deep breath, step back, and ask yourself "Does this really matter that much to me and the rest of the world? Is it worth keeping up another long drawn discussion? Is there perhaps a chance for a compromise?"

Of course it is completely up to each individual to decide this! Power to you!

In the meantime, I'll watch from the sidelines, eat my popcorn, enjoy the show, and keep on not using a git logo for anything, indefinitely :-).


>> E.g. the red color of the log on git-scm.com looks great to me, while
>> I dislike e.g. the color variation Felipe is using.
> 
> If you don't like my variation that doesn't mean we should accept the
> red one;

Of course! That's why I marked it as only being an example.

> there are many shades of green to begin with.

Indeed. And many shades of red, blue, etc., and let's not forget about stripes, dots, and other patterns. So many possibilities! Oh, and can I get mine with ponies? :-)


> 
> Also, there's more than the color to think about; look at the order of
> the pictured commits; they don't make any sense.

I disagree. And I think you again confuse your personal sociocultural conditioning with an universal truth. 

In closing, let's not forget that for some things, there just is no "correct" solution, and I think the choice of a logo is one of these cases.


Cheers,
Max

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Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Max Horn wrote:
> On 11.04.2014, at 15:29, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Max Horn wrote:
> > 
> > You don't think red represent an oldness in Git? Whereas green
> > represents progress?
> 
> No, I don't think that.

Then you belong to the minority of Git users. Those of us that see
patches day and night, red is old, green is new.

> >> and based on experience I think that for every logo you'll find people
> >> who object to it.
> > 
> > So we should just accept any logo without thinking about it?
> 
> No. You (well, everybody) should just take a deep breath, step back,
> and ask yourself "Does this really matter that much to me and the rest
> of the world? Is it worth keeping up another long drawn discussion? Is
> there perhaps a chance for a compromise?"

So your position is "it really doesn't matter". Noted.

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 3:24 PM, Felipe Contreras
> <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Moreover, even the black ones have the issue I already mentioned; they
> > picture the equivalent of two root commits (with no parents) that are
> > immediately merged, and the history continues, but who is interested in
> > the initial commits? And who has multiple root commits? No one.
> 
> [..]
> 
> > My version of the logo is the equivalent of to head commits that diverge
> > from a common one, which is extremely common; everybody works on the
> > latest commits, and has multiple branches.
> >
> 
> The red logo looks like a merge to me, and a merge with master means
> 'success' to me.

A merge of what? Two commits without parents? Is that normal?

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Philippe Vaucher]

> > You don't think red represent an oldness in Git? Whereas green
> > represents progress?
>
> No, I don't think that.
>
> Perhaps you think that, but if that is the case, it is based on your own sociocultural background. Hey, and let's not forget that supposedly 8% or so of all males are red-green blind... ;-)


FWIW, I think if you made a poll and asked which color is the most
"positive" between green and red, the vast majority of people would
say "green". Examples could be traffic green lights vs red lights, or
that in nature quiet & peaceful usually involves green while
danger/action involves red (tree leafs vs blood).

Philippe

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Philippe Vaucher]

> FWIW, I think if you made a poll and asked which color is the most
> "positive" between green and red, the vast majority of people would
> say "green". Examples could be traffic green lights vs red lights, or
> that in nature quiet & peaceful usually involves green while
> danger/action involves red (tree leafs vs blood).

By the way, the "symbolism" section of wikipedia articles about red &
green are worth reading.

Philippe

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Michael Haggerty]

On 04/09/2014 06:43 PM, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> Junio C Hamano wrote:
>>  - To officially adopt the logo that appears on the "project
>>    home page" as our "project logo".
> 
> I have made my objections to that logo before, but here it goes again: bright
> red is a horrible color for a logo, as it only looks good in limited
> situations. I propose you use the logo I chose for git-fc[1] which has a better
> color, and instead of showing commits going down, they go up.

That's funny; I think that commits *already* go up in the red logo,
because what is represented is a merge, not a branch.

