On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 4:37 PM, Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote:
> Mike Morris wrote: > >> I am new to Scribus, but not to DTP. I have been exploring Scribus, and I >> am an avid reader of the mailing list messages. I am using Scribus >> 1.3.3.11on a Windows XP platform. My question for the developers is a >> result of the >> many comments and questions posted over the past month on such topics as >> who >> is (or should be) using Scribus, and such features as imposition, color >> management, printing, and even spell checking. >> >> The question: What is the goal of the developers? >> >> > I am not one of the developers, but have been on the sidelines from some > time, and am one of those working on our manual. For a question like this, > you probably need several answers from various members. > The way I see the development having taken place, the emphasis has at first > been on high-quality output from the program: making PDFs compliant to the > standards set by Adobe, including color management, and including the > ability to use high-level components (ie, various image formats) to work > with for this DTP work, primarily with commercial printing in mind. > Consequently, things like imposition were not primary goals. Some things, > such as being able to embed a PDF within Scribus, while desirable, are major > tasks and will simply take time to accomplish. > The current development series, 1.3.5svn, is a major step forward in > usability, and incorporates of a number of things such as those you mention > that others have indicated are more or less essential. It is at least hoped > that the file format at this point will be more stable, which should help > create a greater sense of comfort for users. The upcoming manual should also > help, since it will explain a lot about using Scribus heretofore not > well-documented or not documented at all. > Since there are many things to be worked on, and a limited number of > developers available to do the work, decisions have to be made about where > to focus energy and time. > > I saw an interchange posted on kerneltrap.org between Linus Torvalds and > some other developers, when they were wondering if they could stop > incorporating new features for a while, so that they could stop to fix all > the bugs before moving on. *Linus replied that to artificially stop new > features would mean the death of the project*, and in reality, you can't > stop this from happening. Interesting thought. And , as an ex-engineer, understandable . . . yet I consider Open Office (at least the word processor) as a "finished" product. Perhaps the corporate involvement in Open Office provides the additional resources, of the right kind, to "finish" the product. > Projects develop a life of their own outside of the desires of the > individuals working on them. You can't tell people to stop working on > something they're intently interested in, and making positive contributions > about. > If you look around at the many projects that might in some sense be > considered "stable", no one is working on them anymore. They stopped at > version 0.9, because the developer(s) lost interest. > > All in all, I think Scribus is a remarkable thing. A number of people > scattered across the globe continue to work on this project begun by Franz > Schmid, all trying to advance it with no significant monetary gain in sight. Thank you for your response. Perhaps Scribus will always remain a work in process. If Linus Torvalds is correct, that is probably a good thing for the capabilities of the application. Although, in my opinion, that will limit the impact of Scribus on the industry. Despite that, I agree that "...Scribus is a remarkable thing." Thanks to the developers for the work so far. I would like to hear from any of the developers willing to take a moment from their busy schedule on this issue. > > > Greg > > _______________________________________________ > scribus mailing list > scribus at lists.scribus.info > http://lists.scribus.info/mailman/listinfo/scribus > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.scribus.info/pipermail/scribus/attachments/20080901/53755c71/attachment.htm>
