[kde-artists] New start sound - Discussion.

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On Thursday 30 May 2013 13:10:50 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Thursday, May 30, 2013 09:13:37 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> > I don't think it's a good idea to disable login sounds.
> > Sure, they have no practical use, but they are a very important part of
> > sound branding (
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_trademark#Sound_branding ). That's why
> 
> The reasons for having turned off the login sound are:
> 
> * It often starts at an unpredictable time due to the mechanics of the
> startup procedure and the wonder that is free software audio; this is only
> going to become worse as we move to increasingly parallelized startup where
> dependencies are determined at runtime by access (the systemd model, e.g.)

Yes, Free Software audio is a mess, but I agree with Djuro here that working 
around the mess by disabling sounds would not help getting the mess fixed. Yes, 
KDE is not directly involved in the Free Software / Linux audio stack, but KDE 
is a very important stakeholder who should point these problems out instead of 
just trying to live with them by working around them.
As Alex Fiestas replied to me two days ago when I said (in a different context) 
"But maybe it's just pulseaudio which messes up after all": "Well, we have to 
fix pulse audio then"
 
> * The sounds for KDE are not well integrated into the branding. That the log
> in/out sounds are extremely long does not help.

Indeed. That can be improved, though, and if Ernesto keeps working on it (and 
maybe leaves the old startup sound behind and starts fresh), maybe he can come 
up with something that fits KDE's brand.

> * They is no realistic benefit to our branding from the sound due to low
> public usage (as you noted in your own email)

Actually, this is only true if there is *no* public usage, *Low* public usage, 
on the other hand, can actually be to our advantage. When you hear the same 
sound from a dozen computers, but one plays a different sound, which one do you 
think will catch your attention? Human perception is designed to detect the 
abnormal, not the norm.

> * They are configurable .. which destroys hope of branding

As you pointed out in your reply to Aleix: It does not destroy any hope of 
using it for branding, it merely _reduces_ the usefulness for branding. I know 
people who change their Windows start sound, and I do know people who keep 
their default KDE start sound (including, but not limited to, myself), 
although certainly typical Plasma users tend to enjoy changing things more 
than typical Windows or OS X users.
However, the same is true for pretty much any part of visual branding as well.
Even though users can easily change their widget style (and many do change 
it), I'd still consider Oxygen a very strong element of the visual branding of 
KDE software.

> * They are annoying as hell (regardless of platform). We've opted for
> elegance for the user rather than attempts to inject our brand into the
> environment.

A long startup tune like we currently have may indeed be annoying (and even 
short ones occasionally are), but I would not consider a startup sound "not 
elegant" per se.
 
> Things that could improve the above and which would cause at least me to re-
> assess this decision:
> 
> * Integrate the startup sound with either the splash screen or the session
> manager (e.g. ksmserver), skip the knotification thing path altogether and
> ensure the sound is played via a low-(enough-)latency mechanism. This would
> remove some of the awkwardness of the current sound timing.

I lack the technical knowledge to evaluate the feasibility of this, but it 
sounds like a constructive approach to me :)
 
> * Produce a sound that is actually memorable, meshes with the KDE branding
> goals (e.g. projection of elegance) and is no more than a couple seconds
> long. A simple, calm, recognizable sound that lasts ~1 second would be
> great imho.

I could live with 2-3 seconds as well but yes, I agree that there is still 
much room for improvement.

So I'd suggest we encourage Ernesto to create a new, short, and overall better 
new sound instead of implying "Don't waste your time, it's disabled by default 
anyway", and if he (or somebody else) creates a sound that we think projects 
KDE's brand well and we can solve the technical issues, we should give it 
another try.

Cheers,
Thomas