software-center uses Ubuntu specific branding rather than respect the current distro name

Thanks, I assign this to mpt so that he can talk about the icons. Making it easy to provide branding is certainly a good idea, one possible way is to use the icon theme for the icons, then you can simply replace them.

As time goes on, the question "Is X available in Ubuntu Software Center?" will be increasingly common. And it will be important that this is not confused with "Is X available in Debian Software Center?", etc for any other OS that uses a separate set of repositories.

For that reason, as described in <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareCenter#branding>, the name should be "Ubuntu Software Center" -- *not* just "Software Center" -- everywhere it is displayed in Ubuntu.

I'm all in favor of adapting the window title, about box etc so that it matches the distribution name. And I'm sure there is some way for the .desktop file to follow the distribution name too. (Perhaps the packaging script can insert the appropriate name into the .desktop file?) But because of the purpose of the program, it's likely that its icon will continue to contain the Ubuntu logo and therefore need to be forked.

I see your point about the branding, but as far as I know, no one currently gets confused when someone asks "Is X available in Synaptic Package Manager," despite the fact that many different distros use it. However, provided that the title becomes dynamic as you suggest, that becomes a moot point.

I assume it is possible to change the .desktop file, as Ubiquity does it for the install icon, but I'm not sure exactly how it is done.

As for the logo, why not put it in a separate package the way Ubiquity does? That way one can easily rebrand the application and still keep the core unmodified from upstream?

I have no problem with the icon being in a separate package, if that means less work overall than each OS vendor maintaining their own branch. That separate package probably would also contain the icon used for "Canonical Partners", and maybe even the software categorization XML since that refers to specific Ubuntu repository sections.

(BTW, the reason "Is X available in Synaptic" is hardly ever confusing is that up till now, Synaptic -- and to a lesser extent Add/Remove Applications -- have been used mostly by people who know what "distros" are and who know that the tools show different results depending on where they're used. Ubuntu Software Center is part of Ubuntu targeting a much wider audience, so we can't rely on that level of user knowledge any more.)

It seems to be the right solution is to set both the logo and the distro name as dynamic, though they don't have to be separate packages - the name is stored, as someone mentioned earlier, and the logos already exist on the hard drive, do they not? I mean like Ubuntu logos are already being used by other stuff, so they can probably be reused for this purpose, no?