Noteworthy that despite its absence on the website, per brand.gnome.org/ the logo is still referenced:

"The GNOME logo is the most important part of the brand identity."

Brand

Brand guidelines for GNOME.

^{brand.gnome.org}

it’s technically still on the page… scroll down. :D It’s not prominently featured on the new home page, but it hasn’t been officially retired/replaced, either.

That said, yeah, I think it’s time to say goodbye. If that ever happens, then someone will need to go update the brand page—at the moment, we’re kind of in a gray area where nobody has agreed we *can* replace the foot, but the volunteers doing all of the design work have gradually phased it out from most places.

not explicitly, but a growing number of GNOME Foundation members and volunteers have been hoping we could improve the brand. The foot has a legacy but also has practical issues.

Nobody has explicitly approved getting rid of it, but also the board approved the new website design afaik; they could have said, “Looks great, but it needs the foot,” but as far as I’m aware, that didn’t happen.

maybe I should just bite the bullet and propose a referendum or whatever; I’d have to look up how that all works.

The two main arguments I have heard are, “But we like the foot!” which of course, anyone will say about their baby, and “Ugh trademarks are expensive,” which, okay, fine, but also that shouldn’t mean we are stuck with something that a bunch of contributors actively dislike.

putting it to a vote is probably better than sneaking it on the down low in the hope nobody noticed. That was a particular brand of bullshit that I did not appreciate.

Also, you'll have to pry the footprint logo from my cold dead hands, and I'm very much not joking.

nobody snuck anything; the website was being worked on for months and was signed off on by the board.

Also, that sentiment hardly seems productive. GNOME has had three or more logos over its existence. Why is the current one (with practical, observed issues in the wild) somehow the best that ever could be? How would you feel if you thought a particular codebase was bad, but a contributor told you you could pry the current code from their cold dead hands? 🤷‍♂️

that argument would fly if it didn't come from the same people that floated the idea of dropping the logo two years ago, and got lambasted for it. This feels a lot like a way to sneak it past the rest of the community, with zero input.

The current logo is the one that lasted the longest and it's the most recognised one; and all the objections ("it's offensive to some cultures") originate from the same people that don't want to rename GIMP.

I haven't heard anything about it being offensive, but I have objections to the foot:

1. I think it's ugly, but sure, that's just my opinion

2. It is hard to fit into an avatar, whether a square or circle, since it's very unbalanced

3. Anyone outside the FOSS bubble has absolutely no idea what it is, other than a weird foot—which is usually a negative

I helped design the new site and wasn't up there saying our brand is cringe. But Jakub was, and he helped design the current brand.

GNOME contributors feeding the masses.

Dunno, I really like this aesthetic.