Robust and easy merging, after all, was one of Git's early claims to fame.

Michael

-- 
Michael Haggerty
mhagger@alum.mit.edu
http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Holger Hellmuth]

Am 11.04.2014 17:39, schrieb Philippe Vaucher:
> FWIW, I think if you made a poll and asked which color is the most
> "positive" between green and red, the vast majority of people would
> say "green". Examples could be traffic green lights vs red lights, or

Coca-Cola uses red. So red is refreshing and hip (if you believe the 
commercials).

Apples are red. Red is healthy.

Firefox is red on blue. I like Firefox.

Green is the color of nature but also of poison.

Which is to say, git's wellfare will surely not depend on the color of 
its logo. Otherwise the Coca-Cola company would have used a different color.

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Tim Chase]

On 2014-04-11 13:32, Javier Domingo Cansino wrote:
> I have never thought on that logo as the Git logo (the red one), and
> thought it was [1]. Mainly because the logo itself has git inside.

> [1] Git logo:
> http://git-osx-installer.googlecode.com/files/GitLogo.jpg --

Like Javier, I too assumed that this was the git logo.

As a side note, I was surprised how hard/expensive it is to find a
simple tshirt with either git logo on it.  I received a free bzr
shirt at PyCon a while back, but since I actually *use* git, I'd
rather give it the advocacy love.

-tkc

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Karsten Blees]

Am 09.04.2014 18:43, schrieb Felipe Contreras:
> Junio C Hamano wrote:
>>  - To officially adopt the logo that appears on the "project
>>    home page" as our "project logo".
> 
> I have made my objections to that logo before, but here it goes again: bright
> red is a horrible color for a logo, as it only looks good in limited
> situations. I propose you use the logo I chose for git-fc[1] which has a better
> color, and instead of showing commits going down, they go up.
> 
> Here[2] you can see how horrible contrast this brigth red makes.
> 
> [1] http://felipec.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/git-fc2.png
> [2] http://felipec.org/contrast.png
> 

I believe the color of the proposed logo is orange rather than bright red. And I think its a pretty good color for git, as it conveys friendliness and confidence [1][2].

Additionally, orange/red alerts and attracts the eye while green is calming, uninteresting. Imagine a page with five different SCM logos. If you want git to stand out, choose orange/red. If you want git to be overlooked choose green.

Just my 2 cents.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-honigman/psychology-color-design-infographic_b_2516608.html
[2] http://www.usabilitypost.com/2008/09/29/a-guide-to-choosing-colors-for-your-brand/

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[David Kastrup]

Karsten Blees <karsten.blees@gmail.com> writes:

> Additionally, orange/red alerts and attracts the eye while green is
> calming, uninteresting. Imagine a page with five different SCM
> logos. If you want git to stand out, choose orange/red. If you want
> git to be overlooked choose green.

How about using the "blink" attribute and some autoplaying sound?  I am
sure we can provide an experience not easy to forget.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Holger Hellmuth wrote:
> Am 11.04.2014 17:39, schrieb Philippe Vaucher:
> >FWIW, I think if you made a poll and asked which color is the most
> >"positive" between green and red, the vast majority of people would
> >say "green". Examples could be traffic green lights vs red lights, or
> 
> Coca-Cola uses red. So red is refreshing and hip (if you believe the
> commercials).

Coca-Cola chose red long time ago, if branding and artist experts told
them another colour would be better it wouldn't matter; their color is
red and they can't change it now.

Moreover we are not in the business of refreshing beverages, we are in
the business of revision control, and in revision control red is old,
green is new. Period.

> Which is to say, git's wellfare will surely not depend on the color of
> its logo. Otherwise the Coca-Cola company would have used a different
> color.

It doesn't. But green is still better.

