- Inkscape Board of Directors

Developer Sprint
by Josh Andler 21 Mar '11

21 Mar '11

Hey Board, So, given that we have money in the bank and things like devsprints are considered kosher, can I try and organize one for our most inspired/active/interested developers? My thought is plan out a ways so airfare is reasonable, and book a few hotel rooms for 6-8 developers for a few nights if they're interested. I think a primary focus should be on svg features/compliance (just one idea of many). The people I have in mind to be a part (I'm not intentionally leaving people out, just looking at some of the most active & driven current developers), if interested, are Johan, Felipe, JazzyNico, Tav, JonCruz, Felipe, Jasper, & Krzysztof. Obviously we'd need to see if they're interested, but with enough lead time and pre-discussion about what people are interested in tackling... we could have some excellent stuff accomplished. Thoughts? Cheers, Josh

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Fwd: possible paid project
by Josh Andler 04 Feb '11

04 Feb '11

This is from Alexandre... I think he has some good points and wanted to forward this on to the list. Cheers, Josh ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre.prokoudine@...23...> Date: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 12:23 PM Subject: possible paid project To: "Joshua A. Andler" <scislac@...23...> Hi Josh, This mail summarizes my current ideas regarding possible paid project to improve Inkscape. It's also somewhat useful if you decide to forward it to the Inkscape committee. In the past the committee was strictly against paid work on Inkscape. However we've been participating in GSoC from the very beginning of the program in 2005, which is a lot about paid development, and last year we had an extremely successful project with Tav to improve the Text tool. Right now we have a little over 13K on our account and we don't make *any* use of it for the good of the project. The $316 that were spent on travelling is really nothing in comparison to the whole sum, contrary to what we state at the Donate page and to what I stated in the interview to Packt Publishing last week. With all respect due, this is nonsense. We are not some kind of a dragon that sleeps on a hurd of gold. So my proposal is to try doing a couple of paid projects like the one we did with Tav. The money on the account aloows us to do that. But we don't necessarily have to use the money on the account: SFC actually can help us with another donation campaign, it's what Bradley told me regarding the whole LinuxFund story (when the donations bypassed SFC). If we do several projects, then we need both SVG compliance, performance and new features projects to cover all angles. SVG compliance project is an "old" idea to do a second project with Tav. He was interested in that. Performance is partly covered by Krzysztof's GSoC2010 project, but he never really did OpenCL part of it that he was going to do, to the best of my knowledge. At the same time some more bits of Inkscape could still be improved. E.g. there are still canvas related issues like infamous slowdown when doing rubberband selection over a bitmap. "New features" project could be anything. We have geometry constructions unfinished, PowerStroke LPE started, diffusion curves started etc. I'd rather see one of our former GSoC students work on such a project. We also have over 100 blueprints. Why former students: because they are very nearly our only serious force these days. The old team is mostly not around or busy working on 2geom. At least 1/2 of new features and refactoring changes come from GSoC projects. The former GSoC students already know their way round the codebase too. I took liberty to talk to Maximilian Albert for a start. He still sort of owes us finishing geometry constructions tool, but you know that he had rather serious and understandable reasons to not finish the project. He also wrote an interesting proposal for perspective drawing that was later implemented in Adobe Illustrator CS5 in a rather verbatim way. Max is interested in a project, but he wants to know more about organizational part of work: amount of time to spend on the project a week, scope of a possible project etc. The other former students would be: Johan Engelen. He was interested in a paid project before, but I'm not sure about how much time he has now. Needs asking. Krzysztof Kosiński. He recently wrote he was going to take an internship, so maybe he won't be available till autumn. Jasper van de Gronde. Not sure about how much time he has either. Needs asking too. Another possible project could be long overdue color separated PDF exporting, but this means a prerequsuite of Cairo being able to do that. It's a considerably expensive project (bulia estimated it it as $30K back in 2008), and, what's also important, is that Jon Cruz is currently on it, which is good and bad at the same time, because Jon has the right understanding of what needs doing, but, with all respect due again, I have my doubts that he'll be able to finish it any time soon. In my opinion if the decision will be to try doing two or three paid projects, it'd be a good idea to wait till we know what GSoC projects we have this year (if any), because e.g. Tav expressed willingness to mentor a student re SVG compliance. Proposed sequence of actions in case paid projects get green lights: 1. Talk to other former students whether they have time for a project, and what project. 2. Talk to Tav if he's still ready to do an SVG compliance project in case no GSoC students pops up. 3. Figure out how much money we can spend on each possible project, scope and other criteria considered, whether donation campaign is required. 4. Given p3, talk to Bradley@...28... about what exactly they can do regarding donation campaign. 5. Wait till we know all about GSoC this year. 6. Consider 1-5 and take action. Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org

