On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 09:25:32PM +0100, C R wrote:
Do we want to be comparing Inkscape to MS Paint? I think this will probably get us laughed at at best. MS Paint was never meant to be professional graphics software like Inkscape is. People who use it do so for creative irony and nostalgia.
My thought- There are plenty of FLOSS graphics editors that can replace MS Paint, for what it does. We don't need to lower our software to the level of a basic (long obsolete) bitmap editor to get new users.
I completely agree it's a bit orthogonal to our mission, but I don't see much harm if someone's motivated to use it as a good opportunity to do some Inkscape marketing. And I think Alex's intuition is probably right that there's likely to be an increase in attention on art software in the tech media space, that suggests it'd be a good time to put a foot forward offering Inkscape as an option for people to consider.
Offhand, my guess is that people who rely on MS Paint are perhaps a bit distant from our usual target audiences, but on the other hand every budding artist has gotta start someplace. So I'd probably de-emphasize references to MS Paint, in favor of putting more focus on explaining what makes Inkscape great.
I liked how Martin compared and contrasted the situation with proprietary vs. foss software; that thinking could resonate well with potential future community member types. Another good compare/contrast here could be the classic raster-vs-bitmap discussion, since MS Paint is the rather prototypical raster app.
Bryce