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Max Horn]

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On 11.04.2014, at 17:39, Philippe Vaucher <philippe.vaucher@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> You don't think red represent an oldness in Git? Whereas green
>>> represents progress?
>> 
>> No, I don't think that.
>> 
>> Perhaps you think that, but if that is the case, it is based on your own sociocultural background. Hey, and let's not forget that supposedly 8% or so of all males are red-green blind... ;-)
> 
> 
> FWIW, I think if you made a poll and asked which color is the most
> "positive" between green and red, the vast majority of people would
> say "green". Examples could be traffic green lights vs red lights, or
> that in nature quiet & peaceful usually involves green while
> danger/action involves red (tree leafs vs blood).

This is worthless, unless you (a) actually make the poll, instead of claiming to know its outcome, and  (b) you establish that what people answer when asked about the colors red and green implies what they think about the git logo on git-scm.com rendered in either color...

If you really want to conduct a poll, though, I think it would be more useful if you e.g. asked people to order several logo candidates / variants by preference, and/or asked them what "feelings" each logo evokes with them, etc. -- i.e. ask them about actual logos, as opposed to asking about something else (like colors) and then extrapolating without a scientific basis.


Max

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Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Max Horn]

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> 

On 11.04.2014, at 17:21, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:

> Max Horn wrote:
>> On 11.04.2014, at 15:29, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Max Horn wrote:
>>> 
>>> You don't think red represent an oldness in Git? Whereas green
>>> represents progress?
>> 
>> No, I don't think that.
> 
> Then you belong to the minority of Git users. Those of us that see
> patches day and night, red is old, green is new.

Hasty generalization. Come back when you have facts, as opposed to the illusion that you are the spokesperson of the (apparently silent) majority of Git users.


Max

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Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Max Horn wrote:
> On 11.04.2014, at 17:21, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Max Horn wrote:
> >> On 11.04.2014, at 15:29, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> Max Horn wrote:
> >>> 
> >>> You don't think red represent an oldness in Git? Whereas green
> >>> represents progress?
> >> 
> >> No, I don't think that.
> > 
> > Then you belong to the minority of Git users. Those of us that see
> > patches day and night, red is old, green is new.
> 
> Hasty generalization.

You don't know what a hasty generalization is. If you want me to explain it to
you, send me a personal e-mail, you are polluting the discussion enough as it
is.

> Come back when you have facts, as opposed to the illusion that you are the
> spokesperson of the (apparently silent) majority of Git users.

Facts:

1) A hunk that removed (-) is represented in red [1]
2) A hunk that added (+) is represented in green [1]
3) A file that is removed is represented in red [2]
4) A file that is added or modified is represented in green [2]
5) A test that fails is represented in red [3]
6) A test that succeeds is represented in green [3]
7) The current Git logo (accordo to some people) has "-" in red, "+" in green [4]

Given these facts, it's reasonable to assume that to the majority of Git users
red is old and bad, green is new and good.

[1] http://ubuntuone.com/0lxzuxY2b59OEdDK5EOvfi
[2] http://media.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/git1_4_git-status.gif
[3] http://felipec.org/git-tests.png
[4] https://plus.google.com/112500102483798323902/posts

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Max Horn]

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On 11.04.2014, at 20:56, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:

> Max Horn wrote:
>> On 11.04.2014, at 17:21, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Max Horn wrote:
>>>> On 11.04.2014, at 15:29, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Max Horn wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> You don't think red represent an oldness in Git? Whereas green
>>>>> represents progress?
>>>> 
>>>> No, I don't think that.
>>> 
>>> Then you belong to the minority of Git users. Those of us that see
>>> patches day and night, red is old, green is new.
>> 
>> Hasty generalization.
> 
> You don't know what a hasty generalization is.

That is another hasty generalization...

> If you want me to explain it to
> you, send me a personal e-mail, you are polluting the discussion enough as it
> is.

... and that is pure hubris and arrogance. :-)


>> Come back when you have facts, as opposed to the illusion that you are the
>> spokesperson of the (apparently silent) majority of Git users.
> 
> Facts:
> 
> 1) A hunk that removed (-) is represented in red [1]
> 2) A hunk that added (+) is represented in green [1]
> 3) A file that is removed is represented in red [2]
> 4) A file that is added or modified is represented in green [2]
> 5) A test that fails is represented in red [3]
> 6) A test that succeeds is represented in green [3]
> 7) The current Git logo (accordo to some people) has "-" in red, "+" in green [4]

I do not dispute any of that.

