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Comment by syrusakbary | Hacker News Reader

If you don't see any issue on a corporation having most of the control over a spec, then I guess there isn't anything I can say that will convince you.

> the whole conversation on your end seems petty and toxic, at first glance

That's a first! Can you expand on that? Thanks!

https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI/issues/3

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I didn't say anything like that, I was commenting on your commentary and not Fastly or the BA. That strawman you built up is an example of toxicity.

The pettiness is that this looks like a non-issue blown into a flamewar where the BA has every right not to accept contributions from yourself because of past actions taken by the business you founded. I thought it was fine for them to close the issue was out of scope/focus, it didn't need more attention or for you to project your own gripes onto it.

All told this thread left a very bad taste in my mouth with respect to Wasmer, while I have a lot of respect for the BA and Wasmtime teams and I'm very glad that they found a home at Fastly.

I'm replying here as a total independant, because you asked for a response :)

Honestly, a logo for a project is both a huge thing, and a massive timesink. Your responses read that you just want to take over choosing the logo ("I'm happy to take on the responsibility of organizing it."). Then you seem to want to make this a whole issue encapsulating the problems with wasm (I am of course just reading one issue, not the many related problems)

Thanks for your response! Agreed that a logo is a not thing that should be taken lightly.

Priorities in open-source communities are weighted differently by different members of it. We do care about accessibility, and the current logo have serious readability issues that affect disproportionally people with low-vision.

IMHO a "welcoming" community should encourage improvements, rather than halting collaboration because it doesn't come from the main members.

I agree improvements are good in generql, but logos are (in my experience) special. They can be a massive timesink, for big projects you have to get lawyers involved, and the arguments can suck up all the energy for months. Its also not something anyone can ignore, as once a logo is chosen you are stuck with it, generally.

If they are also rejecting good quality code, that's a whole other issue.

>people with low-vision.

What does this mean? How does this relate to current logo? Is this a color blindness issue?

There is a color accessibility issue with the current logo.

I've explained it here: https://speakerdeck.com/syrusakbary/wasi-logo-proposal

It's a logo not a paragraph of text. The overall image is supposed to convey the brand and not just a piece of it. Even W3/WCAG agrees and logos are exempt from the contrast requirement. So your whole argument of citing WCAG is irrelevant as it explicitly doesn't apply to logos.

It really depends if you consider "WASI" as essential to the information conveyed in the logo. Or said in other way: if the logo intent is to be readable.

https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/images-of-text.h...

I don't see how that link is relevant. Essential in that link simply indicates, as I read it, that the specific way the text of an image logo is rendered is essential to it's function. In other words that you can't simply replace the WASI in the image with the text "WASI." Essential does not mean that is must meet some requirements or be readable. In fact the contrast requirement your presentation cites is explicit in that it doesn't:

https://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-cont...

>Logotypes: Text that is part of a logo or brand name has no minimum contrast requirement.

They stated that a proper logo process would require too much of their time to devote to right now and they don't want a half-assed process. Also, to your proposal to manage the process, they clearly don't trust you after your company tried that trademark BS. So from their point of view anything you're involved with would actually require even more of their attention due to potential legal liability.

So it's not about not being a main member but rather about being basically seen as a bad actor to the community. Actions have consequences and the consequence for the trademark BS is being seen as an enemy of the community. The way to resolve that is to not annoy them about things while being as helpful as possible. Your comments on Github definitely are not that (they're adversarial, clearly annoy them with something they don't want to deal with, etc.) which simply cements their view of you being a bad actor.

edit: Your attitude is one I've seen before and it works in getting things from people who are forced to deal with you (service workers, employees, government officials, etc.). It does not work for people who can just walk away, block you or blacklist you since they will just do that.

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