<chapter id="dir-trunk-identity" xreflabel="trunk/Identity">

    <title><filename class="directory">trunk/Identity</filename></title>

    <para>The <filename class="directory">trunk/Identity</filename>

    directory implements The CentOS Project <emphasis>corporate

    identity</emphasis> based on the The CentOS Project

    <emphasis>mission</emphasis> and <emphasis>release

    schema</emphasis>.</para>

    <para id="corporate-mission" xreflabel="Corporate mission">The CentOS Project exists to provide The CentOS

    Distribution.  Additionally, The CentOS Project provides The

    CentOS Web and The CentOS Showroom to support and promote the

    existence of The CentOS Distribution, respectively.</para>

    <para id="corporate-identity" xreflabel="Corporate identity"> The

    CentOS Project corporate identity is the ``persona'' of the

    organization known as The CentOS Project.  The CentOS Project

    corporate identity plays a significant role in the way The CentOS

    Project, as organization, presents itself to both internal and

    external stakeholders. In general terms, The CentOS Project

    corporate identity expresses the values and ambitions of The

    CentOS Project organization, its business, and its

    characteristics.  The CentOS Project corporate identity provides

    visibility, recognizability, reputation, structure and

    identification to The CentOS Project organization by means of

    <emphasis>corporate design</emphasis>, <emphasis>corporate

    communication</emphasis>, and <emphasis>corporate

    behaviour</emphasis>.</para>

    <para id="corporate-design" xreflabel="The corporate design"> The

    corporate design is focused on the effective communication of

    corporate messages. Corporate messages are all the information

    emitted from the corporation to a target audience.  In order for

    such communication to happen, it is required to put the messages

    on a medium available for the target audience to react upon.

    These media are know as <emphasis>corporate

    manifestations</emphasis>, because the corporation manifests its

    existence through them. The specific way used by the corporation

    to set their messages on different media is what the corporate

    design is about.</para>

    <para>The amount of manifestations a corporation uses to

    communicate its existence may very from one corporation to

    another. In the very specific case of The CentOS Project, the

    following corporate manifestations come to mind:</para>

    <orderedlist>

        <listitem>

        <para>The CentOS Distribution — This corporate

        manifestaion is built from SRPM packages. There are SRPM

        packages that make a remarkable use of images (e.g., Anaconda,

        Grub, Syslinux, Gdm, Kdm, Gsplash, Ksplash, Rhgb, Firstboot,

        etc.), packages that make a moderate use of images and

        packages that don't use images at all.  Also, there are some

        packages that make use of text-based information that need to

        be changed, too (e.g., release notes, eula, the welcome page

        of the web browser, etc.), in order for The CentOS Project to

        comply the redistribution guidelines of its upstream provider.

        The CentOS Distribution corporate manifestation focuses its

        attention on SRPM packages that use images in a remarkable

        way, specifically those packages that contain branding

        information, in both image and textual format, from the

        upstream provider. This way, replacing image and text-based

        files, we implement the corporate design of The CentOS

        Distribution corporate manifestations.</para>

        </listitem>

        <listitem>

        <para>The CentOS Web — This corporate manifestation

        exists to support The CentOS Distribution corporate

        manifestation.  The CentOS Web corporate manifestation covers

        web applications used by The CentOS Project to manifest its

        existence on the Internet.  These web applications are free

        software and come from different providers which distribute

        their work with predefined visual styles.  Frequently, these

        predefined visual styles have no visual relation among

        themselves and introduce some visual contraditions when they

        all are put together.  These visual contraditions need to be

        removed in order to comply with The CentOS Project corporate

        structure guidelines.</para>

        </listitem>

        <listitem>

        <para>The CentOS Showroom — This corporate manifestation

        exists to promote The CentOS Distribution.  The CentOS

        Showroom corporate manifestation covers industrial production

        of objects branded by The CentOS Project (e.g., clothes,

        stationery and installation media).  These branded objects are

        for distribution on social events and/or shops.  They provide

        a way of promotion and a route for commercialization that may

        help to aliviate The CentOS Project expenses (e.g., hosting,

        servers, full-time-developers, etc.), in a similar way as

        donations may do.</para>

        </listitem>

   </orderedlist>

   <para>The corporate manifestations above seem to cover all the

   media required by The CentOS Project, as organization, to show its

   existence.  However, other corporate manifestations could be added

   in the future, if needed, to cover different areas like building,

   offices, transportation and whaterver medium The CentOS Project

   thouches to show its existence.</para> 

    communication"> The CentOS Project corporate communication is

    based on <emphasis>community communication</emphasis> and takes

    place through the following avenues: 