> 
> Given these facts, it's reasonable to assume that to the majority of Git users
> red is old and bad, green is new and good.

This is where you are making the hasty generalization. Your facts do not suffice to prove this conclusion. 

And even if the conclusion is true (which is possible despite your flawed argument, although I doubt it), then you are making another implicit assumption: Namely that people will automatically transfer the red/green principle from diffs and test results to logos. 


Look, it's exactly this kind of non-sense pseudo-rationalization that leads big companies to follow what "market researchers" tell them they absolutely must do to make their customers happy, and then fail big with it because emotional stuff like that doesn't work with pure logic.

If you want to know what Git users think about the various logo variants, ask them *exactly that*. Indeed, that might be a helpful contribution.

But do not ask them something else, and then pretend you can deduce from that what they will think about the logo. And in particular, please stop claiming that you don't even have to ask them that, because you already supposedly know -- you somehow being representative of the majority of Git users, while everybody who disagrees with you automatically is in the minority. You can do that if you are e.g. leader of North Korea, but nobody here is buying that.



Max

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Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> The git-scm.com page is mostly targeted at end users: what is it, how do
> I get it, where is the documentation. Things like a logo repository, or
> developer information is spread across various wikis and other sites.
> If there's interest, we can make "dev.git-scm.com" for such things, or
> host repositories under http://github.com/git. But we would first need
> content to put there, and somebody would need to step forward to
> organize and maintain that content.

The mention of "dev.git-scm.com" gives me a mixed feeling.  The
chasm between the developer community and casual end-users who know
about Git primarily via their perusal of git-scm.com is one of the
root causes of this confusion.  

The pages at https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page are
done primarily by developers, and between the two logos on that
page, the one that appears inside the page under "Main Page" header
has long been the logo that Git people immediately recognised as the
Git logo.  That logo originally appeared on gitweb, I think, and is
in my tree (on the other hand, the logo in question on the motion
does even appear anywhere in my tree).  We didn't feel a need to
declare it was the official logo.  That was from back when Git
community did not have strong needs for "branding".

The one on the left-top corner was one of the alternatives that
received favorable reactions from multiple people (I am not sure if
there was a clear "majority" though) submitted when we briefly had a
poll to come up with an updated logo.

https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitRelatedLogos has many other
"Git related" logos, many of which I do not even recognise and are
nowhere near "official".

In any case, this motion is not about "let's declare the logo we see
on git-scm.com today as _the_ official one".  It is not about "that
logo on git-scm.com sucks; let's come up with a better one".  People
are welcome to do that discussion elsewhere, and I do not mind a
repository of contestants created somewhere, but personally I think
the project is too mature for that and it is too late, even though
the "bleeding-red fork" logo may not be my favorite.

The motion is about this:

    Outside people, like the party who approached us about putting
    our logo on their trinket, seem to associate that logo we see on
    git-scm.com today with our project, but we never officially said
    it was our logo (we did not endorse that git-scm.com is our
    official home page, either, for that matter).

    It is silly for us to have to say "Ehh, that is a logo that was
    randomly done and slapped on git-scm.com which is not even our
    official home page, and the logo is licensed CC-BY by somebody
    else.  Go talk to them.", every time such a request comes.

    Please help us by letting us answer "Yup, that is a logo (among
    others) that represents our project, and we are OK with you
    using it to help promote our project" instead.

That is what I meant by "our official logo" in the first message.

So,... seconds?

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Jonathan Nieder]

Junio C Hamano wrote:

> In any case, this motion is not about "let's declare the logo we see
> on git-scm.com today as _the_ official one".

Phew. :)

[...]
>     Please help us by letting us answer "Yup, that is a logo (among
>     others) that represents our project, and we are OK with you
>     using it to help promote our project" instead.
>
> That is what I meant by "our official logo" in the first message.

