On Thu, 2015-05-07 at 19:55 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:

I'm not recalling what the 'info box' was, can you explain in more detail?

This one: https://inkscape.org/en/gallery/item/704/

I posted it a while back in the mailing list.

Martin,

On Fri, 2015-05-08 at 12:41 +0100, C R wrote:

dissasterous for Inkscape's popularity to suddenly stop supporting the more popular operating systems.

That was the crux of the argument in the previous email. An argument can't begin with popularity as an aim because it's shallow. What's the real goal that popularity wishes to get to?

Martin,

On Fri, 2015-05-08 at 16:19 +0000, C R wrote:

Popularity is a measure of success. It is neither shallow, nor simple.

Success at what? The reason I say it's shallow is because it isn't sufficient alone and when alone is pretty crass. It's obvious that you don't think popularity is the final objective either, and the strategy you laid out has merits.

But you've got to offer more depth to what you want so I can understand and the project can get a good sense of what each of the different developers want. Project objectives like the project code are as much a consensus as possible. You want success? What does that look like to you?

On Fri, 2015-05-08 at 20:47 +0200, Maren Hachmann wrote:

We could

• add a tutorial named Introduction

A welcome tutorial is a good idea. I like it. It helps us with our oft educational objectives.

• if we want to include a donation link, we can put one in, too

I think a lot of people love tutorials, and we could use that to

benefit

Agreed, some great ideas Maren. I also like the idea of being able to offer (optional) involvement for things like competitions, but where tutorials are pretty clear cut, offering extra content and linking back to our larger community is worth discussing I think in depth.

Martin,

On Sat, 2015-05-09 at 14:09 +0100, C R wrote:

but if you start pulling the plug now on Windows development

No one is going to stomp on windows developers. I think Bryce was thinking out loud with a mooted elsewhere story there.

Inkscape has always invited developers to maintain the parts that they care about the most. And we're really freeking lucky to have some good windows and macosx packagers (and testers, and even some development) to get inkscape working on those platforms.

What we were sort of saying is that windows users are many and we should be able to support them better. We could do that by asking them to contribute funding, especially for those self same windows packagers and developers. If the volume is big enough, us linux developers wouldn't have any bad feelings about having win clutter in the code.

But that's just economics. The other half was education and we got a bold load of stuff on that list. Everything from why are open standards like svg good for you, to where can you get a job doing inkscape art and design. But we can work on all these points with community building too.

Thanks for your explanation of your position. I don't agree with every point, but our positions are not incoherent. :-)

Martin,

To clarify: I'm not out for freelancing money from the Inkscape project (in case it came off that way). I'm here to help free of charge. Just meant that my paid freelance stuff I do in Linux, and it's my preferred platform for design. I do not consider my work for Open Source software projects freelance work, but rather community service.

On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 11:05 PM, C R <cajhne@...400...> wrote:

No one is going to stomp on windows developers. I think Bryce was

...

thinking out loud with a mooted elsewhere story there.

Gotcha. I don't know how many windows devs there are on the project, but they deserve a lot of love and much respect from everyone in the community. I say that as a hard-core Linux user.

...

Inkscape has always invited developers to maintain the parts that they care about the most. And we're really freeking lucky to have some good windows and macosx packagers (and testers, and even some development) to get inkscape working on those platforms.

Completely agree.

...

What we were sort of saying is that windows users are many and we should be able to support them better. We could do that by asking them to contribute funding, especially for those self same windows packagers and developers.

Sure, don't see why not. It's definitely worth an ask, something on the order of "Help support ongoing Inkscape development on Windows", and explain how more support means Inkscape devs can bring updates faster for Windows.

If the volume is big enough, us linux developers wouldn't

...

have any bad feelings about having win clutter in the code.

Certainly.

...

But that's just economics. The other half was education and we got a bold load of stuff on that list. Everything from why are open standards like svg good for you, to where can you get a job doing inkscape art and design. But we can work on all these points with community building too.

All very good information. Let me know if you want help, graphics, videos, etc. I use open source tools to create all of it. And work entirely in Linux outside of my day job (all my freelancing is done on Linux). So the educational materials also serve as proof that Open Source software is commercial-grade.

...

Thanks for your explanation of your position. I don't agree with every point, but our positions are not incoherent. :-)

Not a problem! :) