[openbeos] Re: OBOS icons

  • From: "Michael Phipps" <mphipps1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 18:34:56 -0400

>> You're in some way contradicting yourself here, because
>> "business-like" is in no way connected to the name. Business
>> is business, and business-like certainly isn't coconuts, but
>> nothing prevents anyone from creating a business-like icon
>> set that has no association with the name (that currently
>> doesn't exist).
>
>Did that confuse the hell out of anybody else? :)

I thought I was just having a really stupid day. ;-)

I think that the point is that a name is not, inherently business friendly
or unfriendly. Furthermore, the initial icon set that OBOS ships is irrelevant, 
because someone (a distro maker? end users?) could replace them.

I will add to that the point that others have made, that choice is a good 
thing, and consolidate this into one mail thread.

Names can certainly be business unfriendly, I think, or neutral, but not 
necessarily business friendly. In other words, we could pick names that will 
drive business away, but nothing that will necessarily attract it. Anything 
offensive or indecent could drive business away. Take, for example, an 
operating system named "Adolf". Not too many people would use it. No business 
would come near it, for sure.

As far as the initial icon set, I think that it is very relevant. My (awful, by 
design) jungle theme idea would look cartoonish and unprofessional. On first 
boot, it would set a mood and a tone for those seeing it. That this is a joke, 
a cartoon, not serious, a toy. Which for kids would be fine, but for a CIO? 
Terrible. Maybe some distro maker would come along and fix the issue. But I 
think that is something of a hack to depend on that. 

Finally, "choice is a good thing". In general, I think that this is a phrase to 
be somewhat cautious about. There is a continuum of configurability, from "you 
will do as we say" to "you can do anything". The problem with the first is 
somewhat obvious. The problem with the second is not so obvious. Isn't being 
able to completely change the way your computer works a good thing? I am not so 
sure. There are certain elements that make a system what it is. Look at the 
identity crisis in WinWorld. Windows is everything from an embedded OS to a 
clustering, multiprocessing OS. In marketing, they call this line extension - 
we have one best selling item, so we will brand everything else we ever make 
the same way. It almost always fails. And I think that it is a failure in 
Windows land, but I digress. BeOS, and, by extension, OpenBeOS means something. 
Some decisions have to be made. You *know* that OBOS will be a user oriented, 
media OS. That can and will mean that it is not *AS* effici!
ent for batch processing. You know that OBOS is designed for end users. There 
is no requirement for using bash/terminal. You know that OBOS has a C++ API. 
Not that other languages can't or shouldn't be supported, but you know that is 
the nature of things and that trying to code in lisp or prolog for the native 
API will be weird. 

Having said all of that, I would certainly thing that desktop themes are not 
something that is all that tough to implement. In fact, it isn't even 
necessarily part of the OS, although it certainly could be. And I think that 
choice of theme is fine. But the phrase? Some people will take that and run 
with it to the ends of the earth. :-/

Wow, that was long. Sorry. 



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