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Re: [Inkscape-board] Fwd: possible paid project
by Josh Andler 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 7:47 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre.prokoudine@...23...> wrote: > On 2/3/11, Nathan Hurst wrote: > >> I'm with Ted, $13k doesn't go very far, even for student projects > > http://www.linuxfund.org/projects/inkscape/ > > "Fundraising goal: $1300 – Raised to date: $1,415 " > > Project successfully finished by Tav. I also want to mention the possibility of us doing more things via linuxfund, and the project either matching a certain amount of funding or filling in the gap after a certain amount of time. Lets be honest, the compliance stuff isn't really all that sexy and someone like Tav (who is ineligible for something like GSoC as a student) is willing and capable to work on that. I'm also for hackfests, but I don't know that many of our contributors would be terribly interested. Felipe would be, and he loves hackfests... but, how many developers do we have that would be into it and share interest/knowledge in similar parts of inkscape? Cheers, Josh

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Vote: Inkscape should fund the rest of the Linux Fund project
by Ted Gould 16 Sep '09

16 Sep '09

Please reply with a yea or nay on whether the Inkscape funds of $630 should be given to Linux Fund in order to finance the remaining bits necessary for the text tool project. Ted: nay --Ted

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Linux Fund and sponsoring work on the text tool
by Ted Gould 11 Sep '09

11 Sep '09

Hello Board, So Linux Fund who has volunteered some funds to help sponsor development on our text tool has not received the matching that they would need to pay for the full development cost. They would like to either fund it, or free up the funds by the end of their fiscal year, which is the end of this month. The difference is $630. They would like the foundation to pay the difference. I have very mixed feelings on this. While it seems like a very small amount to pay for a feature that is weak in Inkscape, I'm also concerned about the prescient that it sets as we certainly don't have the money to fund development regularly. Though, there are already "funded" developers working on Inkscape through GSoC even though there are major restrictions on the eligibility by having to be enrolled in school. Lastly, there are some political implications. Linux Fund has volunteered to help us, turning this down probably would mean that they wouldn't make that offer again. I don't believe that to be a major downside, but also something that should be considered. I'm proposing that we do a simple vote on it. How about votes due by Sunday evening? Depending on that I'll either write a nice e-mail to Linux Fund thanking them for their generosity or ask the Software Conservancy to send the money. --Ted

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Re: [Inkscape-board] the LF contract
by Ted Gould 02 Sep '09

02 Sep '09

On Tue, 2009-09-01 at 22:32 +0400, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote: > Back in February we and Linux Foundation announced sponsoring Milosz > Derezynski to work on the text tool. > > I see that according to http://www.linuxfund.org/projects/inkscape/ > there simply wasn't enough funding. Maybe the Inkscape committee could > discuss this and sponsor the project? Our Text tool really demands > attention. The Linux Fund folks and Bradley from the conservancy discussed that, and they said that it is possible. Personally, I'm just a little concerned about paying developers in general. I realize that this is a small situation -- but I guess I worry about the precedent there. --Ted PS - CC'ing the board list.

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Inkscape name/logo trademarking
by Ted Gould 27 Jan '09

27 Jan '09

Hey all, I got of the phone from the lawyer from SFLC and they're going to help us in trademarking the logo and name. I just wanted to write an e-mail to make sure I'm not screwing it up :) Name: Inkscape Phrase: Draw Freely Logo: /usr/share/inkscape/icons/inkscape.svg They are going to do a trademark search to ensure that no one else has trademarked anything similar (to the point where we'd need to differentiate) and come up with a "category" for us to file in (I'm guessing it'll be "computer graphics"). Thoughts after that will be to get a usage policy built that is fairly simple but ensures that Adobe can't make "Adobe Inkscape" without asking us first :) Any issues? --Ted

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The use of Inkscape icons in T-shirt design
by heathenx 12 Aug '08