Sounds good to me.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Ronnie Sahlberg]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 12:25 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

>     Please help us by letting us answer "Yup, that is a logo (among
>     others) that represents our project, and we are OK with you
>     using it to help promote our project" instead.
>
> That is what I meant by "our official logo" in the first message.
>
> So,... seconds?

+1

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Max Horn wrote:
> On 11.04.2014, at 20:56, Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Max Horn wrote:
> >> Come back when you have facts, as opposed to the illusion that you are the
> >> spokesperson of the (apparently silent) majority of Git users.
> > 
> > Facts:
> > 
> > 1) A hunk that removed (-) is represented in red [1]
> > 2) A hunk that added (+) is represented in green [1]
> > 3) A file that is removed is represented in red [2]
> > 4) A file that is added or modified is represented in green [2]
> > 5) A test that fails is represented in red [3]
> > 6) A test that succeeds is represented in green [3]
> > 7) The current Git logo (accordo to some people) has "-" in red, "+" in green [4]
> 
> I do not dispute any of that.
> 
> > Given these facts, it's reasonable to assume that to the majority of Git users
> > red is old and bad, green is new and good.
> 
> This is where you are making the hasty generalization.

And you prove again you don't know what that means.

> Your facts do not suffice to prove this conclusion. 

That would be an invalid argument, not a hasty generalization.

> And even if the conclusion is true (which is possible despite your flawed
> argument, although I doubt it), then you are making another implicit
> assumption: Namely that people will automatically transfer the red/green
> principle from diffs and test results to logos. 

It is not only diffs, in general in the tech industry red means failure, green
means success. I can show you many many more examples if you need them.

Then you somehow think that when people see the Git logo they are not going to
asociate they countless hours they've been actually using Git, and seeing red
as bad, as if somehow the logo has nothing to do with the program. If that was
the case we might as well choose a cow for a logo, because it doesn't really
matter.

If you knew anything about logos you would know that the target audience does
matter, and the organization's use of certain colors is important as well.
Google for "how to design a logo" and you will find many references [1][2].

But didn't you say the colour didn't matter? If you really think that, then you
should agree at the very least that green is as good as red. And if you don't
care which colour is best, why are you arguing?

[1] http://www.creativebloq.com/graphic-design/pro-guide-logo-design-21221
[2] http://www.wikihow.com/Design-a-Logo

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Brandon McCaig]

Junio:

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 3:25 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> The pages at https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page are
> done primarily by developers, and between the two logos on that
> page, the one that appears inside the page under "Main Page" header
> has long been the logo that Git people immediately recognised as the
> Git logo.  That logo originally appeared on gitweb, I think, and is
> in my tree (on the other hand, the logo in question on the motion
> does even appear anywhere in my tree).  We didn't feel a need to
> declare it was the official logo.  That was from back when Git
> community did not have strong needs for "branding".
>
> The one on the left-top corner was one of the alternatives that
> received favorable reactions from multiple people (I am not sure if
> there was a clear "majority" though) submitted when we briefly had a
> poll to come up with an updated logo.

*snip*

> In any case, this motion is not about "let's declare the logo we see
> on git-scm.com today as _the_ official one".  It is not about "that
> logo on git-scm.com sucks; let's come up with a better one".  People
> are welcome to do that discussion elsewhere, and I do not mind a
> repository of contestants created somewhere, but personally I think
> the project is too mature for that and it is too late, even though
> the "bleeding-red fork" logo may not be my favorite.
>
> The motion is about this:
>
>     Outside people, like the party who approached us about putting
>     our logo on their trinket, seem to associate that logo we see on
>     git-scm.com today with our project, but we never officially said
>     it was our logo (we did not endorse that git-scm.com is our
>     official home page, either, for that matter).
>
>     It is silly for us to have to say "Ehh, that is a logo that was
>     randomly done and slapped on git-scm.com which is not even our
>     official home page, and the logo is licensed CC-BY by somebody
>     else.  Go talk to them.", every time such a request comes.
>
>     Please help us by letting us answer "Yup, that is a logo (among
>     others) that represents our project, and we are OK with you
>     using it to help promote our project" instead.
>
> That is what I meant by "our official logo" in the first message.
>
> So,... seconds?

