On Sun, 23 Nov 2003, Bryce Harrington wrote:
<snip>
This is surely a topic that could be discussed heatedly and vigorously, but for the sake of keeping good company it would be best if we didn't!
Couldn't resist responding already.
I hope my previous post was suitabley respectful, I want to encourage and the last thing I want to do is cause flames.
However the issue of Illustrator compatibility is an important one and I think we need to have a position as a project, since the topic is certainly going to be asked again and again if we don't.
It is a very good point that Illustrator is a dominant application and that many users will be familiar with it already. We could do much worse than to clone Illustrator! However, has not been a goal of either Sodipodi nor Inkscape, and I'd daresay it probably shouldn't be. It's
I agree. I'll try not to labour the point so much.
important that our developers feel they have the freedom to make unique design decisions if they feel the need, because we want to encourage
How does this sound as a compromise position:
"Where a better solution cannot be found, default to the way Illustrator does it."
That is brilliant, just the sentiment I was trying to convey. Abiword works by a similar rule of thumb and I think it has worked very well for them and they often do change things for the better.
I think this emphasizes that we want to encourage developers to be creative and try new ideas, but gives them a standard of measure to compare against. And more importantly, for developers who are unsure what to do it gives a reference they can start from.
What do folks think?
I think Inkscape has attracted a great crowd of people and enthusiasm and will go far!
Bryce
Sincerely
Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/