12 Aug '08

I emailed Ted Gould a few days ago inquiring if it would be alright to use Inkscape icons in a promotional t-shirt for the 2008 Ohio LinuxFest. I wasn't sure who else to ask and since I just recently talked with Ted through an email on another matter I thought he might be the right guy. Ted suggested that I contact the Inkscape-board mailing list so here it goes. Below is my original text from the email that I sent Ted without his reply.: ################################################################################# Ted, I am not sure who else to ask from the Inkscape group. Perhaps you can help me with a question. Richard Querin and I run a website (screencasters.heathenx.org) that is dedicated to teaching the basics of Inkscape. We may not be the best teachers but it's all that we know how to do in terms to spreading the use of Inkscape. Anyway, I will be attending this years Ohio LinuxFest just as an attendee and what Richard and I wanted to do is print up a few t-shirts to give away in order to promote our website (and in turn promte Inkscape indirectly). We had a few concepts that are questionable in terms of legal use. We thought it would be neat to have a spoof of a t-shirt that is sold by Jinx. Instead of the game icons we would use Inkscape icons. Of course we wondered if it was morally and legally the right thing to do since we are not affiliated in any shape or form to the Inkscape project. I attached an image of the concept for you to review. Can you give us any input here? We certainly do not want to upset the very project that we both love. Abandoning this t-shirt design is not the slightest problem. We have plenty more ideas that would not infringe on Inkscape. Thank-you. Regards, heathenx ################################################################################# The last thing that Richard and I want to do is offend the Inkscape project. We certainly want to play by the rules. So what does everyone think? Is this okay? Ted suggested that I might have to offer up the svg file that is attached if we decide to use this t-shirt design. I don't have a problem with that. I would appreciate your input. Regards, heathenx PS. Again, we intend to give a limited amount of these t-shirts away at the show. We will not be charging for them. However, we may end up setting up a CafePress store in the future and may or may not offer this specific shirt for sale...if any of that matters.

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Re: [Inkscape-board] The use of Inkscape icons in T-shirt design
by Bryce Harrington 11 Aug '08

11 Aug '08

I think that should be fine. It looks like you're using the toolbar icons, which are GPL'd and not trademarked in any way. (In fact, I'm not sure they're even particular to Inkscape.) Selling the shirts is fine too - the GPL doesn't forbid charging money for GPL'd stuff (thus why Linux distros can sell CD's of GPL software) so there's no moral or legal issue at all. If you want to be 100% legit, just post the SVG of your t-shirt design on your website licensed under GPL and you should be 100% fine. Bryce On Mon, Aug 04, 2008 at 09:07:47PM -0400, heathenx wrote: > I emailed Ted Gould a few days ago inquiring if it would be alright to > use Inkscape icons in a promotional t-shirt for the 2008 Ohio LinuxFest. > I wasn't sure who else to ask and since I just recently talked with Ted > through an email on another matter I thought he might be the right guy. > Ted suggested that I contact the Inkscape-board mailing list so here it > goes. Below is my original text from the email that I sent Ted without > his reply.: > > ################################################################################# > > Ted, > > I am not sure who else to ask from the Inkscape group. Perhaps you can help me with a question. > > Richard Querin and I run a website (screencasters.heathenx.org) that is > dedicated to teaching the basics of Inkscape. We may not be the best > teachers but it's all that we know how to do in terms to spreading the > use of Inkscape. Anyway, I will be attending this years Ohio LinuxFest > just as an attendee and what Richard and I wanted to do is print up a few > t-shirts to give away in order to promote our website (and in turn promte > Inkscape indirectly). We had a few concepts that are questionable in > terms of legal use. We thought it would be neat to have a spoof of a > t-shirt that is sold by Jinx. Instead of the game icons we would use > Inkscape icons. Of course we wondered if it was morally and legally the > right thing to do since we are not affiliated in any shape or form to the > Inkscape project. I attached an image of the concept for you to review. > Can you give us any input here? We certainly do not want to upset the > very project that we both love. Abandoning this t-shirt design is not the > slightest problem. We have plenty more ideas that would not infringe on > Inkscape. > > Thank-you. > > Regards, > > heathenx > > ################################################################################# > > The last thing that Richard and I want to do is offend the Inkscape > project. We certainly want to play by the rules. So what does everyone > think? Is this okay? Ted suggested that I might have to offer up the svg > file that is attached if we decide to use this t-shirt design. I don't > have a problem with that. > > I would appreciate your input. > > Regards, > > heathenx > > PS. Again, we intend to give a limited amount of these t-shirts away at > the show. We will not be charging for them. However, we may end up > setting up a CafePress store in the future and may or may not offer this > specific shirt for sale...if any of that matters.

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Re: [Inkscape-board] The use of Inkscape icons in T-shirt design
by Bryce Harrington 11 Aug '08

11 Aug '08

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 04:21:48PM -0500, Aaron Spike wrote: > Ted Gould wrote: > > I have no problem with this, and I think the shirts are cool. The only > > requirement for me is that we need someway for me to order one ;) > > > > +1 > > I'm +1 too. But what's the licensing on our icons? I seem to remember a > mailing list thread about that. GPL'd, same as the source code. (Anything can be put under the GPL despite the code-specific wording of the license - the G stands for General after all.) So draw the analogy to source code - someone is free to reuse part of the inkscape codebase for any purpose including charging for it so long as they abide by the GPL - the derivative needs to be GPL'd and the source needs to be available. Bryce

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