I guess it's not exactly clear to me what the difference is between
the "official logo" debate and what you're asking.

I think that the problem with this entire thread is that there is no
such logo that is understood to be Git (i.e., that you could ask
people out of context what the Git logo looks like and they'd be able
to remember without being tainted). If you want proof of that take
that logo from git-scm.com, remove the word "git", and show it to a
random sampling of people in the tech. community and ask them if they
recognize it. I know that I wouldn't (like many others I had to
request http://git-scm.com/ to check what it even was), despite being
a long time Git user and relatively active community member (mostly in
IRC). I suspect that most Git users wouldn't be able to identify it.

I don't particularly like it the logo on git-scm.com[1], and I think
that several good points have been raised here about its weaknesses
and lack of any real strengths. I'm not sure that my say is worth
much, but I'd be in favor of using the one that spells out git (the
one in the top left of the wiki[2]) over the one with the nonsensical
commit nodes[1]. :) Or even take the idea from the wiki and tidy it up
a bit. I think it's a clever idea that works well with the name and we
shouldn't throw it away. Or even take the other and resolve the
problems raised above (the color is secondary, but the logical
structure of the repository is pretty universally backwards).

I wouldn't really be in favor of us encouraging the use of [1], but if
we do it's not the end of the world either. I don't think it's
particularly good so the question is do we and should we care if the
project becomes known by an ambiguous, flawed (apologies to the
designer) logo?

I'm not even sure that I'd agree that Git needs "marketing" at all.
That sounds like a gimmick to maximize "market share" instead of solve
a problem well and I think it belongs more in the rivals' camps. ;) I
think this project should continue to focus on being better instead of
being presented better.

[1] http://git-scm.com/images/logo@2x.png
[2] https://git.wiki.kernel.org/skins/common/images-git/wiki.png

Regards,


-- 
Brandon McCaig <bamccaig@gmail.com> <bamccaig@castopulence.org>
Castopulence Software <https://www.castopulence.org/>
Blog <http://www.bamccaig.com/>
perl -E '$_=q{V zrna gur orfg jvgu jung V fnl. }.
q{Vg qbrfa'\''g nyjnlf fbhaq gung jnl.};
tr/A-Ma-mN-Zn-z/N-Zn-zA-Ma-m/;say'

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Michael Haggerty]

On 04/11/2014 09:25 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> [...]
> The motion is about this:
> 
>     Outside people, like the party who approached us about putting
>     our logo on their trinket, seem to associate that logo we see on
>     git-scm.com today with our project, but we never officially said
>     it was our logo (we did not endorse that git-scm.com is our
>     official home page, either, for that matter).
> 
>     It is silly for us to have to say "Ehh, that is a logo that was
>     randomly done and slapped on git-scm.com which is not even our
>     official home page, and the logo is licensed CC-BY by somebody
>     else.  Go talk to them.", every time such a request comes.
> 
>     Please help us by letting us answer "Yup, that is a logo (among
>     others) that represents our project, and we are OK with you
>     using it to help promote our project" instead.

+1

Michael

-- 
Michael Haggerty
mhagger@alum.mit.edu
http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Jeff King]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 12:25:17PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> The mention of "dev.git-scm.com" gives me a mixed feeling.  The
> chasm between the developer community and casual end-users who know
> about Git primarily via their perusal of git-scm.com is one of the
> root causes of this confusion.

I do not think you can get rid of that split, though. Different people
want different content from a site. Somebody who wants to download and
run git does not care about our Summer of Code ideas page. Somebody who
wants to get a logo does not care about seeing an in-progress logo
contest, or discussion on which logos people are working on.

