On Monday 16 May 2005 06:12, Tshepang Lekhonkhobe wrote: > Hello, > > Which of the thousands of FLOSS packages do you truly respect, either for > their effect on the community or their perceived difficulty in terms of > coding?
I'm not sure this is on-topic, but I'll mention a few personal favorites anyway: Rather than Blender, I would choose K-3D as my favourite 3D app. Just in case you're wondering, this is a GTK app, rather than a KDE one. The current version in Debian doesn't look like much, but even that is quite powerful if you look closer. For one thing, it's a procedural modeller, so you aren't stuck with what you make. You have a timeline of your construction, and you can alter or animate the first step in the modelling process, even if you've done a thousand other steps since. More important, though, is that the developers have truly listened to users. The next version in CVS has changed dramatically, so that it now resembles 3D Studio Max or Maya, in terms of both the user interface, and the powerful plugin architecture. Blender *may* still have an edge for modelling, but I've heard of important new modelling tools in CVS too, so I'm not sure; K-3D may be better on that point, too. Along similar lines, I would also mention Krita (the up-coming paint package in the next KOffice release). GIMP continues to have an (arguably) awkward multi-window interface, despite many users asking for MDI. But Krita looks like it will provide a really good alternative. What's more, they seem to be taking a real interest in innovation, with Fractal Painter-like natural media and paint-on effects etc. Looks much more useable, and much more powerful to me. I can't wait to see this in Debian so I can finally ditch GIMP :) Also on Graphics, Inkscape deserves a mention. They made sodipodi useable, which means that I can finally do vector drawing on Linux, and they may even have something pretty competitive once they get plugins going well. For kernels, I'll have to say Linux, just because it does so well and progresses quickly. However, I would probably be happier if HURD or OpenBSD or NetBSD were the top Free Software kernels in terms of users and development. HURD seems to have more potential, and I sometimes wonder if Linus actually cares about Free Software, so HURD being a true GNU project would make me less worried about its future. OpenBSD's auditing process sounds great, and NetBSD's portability is really good. Although it doesn't seem to maintain the same version on all archs, so I'm not sure if they would all really count as "supported platforms" in my book. In languages, Python or Ruby for their rapid development and general coolness, and also PHP and Apache since they're probably quite important in keeping .NET and it's proprietary HTML from taking over the web. In IDEs, KDevelop (version 3+) gets my vote. Also, I'll add KStars, since they not only have a great astronomy app, but they just won a $1500 prize, and decided to donate it back to KDE rather than keep it :) Finally, I'll have to mention gEDA and the other electronic tools in general, since, like GCC, they provides the basic tools for a whole new world of Free/Open development: hardware. I was just looking through the OpenCores site last night, and it's amazing to see complete processors etc. available there. This might be an important area in future, if DRM hardware becomes the norm. -- Lee. Please send replies to the list, not to my email address. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
