[kde-artists] New start sound - Discussion.

Aaron J. Seigo aseigo at kde.org
Thu May 30 20:46:05 UTC 2013


On Thursday, May 30, 2013 16:00:14 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> On Thursday 30 May 2013 13:10:50 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > On Thursday, May 30, 2013 09:13:37 Thomas Pfeiffer wrote:
> > * 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.

we use sound in many other places. there is no need to remind people how 
unhappy this part of the stack is as one of the first things we great them with 
on log in.

put another way: the log in sound is not going to undermine the need for 
improvements in the audio stack as we have many, many other functional use 
cases that compel us to do so.

given that the log in sound is not functional (but purely aesthetic and/or for 
branding) i have to object to presenting it to people if we can not do so in a 
non-broken way. (similar to our approach to compositing at the start of 4.x, 
back when things were really broken and shaky)

> > * 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.

given the youtube videos that mock them, i would beg to differ :) 

for me, i don't particularly like the idea of imposing something that is not 
elegant on our users just to forward our own goals of branding (e.g.). the 
person we make this stuff for should come first imho.

so if we manage to have a good sound, it needs to be something soothing, 
simple and well timed. a wave hitting a beach would do it for me, but then i 
grew up by the ocean ;)

> > Things that could improve the above and which would cause at least me to
> > re- assess this decision:
...
> 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

yes, i think that's what i wrote above :)

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
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