Historically most of the "dev" information has been on the mailing list.
But sometimes it is more helpful to have a web page showing the "current
state" of some content (e.g., the list of SoC ideas) and just
periodically update it, rather than having each reader assemble the
current state from whatever has been posted to the list.  We have used
the kernel.org wiki for this in the past. What I was suggesting is that
those things could fall under the name "dev.git-scm.com" (which could
even just point to the k.org wiki, or some other wiki, or a site to
which many devs had push access).

The wiki has _also_ been used for user-facing content. E.g., the list of
tools that build on git. That kind of content would make sense to me on
git-scm.com, and perhaps it could be ported there to give it better
exposure.

> The one on the left-top corner was one of the alternatives that
> received favorable reactions from multiple people (I am not sure if
> there was a clear "majority" though) submitted when we briefly had a
> poll to come up with an updated logo.

Do you have a link to the poll or its results? I could not find one in
the list archive. Not that it necessarily matters to the current
discussion, but I was interested for historical curiosity.

I have also seen that logo receive unfavorable reactions from people,
but my recollection is probably biased because I was one of those
people. :)

> In any case, this motion is not about "let's declare the logo we see
> on git-scm.com today as _the_ official one".  It is not about "that
> logo on git-scm.com sucks; let's come up with a better one".  People
> are welcome to do that discussion elsewhere, and I do not mind a
> repository of contestants created somewhere, but personally I think
> the project is too mature for that and it is too late, even though
> the "bleeding-red fork" logo may not be my favorite.

Thanks, this is what I was trying to say in my earlier message.

> The motion is about this:
> 
>     Outside people, like the party who approached us about putting
>     our logo on their trinket, seem to associate that logo we see on
>     git-scm.com today with our project, but we never officially said
>     it was our logo (we did not endorse that git-scm.com is our
>     official home page, either, for that matter).
> 
>     It is silly for us to have to say "Ehh, that is a logo that was
>     randomly done and slapped on git-scm.com which is not even our
>     official home page, and the logo is licensed CC-BY by somebody
>     else.  Go talk to them.", every time such a request comes.
> 
>     Please help us by letting us answer "Yup, that is a logo (among
>     others) that represents our project, and we are OK with you
>     using it to help promote our project" instead.
> 
> That is what I meant by "our official logo" in the first message.
> 
> So,... seconds?

I do not know if I count, as I am listed as one of the proposers in your
original message. But yes, I agree with this.

-Peff

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Jeff King]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 08:24:48AM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:

> I would actually like you (everyone) to be honest and answer this
> question;
> 
> Have you actually analized the logo? Or are you just arguing against
> change, because the logo is already used by git-scm.com, and related
> stuff?

Is this rhetorical? If not...

Yes, I really thought about the logo and like it.

Many of your complaints are about how git concepts map onto the logo
(for instance, the direction of the graph nodes).  That is _one_ way of
evaluating the logo.

But there are other criteria, as well. For example, is the logo pleasing
to the eye? Is it memorable and recognizable? Things like "pleasing" are
subjective, but there are patterns across humanity. Graphic artists have
studied this for some time and have guidelines for layouts, contrast,
balance, proportionality, etc.

For example, in the git-fc logo you mentioned, you rotated the logo from
git-scm.com. I find it less visually pleasing than the original. It
seems somehow more "wobbly" to me with the two branches sticking up.
Now, that is my completely subjective opinion. I do not know very much
about graphic design, and whether guidelines could help there, nor did I
conduct any empirical research. So maybe it is just me, or maybe one
design is universally more pleasing than the other.

But I think that visual art considerations should be at least as
important in a logo as whether the logo pedantically matches the tool's
output.

-Peff

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Jeff King wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 08:24:48AM -0500, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> 
> > I would actually like you (everyone) to be honest and answer this
> > question;
> > 
> > Have you actually analized the logo? Or are you just arguing against
> > change, because the logo is already used by git-scm.com, and related
> > stuff?
> 
> Is this rhetorical? If not...

It was, because I was pretty sure the answer was mostly the later.

