Yeah, the crowdfunding approach will only work if there's enthusiastic support for it. Alternatively, there are benefits to having 4-5 committers "trained" in the art of making icons for the future. It's worth going through the crowdfunding discussion once, though.
> What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a > crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans? Main differences: * This is a task where, for stylistic and efficiency reasons, ideally a single person should do the artwork for _all_ the icons. While I'm sure we have several people here who could do a good job with 20-30 icons, none of us will have time to do 6-700 of them. * The task is repetitive and predictable. We can say to the designer, "Here are 160 bitmap icons that we want SVG versions of. Here are 20 examples that we have already converted. You get paid when you have finished the remaining 140 to the same standard. If the project is a success, we might later try to raise funds to hire you to convert another 700 icons." > With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't scale On the contrary--I think it's the volunteer effort that won't scale, due to the sheer number of icons involved. > when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is not merged? We could start with a smaller number of icons. If that project is a success, we can raise more funds for additional icons. > Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work must be > ours at the end and the author must not retain rights? Here's how I imagine this would work: 1) One of us would have to organize this. That person sets up a GoFundMe that says e.g. "Raise $X to hire a graphic designer to retinafy the first batch of 160 NetBeans icons, to be open sourced under the Apache License". 2) Once the funding goal is reached, the organizer goes on UpWork, recruits a suitable designer, and commissions the work. 3) Once the designer delivers the work, per UpWork's agreement, the organizer now holds the rights to it. As bound by the GoFundMe solicitation, the organizer immediately open sources it under the Apache License. Now the icons are open source, whether or not they actually get merged into NetBeans. 4) At this point, we can hold a vote on whether the icons actually look good enough to start integrating them into NetBeans. If this vote passes, we start the regular PR process to move the icons into NetBeans. If not, then the project is abandoned. 5) If the project is a success, we can repeat with more icons, using the same designer. > What happens when the raised money and the work done/merged does not match? Then the project has failed, though the icons are still open source. Since the person getting paid would be a third-party professional, rather than one of us existing contributors, the transaction would be "arms length", and no one should feel cheated. > So if some outside entity wants to try it ok, but be prepared to fail, just > as a PR is not guaranted to be merged. Yeah, exactly. But the chance of success is higher if the effort is discussed here first and people actually like the approach. -- Eirik -----Original Message----- From: Matthias Bläsing <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2020 1:26 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Status of converting icons to SVG Hi, yes - I know, I'm the bad guy, but in this case: What makes graphics design different from programming? Why not do a crowdfound efford to get feature X in NetBeans? With my PMC head on I'm not happy with that approach as it won't scale - when do we endorce a crowdfund efford, what happens if the work is not merged? Who will do the contract work, that will be required, as the work must be ours at the end and the author must not retain rights? What happens when the raised money and the work done/merged does not match? So if some outside entity wants to try it ok, but be prepared to fail, just as a PR is not guaranted to be merged. Greetings Matthias Am Dienstag, den 08.09.2020, 17:14 +0000 schrieb Eirik Bakke: > In my opinion, the ideal way to do this would be to crowdfund the > effort and have new icons be drawn by a single paid, professional icon > designer. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. > > In my experience, drawing an icon takes 30 minutes on average [1], > after getting up to speed. Graphic designers on UpWork are perhaps > $30-60/hour (we'd need to find someone who's qualified for this > particular job). For an initial effort, there are about 160 icons that > should be converted [2]. Ideally, we'd find someone to do it who could > later be called upon to do another 6-700 icons to cover most of the > remaining interface, if the first project is a success. > > As an alternative, for a crowdsourced effort, I'd be happy to do a > "training" session by Zoom to show contributors how to draw icons in > Illustrator according to the style guide described in NETBEANS-2617. > I'm swamped until February 2021, though... > > Some issues to consider: > * Programming and graphic design are two different skillsets. > Programmers do not always produce tasteful graphic designs. > * In the long term, we'd want to convert at least several hundred > icons, maybe thousands [3]. This may be beyond what is possible with a > volunteer effort. > * If too many different people work on this, we will get a hodgepodge > of different icon styles. > * Normally, cosmetic issues are not very important. But in this case, > the purpose of the effort is to make NetBeans look good, so aesthetics > is actually a primary concern. > * From my own experience, it took about 4 hours of icon-drawing work > in Illustrator (which I already had some experience with) before I was > fully "up-to-speed" with designing new icons. If multiple people are > working on the icons, each person will have to go through this > learning curve. > * You often end up copying and pasting shapes between different icons. > If many people are working on the effort, they will end up redrawing > shapes that others have already drawn. > * There are lots of little issues that contributors will get wrong > --e.g. how vertices are aligned to the pixel grid. A lot of > familiarity with the drawing software is needed. > * If many people are working on the effort, a single person will still > end up having to go through all the Illustrator files and cleaning > them up to a consistent standard, naming scheme etc. For the simpler > icons (e.g. two rectangles), this takes up as much time as drawing the > icon itself. > > -- Eirik > [1] See > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/HiDPI+%28Retina%2 > 9+improvements?preview=/110692909/110692926/vectorized.png > [2] > https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/misc/netbeans-icons/prioritized.ht > ml [3] https://people.csail.mit.edu/ebakke/misc/netbeans-icons/ > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jaroslav Tulach <[email protected]> > Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2020 4:29 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Status of converting icons to SVG > > Hello everyone, hello Eirik. > > It is a while since the [support for SVG icons]( > https://github.com/apache/ netbeans/commit/ > 51a01eb9cbfc6f342a1827d47f0b37e1b2f070a3#diff- > 721be4afbc5aed18d39b11702d02c9fd) > landed into NetBeans code base. Is it used or is it just laying > around? > > I do remember there was an attempt to start a community supported > conversion of the icons. What's the status of such conversion? Were > some (at least those visible in the toolbar by default) icons > converted? > > Maybe we should ask guys that have a say in the wider community like > Jirka Kovalský, Geertjan, etc. to make some buzz around the > conversion? Have an "icon-a-hack-a-ton"? > > Last time I asked for help with reorganizing source files layout per > cluster, the community reacted quite well. A lot of people > contributed. Contributing icons shall be even easier and more fun, > right? > > -jt > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > > For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > > For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
