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<sect1 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 &mdash; 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 &mdash; 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 &mdash; 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> 

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

    <para id="corporate-behaviour" xreflabel="The corporate
    behaviour">The CentOS Project corporate behaviour is based on
    <emphasis>community behaviour</emphasis> which take place in <xref
    linkend="corporate-communication" />.</para>

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

</sect1>