On Thu, 6 Nov 2003, Cédric GEMY wrote:
Hi Bryce and everybody, I knew that Sodipodi has to be transferred to C++, but not it'd become a new project. Will Inskape be a standalone project, at the end completeley different from Sodipodi. If it is the case, why did you decide to make this new project ?
Two reasons, really. First is that we have different goals. I've listed them before, but you'll probably recall the discussions about them on this list. Second is that we wish to develop using a different methodology / work style.
I think Lauris was the first to notice the distinction in goals, and talked about whether two projects would be better. He identified two paths that Sodipodi could take - one to strive towards becoming a great 2D illustration program, the other to work to become a fully compliant SVG editor. I disagreed with this at first as I didn't think a fork would be good for the project, but the more I talked with the other developers and mulled things over myself, it became clear that we really had two distinct, non-trivial projects here.
The second concern, work style, is probably the key one, but it's harder to explain. With Sodipodi there is a vetting process to assure that code that is checked in is of proper quality. This is a very good thing. But it poses a hurdle for doing more radical changes, as we have to worry about whether it would be accepted in the end. We made a concerted effort with the Hydra-october branch to try a new way. It was successful in that it got a number of patches in that would otherwise have been missed, but in the end it was basically the same work style as before, just scaled up bigger.
What will it include in the future ? Will it tend so interactivity or animations edition ? Will it be compliant with SVG sub-recommandations as SVG-print ( is that the 'Ink') or SVG-Mobile?
Yes, our overall mission is to attain full SVG compliance, including animation and SVG sub-recommendations.
A near-term objective is to first fix remaining XML compliance bugs. After that we will work towards gaining full CSS compliance, and then work towards SVG compliance.
This will take time. We're organizing efforts via a 'roadmap' so it's clear what we're order we plan to work on things, and why.
Who are the people developping Inkscape ? Are other people needed ? In which case and particular need ?
Nathan, mental, Ted, and myself have been working on it so far, but as mentioned above, we want to promote open development and experimentation, so invite anyone that would like to participate. Stability is of course important too, but that is secondary to seeing new ideas and new features added to the codebase. If you've made a few contributions to either Sodipodi or Inkscape, we'll give CVS commit rights - just ask.
We maintain a working list of specific tasks in a Wiki, grouped into 'Milestones'. Any without a name listed beside it is open for takers. Additionally, we maintain a high-level roadmap with longer term efforts in the rough order we think they could be attempted. The things in these lists are where we need particular help. Of course, if people wish to work on something not on the list, that's O-K too.
In addition, we have an 'experimental' CVS module, for really radical work that isn't appropriate for putting into the codebase. Anyone's welcome to set up shop there, or to browse around and see what unique ideas people are fermenting. More details about this are in Wiki.
Etc...
We have decided to try out Jabber for online communications, and have enjoyed it so far. You can find some details at www.inkscape.org.
I can try helping if the code is reasonably commented.
The code is not well commented right now. We try to add comments but there's over 100,000 lines, so it's unlikely this is going to change soon!
However, we've been making an effort to try to document the work we're doing. For instance, when we started on the C++ conversion we gathered notes on the types of fixes needed and listed them in Wiki. We're starting to do similarly for our findings with Gtkmm. We want to help people learn the code with us, so they can participate more easily.
At this time I'm still working on Sodipodi User Manual. I'm considering it as a free document. Since Inkscape has the same features than Sodipodi, and if it is convincing you, it can be intergrated as Inkscape Documentation.
Cool. Yes, in the near to mid term I expect the features between Sodipodi and Inkscape are going to be 99.8% the same, so your work is going to apply to both. And we will strive to document new Inkscape features we make, to help more things forward.
By the way, there are three specific user features we're working on right now, in between the architectural efforts:
* Improved grid system * Layers * Arrowheads
Bryce