Hi Nate, On 4/3/06, pixelnate <pixelnate at gmail.com> wrote: > X .........................................................., I hate > monopolies. If > I had the cash I would pull a Shuttlesworth and bankroll the whole > Scribus project.
Mark "Shuttleworth" has been doing "exactly" the same already with Ubuntu, CD kiosk and lots of other stuff! :) http://www.markshuttleworth.com/ As to whether opensource software is better suited for teaching/learning, I totally agree with Louis and I would like to tell you my own experience in this regard. I was designing an enterprise app and I felt a very strong need for an opensource UML designer. I found ArgoUML & its cousin Poseidon for UML and Umbrello- all free versions good but lacking in some areas - I liked the simplicity of the opensource tools. Rational-2000 was toooooooooo expensive for my company. So I decided to develop one of my own. But then I had to revise my 2D graphics which led me to think "why not develop a 2D drawing app as well on the side?" using the same expertise and which in turn led me to think about the "feature set" of a graphic paint/re-touching app and which in turn led me to learn & use Gimp with a perspective of teaching my younger brother the "Gimp" and 2D graphics app retouching as well to get him a good job (yes - the Gimp for job!). I studied the book at Gimp Savvy.com "Grokking the Gimp" word to word and page to page. The book's treatment of color models and techniques such as masking is simply "excellent" and it really "taught" me the way masking, channels and color models work, for example. I picked up Photoshop-CS8 later on and was surprised to see that the menu option for masking was a bit awkwardly named and it was a point-and-click sort of a thing - had I picked up Photoshop earlier, instead of the Gimp, I would never have learnt about techniques like masking, channels usage and color models. I didn't use the PS-CS8's point-and-click masking option and instead used my own the Gimp's masking knowledge to do masking and it worked superb. The point is: the Gimp really taught me how masking works - Photoshop didn't and doesn't - it just offers a point-and-shoot option - which doesn't teach you anything and you don't get to "learn" anything about masking, channels, color models, etc. - you just get your work done - through mouse-clicks, plugins, point-n-click filters, etc.! Plain and simple! Further, on the Gimp's mailing list, if you try to be member on that list, that is - people go out of the way to help you out in your work graphics work - most of the time, also telling you extremely good techniques to do this and that super-duper thing. The combination of the Gimp's option is pretty impressive. Further, the Gimp-Savvy's book also taught me about the layer modes in addition to color models which led me to work better in Photoshop-CS8. But I have noticed that many of my friends are just point-and-shoot Photoshop graphics artists and use LOTS of photoshop plug-ins to accomplish this and that - they don't know the way (the fundamentals) things work in retouching apps. So, in my case at least, the Gimp REALLY helped me learn photo-retouching. And I am extremely thankful to the Gimp's mailing list and the really helpful people on that list. Same goes with Scribus: I absolutely didn't know a thing about DTP before! I got to learn about scribus AND DTP on Scribus mailing list. The questions that different people asked on this list led me to google on those specific terms and ask questions in return and learn in the process. Many kind people on this list are very quick to help you out and even if you forget something they are very quick to point you in the right direction! :) So, I, for one, am learning DTP from this mailing list - Scribus mailing list - pure and simple! I am absolutely not going to spend lots of money just to learn DTP! no way! Further, what led me to like Scribus, and the DTP in general, was the precision with which you can control things like layout and things like layers - I was pleasantly surprised to see a word processing app (that's what came to my mind initially) with layers! and I was instantly attracted to its precision functionality - the way you can specify coordinates/sizes of different text-boxes - in great detail. I could never do that with MS Word. So I learned a lot about DTP and Photo Retouching and graphics from open source software. Further, there ARE some aspects that open source apps do better: for example, earlier on the Gimp's mailing list, I did point out that the Gimp handled Shrink/Grow circular selection better than Photoshop-CS8 - which, instead, created slightly pointed corners in the circle - which looked ugly! Scribus mailing list is a continuous FREE university on DTP! in addition to Scribus. The website has lots of additional useful links to learn and point you in the right direction. The real thing is that good people are doing all this in their free time and they can do better if they are sponsored by some kind folks. For example, if the Gimp doesn't have a color management right now, can the general user-community sponsor the Gimp just for that? the color management? That way, it'll be done faster and probably better! I think you guys should have a donation link on your website for features that are hot in demand and for which people are willing to donate a bit of money. Moreover, I believe that Churchill's saying that he likes to "learn" and not to be _taught_ magnifies the importance of the way open source software world works - you get to "learn" and "explore" things - you are not bombarded by someone about a particular proprietary app. Yes, proprietary apps do many things that are not available in some opensource apps presently but that doesn't mean everything will stay the same - things are certainly going to improve - as all the opensource apps have constantly been improving. Further, I have noticed, that