>Icon Themes can change icon metaphors, leading to interfaces with icons that don’t express what the developer intended.
Icons were never sufficient metaphors to start with which is why we have text labels.
>Changing an app’s icon denies the developer the possibility to control their brand.
What does this even actually mean.
>User Help and Documentation are similarly useless if UI elements on your system are different from the ones described in the documentation.
This is only true if the user is completing an action that is solely based on clicking an icon with no text which we have already established is bad.
>The problem we’re facing is the expectation that apps can be arbitrarily restyled without manual work, which is and has always been an illusion.
Why has this worked generally fine in lots of ecosystems including gnome?
>If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us.
Earlier discussion seemed to suggest that lots of gnome developers were in fact not fine with this because it hurt gnomes "brand identity"
>Changing third-party apps without any QA is reckless, and would be unacceptable on any other platform.
Reckless?
> we urge you to find ways to do this without taking away our agency
Your agency?
> Just because our apps use GTK that does not mean we’re ok with them being changed from under us.
Nobody cares if you are OK with it.
>Icon Themes can change icon metaphors, leading to interfaces with icons that don’t express what the developer intended.
Icons were never sufficient metaphors to start with which is why we have text labels.
>Changing an app’s icon denies the developer the possibility to control their brand.
What does this even actually mean.
>User Help and Documentation are similarly useless if UI elements on your system are different from the ones described in the documentation.
This is only true if the user is completing an action that is solely based on clicking an icon with no text which we have already established is bad.
>The problem we’re facing is the expectation that apps can be arbitrarily restyled without manual work, which is and has always been an illusion.
Why has this worked generally fine in lots of ecosystems including gnome?
>If you like to tinker with your own system, that’s fine with us.
Earlier discussion seemed to suggest that lots of gnome developers were in fact not fine with this because it hurt gnomes "brand identity"
>Changing third-party apps without any QA is reckless, and would be unacceptable on any other platform.
Reckless?
> we urge you to find ways to do this without taking away our agency
Your agency?
> Just because our apps use GTK that does not mean we’re ok with them being changed from under us.
Nobody cares if you are OK with it.