[Fsf-web] the website and logo issue

[Nagarjuna G.]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2002 at 02:01:14PM +0530, Vinay Pawar wrote:
> 
> It would be boring to have (fsf|gnu).org.in to be running 
> phpnuke/slash/squish/zope and the likes. 
> I volunteer to built the (fsf|gnu).org.in website, both 
> backend and frontend. 
> Could someone in the Board or close to it please maintain 
> a offsite list of the tasks at hand and the volunteers working 
> at it. 

It is so nice to find a volunteer like you.  We do need your
services.  

Regarding webapplications listed above and your comment, I must
say that I disagree.  Reason: It is important to have a
collaborative site which is maintainable by a group of people,
instead of one web master.  Suppose if the webmaster leaves, we
will be in no position to maintain the site, because the backend
is not known.  When we use applications we follow a standard, and
the content can be syndicated.  The reason why we want to use a
product like squishdot is for this purpose.  Content grows by
collaboration, classified, searcheable, catalogued, syndicatable,
automatic linking, not from one single page, but from all over
the site etc.  In what sense it is boring is not clear to me.

I am also not in favour of toomany custom applications for
FSF-Site. Using a general application is beeter.  An example
comes to my mind.  the web site www.freeos.com was done in php,
and most stuff was customized by one php guru.  After he left the
site was down for months.  That should not happen to us.

> My views on the FSF-I logo and logos in general. 
> Logos are for easy identification of an entity. 
> A Logo is similar to a brand. It needs time for people to 
> associate a logo with an entity. The artwork of a logo must 
> be such that it can be presented in all kinds of media. 
> The most tricky and expensive is the print media. There are 
> very different rules for offset multicolor, digital, screen, 
> block printing, etc. The logo should not loose it's correctness 
> and preferrably also it's effectiveness. There should not be 
> a dependency on color. The GNU head as it is works well for 
> most cases. 
> The GNU head will almost never be used alone. 
> It will be accompanied with the name 
> 'Free Software Foundation of India', on letter heads, 
> visiting cards, brochures, flyers, etc. 
> The Linux penguin doesn't have 'Linux' and 'http://www.linux.org' 
> as a part of it's logo, nor do most logos. It was just a matter 
> of time that people associated the penguin with 'Linux'. 
> Making the name of the organisation a part of the logo artwork 
> is not necessary. The name in a small font size serves no purpose 
> when the name will appear again somewhere around it.
> We have a handsome and well known logo. The more we use it as it 
> is the better it's for us. 
> Clarity, correctness and simplicity should be the mantra. 
> Think about it.

You are quite right, I agree that the logo need not have any
text.  But for that we really need a symbolic figure. Some
thoughts about taking peecock/elephant are good, but they dont go
so easily with GNU.  Let us see, I am also searching for ideas.

Nagarjuna