Alan Horkan wrote:
On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, bulia byak wrote:
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 18:25:55 -0300 From: bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> Cc: inkscape-devel inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Re: New Inkscape Goals?
On 9/27/05, Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> wrote:
Comparing inkscape to other software is useful but I think it is more useful to compare it to commercial software with a large user base rather and see what might help bring Inkscape to the widest possible audience. Comparing to Xara has some benefit but it is a minor product which Corel lost interest in but still imitates many aspects of Corel software, and even Corel is far behind both Adobe and Macromedia in terms of market and overemphasising it (as you accuse me of over emphasing Adobe) threatens to marginalise Inkscape. If you are going to imitate, at least imitate the winnners not the also ran.
Of course I don't care much which commercial packages _you_ consider worthy or worthless.
Your words not mine. I'm not saying Xara is worthless but what I am saying it is you are giving it a massively disproproptionate worth compared to other far more successful products.
Tis true, but giving something value based on "popularity" is also giving it massively disproportionate worth. Don't make me bring up Microsoft's products (namely Windows, Office, and IE)... we could ALL go on rants about how that is. Unfortunately Photoshop & Illustrator have that type of stranglehold on the design world. I've been an Illustrator user for over 10 years and will tell you that I may miss some things, but even I find Inkscape to be bloody brilliant. Yeah, there are some things that I'd prefer the Illustrator way on, but I've never seen Bulia not have solid reasoning in the instances where he won't go that way. And also, please don't forget that as good as Inkscape may be it's still nowhere near a mature product yet and who knows how it'll change and adapt over time.
I can judge them for myself, thank you very much. I'm pretty sure there are Xara and Corel fans other than me to refute what you say above.
Xara and Corel fans are going to give Inkscape its best reviews but there are not as many of them as there are Adobe and Macromedia users it is a shame all your zeal comes from Xara and you dont seem to have been influenced by much else.
I'm an Inkscape fan and I'll give it the best reviews. ; ) Seriously though, we'll see what happens though with Illustrator and Freehand now that Adobe owns them both... maybe they'll come up with something incredibly different than the existing products. Give it a couple years and we'll see what direction they go. We can't count on them always being the same because they have both evolved and matured into fairly different products than they used to be.
I just wanted to point out that your "winner takes all" mentality seems to permeate many of your other opinions and assessments, making them much less useful.
I didn't say winner takes all but it makes more sense to look at the more successful products first, namely Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand and Corel Draw (pretty much in that order).
But you can't forget that for the most part they hold their current positions not based on worth, but based on name recognition and 'value'. "Everyone I know says Adobe is the best." or "I use Dreamweaver, so why not save some money and get a package that has their other products too?"
I'm not belittling their products or trying to say they're not worth what they charge... but, I also think they're way overhyped. Had I found Xara before Inkscape, I can guarantee I would have switched to them from Illustrator.
I'm really not trying to get into the middle of things with you guys... I just want to point out that both of you tend to come across as a little extreme in your perspectives, even though you're both really not. The problem is you both start to get into these semi-hostile tiffs on the list, and I think that it's useless head butting, chest beating, and wasted energy. We all wouldn't be here if we weren't on the same team. Bulia can be very hard to persuade, as can Alan, but that can be very good for everyone. Getting personal about it though is good for no one. That's just my .02 (sorry no time to re-read before sending)
-Josh