    <itemizedlist>

        <listitem><para>The CentOS Chat (#centos, #centos-social},

        #centos-devel on irc.freenode.net)</para></listitem>

        <listitem><para>The CentOS Mailing Lists (<ulink url="http://lists.centos.org/" />).</para></listitem>

        <listitem><para>The CentOS Forums (<ulink url="http://forums.centos.org/" />).</para></listitem>

        <listitem><para>The CentOS Wiki (<ulink url="http://wiki.centos.org/" />).</para></listitem>

        <listitem><para>Social events, interviews, conferences, etc.</para></listitem>

    </itemizedlist>

   </para>

    behaviour">The CentOS Project corporate behaviour is based on

    <emphasis>community behaviour</emphasis> which take place in 

    linkend="corporate-communication" />.</para>

    structure"> The CentOS Project corporate structure is based on a

    <emphasis>monolithic corporate visual identity

    structure</emphasis>.  In this configuration, one unique name and

    one unique visual style is used in all corporate manifestations of

    The CentOS Project.</para>

    <para>In a monolithic corporate visual identity structure,

    internal and external stakeholders feel a strong sensation of

    uniformity, orientation, and identification with the organization.

    No matter if you are visiting web sites, using the distribution,

    or acting on social events, the one unique name and one unique

    visual style connects them all to say: <emphasis>Hey! we are all

    part of The CentOS Project</emphasis>.</para>

    <para>Other corporate structures for The CentOS Project have been

    considered as well. Such is the case of producing one different

    visual style for each major release of The CentOS Distribution.

    This structure isn't inconvenient at all, but some visual

    contradictions could be introduced if it isn't applied correctly

    and we need to be aware of it. To apply it correctly, we need to

    know what The CentOS Project is made of.</para>

    <para>The CentOS Project, as organization, is mainly made of (but

    not limited to) three corporate manifestions: The CentOS

    Distribution, The CentOS Web and The CentOS Showroom.  Inside The

    CentOS Distribution corporate manifestations, The CentOS Project

    maintains near to four different major releases of The CentOS

    Distribution (e.g., the operating system), parallely in time.

    However, inside The CentOS Web visual manifestations, the content

    is produced for no specific release information (e.g., there is no

    a complete web site for each major release of The CentOS

    Distribution individually, but one web site to cover them all).

    Likewise, the content produced in The CentOS Showroom is created

    for no release-specific at all, but for The CentOS Project in

    general.</para>

    <para>In order to produce the correct corporate structure for The

    CentOS Project, we need to concider all the corporate

    manifestations The CentOS Project is made of, not just one of

    them.  If one different visual style is used for each major

    release of The CentOS Distribution, which one of those different

    visual styles would be used to cover the remaining visual

    manifestations The CentOS Project is made of (e.g., The CentOS Web

    and The CentOS Showroom)?</para>

    <para>Probably you are thinking, that's right, but The CentOS

    Brand connects them all already, why would we need to join them up

    into the same visual style too, isn't it more work to do, and

    harder to maintain?</para>

    <para>Harder to maintain, more work to do, probably.  Specially

    when you consider that The CentOS Project has proven stability and

    consistency through time and, that, certainly, didn't come through

    swinging magical wands or something but hardly working out to

    automate tasks and providing maintainance through time. Said that,

    we consider that The CentOS Project corporate structure must be

    consequent with such stability and consistency tradition, beyond

    the work it might require initially. It is true that The CentOS

    Brand does connect all the visual manifestations it is present on,

    but that connection would be stronger if one unique visual style

    backups it, too.  In fact, whatever thing you do to strength the

    visual connection among The CentOS Project corporate

    manifestations would be very good in favor of The CentOS Project

    recognition.</para>

    <para>Obviously, having just one visual style in all corporate

    manifestations for eternity would be a very boring thing and would

    give the impression of a visually dead project.  So, there is no

    problem on creating a brand new visual style for each new major

    release of The CentOS Distribution, in order to refresh The CentOS

    Distribution visual style; the problem itself is in not

    propagating the brand new visual style created for the new release

    of The CentOS Distribution to all other visual manifestations The

    CentOS Project is made of, in a way The CentOS Project could be

    recognized no matter what corporate manifestation be in front of

    us. Such lack of uniformity is what introduces the visual

    contradition we are precisely trying to solve by mean of themes

    production in the CentOS Artwork Repository.</para>

</chapter>