> Yes, I really thought about the logo and like it.
> 
> Many of your complaints are about how git concepts map onto the logo
> (for instance, the direction of the graph nodes).  That is _one_ way of
> evaluating the logo.

There are many ways of evaluating the logo, and they are not exclusive.

> But there are other criteria, as well. For example, is the logo pleasing
> to the eye? Is it memorable and recognizable? Things like "pleasing" are
> subjective, but there are patterns across humanity. Graphic artists have
> studied this for some time and have guidelines for layouts, contrast,
> balance, proportionality, etc.

Yes, that is _also_ important, but so is the fact that the logo should have
correct Git concepts, because the main target audience for the logo is
programmers.

> For example, in the git-fc logo you mentioned, you rotated the logo from
> git-scm.com. I find it less visually pleasing than the original. It
> seems somehow more "wobbly" to me with the two branches sticking up.
> Now, that is my completely subjective opinion. I do not know very much
> about graphic design, and whether guidelines could help there, nor did I
> conduct any empirical research. So maybe it is just me, or maybe one
> design is universally more pleasing than the other.

I've been playing with different logos myself, trying to see if I can come up
with something different (rather than modifying the one done by GitHub). I've
yet to come with something that I think might be superior, but I think I might
be able to do more improvements now.

So I have to agree on this; the direction of the nodes in the current logo does
seem to be more aesthetically pleasing than my own.

However, you left the colour of the logo completely untouched by your analysis,
and the colour is extremely important.

> But I think that visual art considerations should be at least as
> important in a logo as whether the logo pedantically matches the tool's
> output.

*Both* are important, as are many other considerations.

In short my concern is that *if* we are to pick an official logo, we shouldn't
do it blindly, as it appears the logo done by GitHub wasn't reviewed at all by
the community. Fortunately as Junio clarified; this is not a discussion to
officialize the logo (albeit the title implying so).

-- 
Felipe Contreras

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Javier Domingo Cansino]

I think it is a suitable logo. It might not be the one I would think
of, but I see with good eyes using it as one of the project logos.

Javier Domingo Cansino

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Stefan Beller]

So this is really bikeshedding at its finest.

I'd personally do agree on the logo proposed in the first mail by Junio.
However who is the core community, who am I to judge?

So maybe the decision process on this issue may need a more centrally
steered opinion,
so why not call for votes and weight the votes by #number of commits in git.git?




2014-04-13 10:53 GMT+02:00 Javier Domingo Cansino <javierdo1@gmail.com>:
>
> I think it is a suitable logo. It might not be the one I would think
> of, but I see with good eyes using it as one of the project logos.
>
> Javier Domingo Cansino
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Erik Faye-Lund]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 9:25 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> The motion is about this:
>
>     Outside people, like the party who approached us about putting
>     our logo on their trinket, seem to associate that logo we see on
>     git-scm.com today with our project, but we never officially said
>     it was our logo (we did not endorse that git-scm.com is our
>     official home page, either, for that matter).
>
>     It is silly for us to have to say "Ehh, that is a logo that was
>     randomly done and slapped on git-scm.com which is not even our
>     official home page, and the logo is licensed CC-BY by somebody
>     else.  Go talk to them.", every time such a request comes.
>
>     Please help us by letting us answer "Yup, that is a logo (among
>     others) that represents our project, and we are OK with you
>     using it to help promote our project" instead.
>
> That is what I meant by "our official logo" in the first message.
>
> So,... seconds?

Seconded.

Re: Our official home page and logo for the Git project

[Felipe Contreras]

Stefan Beller wrote:
> So this is really bikeshedding at its finest.

You don't seem to understand what is bikeshedding. The reason a bikeshed is
used as reference is because the primary function of a bikeshed is to store
bikes, and therefore the color of the bikeshed doesn't really matter.

A logo is not a bikeshed, the color does matter. I challenge you to tell a
bride that the she is bikeshedding while choosing the color of the dresses for
her bridemaids.

Sometimes color does matter.

-- 
Felipe Contreras