Red stars used for rating may be confusing because of their symbolicism in real world

This is true, but low priority. We're not promoting a Communist agenda through this application, so it's a cosmetic issue.

Thanks for your report, and I'm sorry that such a poor choice was made.

I agree it's lower priority than items that affect functionality but from the quick looks I've previously had a the piece of code that paints the stars, it looks like it should be fairly easy to fix, and if we can save alienating or angering people in the community who want to use the application, then it's a worthy exercise I believe.
The only question is what colour should we change the stars to?

I was not trying to play down concerns -- I'd hate to have symbols that rival the Swastika in our ecosystem -- just peg it at the right severity.

It's a low-cost fix for sure. I wonder if you can pull from the GTK+ theme's text color? Seems like that would be the most "clean" fix.

I'm partial to blue, but that's just because I like blue.

This bug was fixed in the package software-center - 3.1.15

---------------
software-center (3.1.15) natty; urgency=low

  [ Kiwinote ]
  * softwarecenter/apt/aptcache.py:
    - don't crash if pkg not in cache (deb files)
  * softwarecenter/utils.py,
    utils/submit_review.py:
    - play slightly nicer with locales (LP: #709671)
  * softwarecenter/view/appdetailsview_gtk:
    - correctly hide addons/reviews from interface when we have an error
  * utils/submit_review.py:
    - allow us to review when spell check isn't available (LP: #709155)

  [ Michael Vogt ]
  * softwarecenter/db/reviews.py:
    - fix race in review downloaded watcher (LP: #709548)
  * test/test_utils.py:
    - add test for get_language()
  * softwarecenter/backend/zeitgeist_simple.py:
    - don't raise a exception if zeitgeist is not available (LP: #709718)
  * softwarecenter/app.py:
    - fix sso login creation on reinstall-previous purchase (LP: #709856)
  * softwarecenter/view/widgets/reviews.py:
    - change ratings star color (LP: #711030)
  * tests/*:
    - fix test invocation at build time and fix test failures
 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Tue, 01 Feb 2011 11:34:30 +0100