Bryce Harrington wrote:
Note that our target audience is not to win over every last Illustrator user, but rather to accumulate a development-oriented userbase that will help ensure the software will improve continuously. So we want to leave room for developers to experiment with new ideas.
Exactly. We should be learning from the experience of others, so that we can produce a better program. The task is not to slavishly mimic someone else's work, for fear that (God forbid!) some user might find things in the program to be unfamiliar.
Designing things to operate the way a Windows or Mac program works just because that is what people are familiar with it, is not a good reason. A good reason to do such a thing, would be because it is a -better- way. Open source gives developers an opportunity to try NEW things.
Because, after all, we do not contribute to open source software because we feel a social debt or responsibility to users. The driving force is the pleasure we gain from practicing our craft. Software usable by others is a happy by-product.
Those silly "I refuse to use your software unless it does X, Y, and Z" arguments are wasted on me.
</soapbox>
Surprisingly, I -love- Illustrator. :-)
Bob