instead of trying to single out an opensource app and critisizing it for lack of certain features - one is better off if s/he tries to learn about "other" related opensource apps that fill the missing gaps. Of course, that's more work but then you don't pay a lot of money to get your job done! Once you get used to it, it becomes easier. Talking about learning from opensource software, I would like to cite a much more suited/fitted example: learning about operating systems is easier when you study Linux! or other opensource OSes. You can't learn much about closed-source operating systems. There are simply tooooooooooooooooo many examples in this area! IMHO, the reason opensource world is lagging behind in some areas is that there is some lack of coordination and organization - and vision and strategy. Someone (you?) talked about Adobe's aquisition of Macromedia earlier on this thread - I would like to say it's all about competitive strategies and you see things in their true light if you examine the competitive landscape well. Adobe also announced their plans to port their products to Linux! Moreover, it's curiously interesting to note that although Sun says that you write your Java code once and it runs anywhere after that, the fact of the matter is that Java practically runs only on three/four platforms - Windows, Linux, Mac OS-X and Solaris - Sun simply doesn't have the resources (seemingly) to develop/port their virtual machine software to other platforms/OSes. NOW, on the desktop-side, macromedia Flash delivers a much better GUI faster than Java's swing and that too runs on Linux, Windows and Mac. Macromedia enhanced its FlashScript in Flash-MX2004 a _lot_ - it looked like C# or Java. Plus they introduced facilities related to server-side web services connectivity - showing a clear inclination of Macromedia to embark on server-side development. Java on server side is not "very" good either. Developers can squeeze far more speed out of web-applications than Java using PHP/MySQL, for example, which operate natively on Linux! Further more, good portable C++ apps are fully portable to a great many more platforms than Java! A good example is BOOST & ACE libraries. With Java, you simply can't port to so many platforms/OSes! :) Probably because of these very reasons, Sun has become the largest corporate customer/partner of Microsoft and both of these companies keep talking about "inter-operable" product features - developers, be aware! :) So, with Adobe's aquisition of Macromedia, it's likely that Adobe will penetrate further in the same direction - server-side development. These may be the reasons Microsoft has been trying to shift/distract Adobe's focus by hyping its new plans of developing better/good DTP/layout apps (check from google!). Don't you think Adobe has countered by launching the PDF-SDK? It'll result in a lot of real good development - using the independent developers' resources! effectively countering Microsoft's DTP efforts in the short-term, at least. So, it's all about fights and wars and competition! The giants are also gearing up for utility computing - many services are now available from a sinlge source on the web. Google is doing the same - they have a very good business model. Sun has already started $1/hour utility computing (which is probably free for the first few months!). Microsoft is doing the same with their Office/Windows Live initiative. So where that leaves the opensource developers? What you guys are gonna do in those areas/apps - which are gonna be utilities in the near future, that is? I observe, that GCC developers are trying very hard to improve GCC compiler with an objective to make it so fast and optimizing that the whole Linux and all its apps become MUCH faster after just simple re-compiling! I very strongly feel a great need for organization in the opensource world. I like opensource intiative 'cos I was and I still am forced (by corporations & market forces) to work on proprietary development platforms using proprietary "artificial" languages instead of elegant and simple C/C++ - whereas I've been yearning/longing to develop OS stuff - but didn't get time to do anything like that - ever! Except very initially! back in the good old days! . Anyway, I have just got a great opportunity with a company to convert all of their systems to opensource! :) and I will do it! :) To top it all, they also have a lot of print jobs as well so I am certainly going to introduce these folks to Linux, Gimp, Scribus, Inkscape, Sodipodi, etc. in any case! :) Though, I'm presently involved in enterprise systems analysis but I'll certainly make my best efforts to introduce Linux here! So, please expect lots of questions from yours truly in future ;) I plan to introduce Linux to folks who are very talkative and, I know, will boast about their expertise in this and that Linux app ;) They will teach others! I think I should stop here ... too much! :) Lastly, NATE, I would try to work on your job on Sundays "in my free time" if you could send it and describe it to me - I am willing to do it - just for the fun of it. No promises but I'll certainly give it a try. But, don't expect much either. I'll just try to prove the worthiness of opensource IF I get some free time on Sundays - that's it. Finally, I don't hate closed-source propreitary software - it's just that they create market monopolies and don't give you enough choice and force you to build your career on their particular product lines. They keep changing versions of their "artificial" languages, for example, drastically radically and force developers to learn their new so-called great products. So, I think, open source software is giving them a good competition. So my heart goes to open source developers and open source movement. This non-conformance to the status-quo of proprietary software's dominance is highly necessary. Keep it up! -- Best regards, Asif
