The flower in the logo is a radially symmetrical five petaled flower, with overlapping petals in a whorl. A vanilla flower is a bilaterally symmetrical three petaled flower with a fused labellum/ and column. They look nothing alike.

The Vanilla flower picture I posted is from April and is literally growing on a Plumaria (which the logo obviously is). I'm going to walk outside and edit this response and add a picture from that Plumaria.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I agree that it’s not the same flower, but it’s not always as radically different as the one you showed. The color and size of the petals can be similar. But yes, the structure of the flower is different.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The orchid you showed is not a vanilla. That is a staged shot with some other random orchid. The one I showed is from one of the many many Vanilla vines that I grow. They are not remotely the same.

The flower in the logo is very clearly a Plumaria.

Look if you dont know fuck about shit when it comes to flowers and plants, thats fine. But maybe don't have an opinion then. However if you name your OS after a plant, and then proceed to butcher its presentation, you should be prepared for push back.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

They named their OS after a genus of plants, not a single species. And there are some species that have wide, colored petals like that.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vanilla_aphylla_from_Southern_Thailand.jpg

But yeah, the logo is not a vanilla flower, but it’s not so drastically different I’d fault them for it.

Edit 1: One thing to note is that they named their OS “Vanilla” because of the common description of a software product, meaning unaltered from its original release. They named it this because they don’t change any settings or add any extensions to the Gnome desktop. They provide a “vanilla” installation. I don’t actually know if they were trying to do a vanilla flower as their logo, or just a flower.

Edit 2: They definitely were.

The name "Vanilla OS" evokes the purity and simplicity we aim to offer our users, while the vanilla flower, featured in our logo, represents the sweetness and elegance of our operating system.

(From their FAQ page.)

[–] hellofriend@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Who shat in your garden? Geez man, it's just a logo.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Representation matters. Being correct matters.

[–] hellofriend@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Damn bro, why does the firefox logo look like a Finnish spitz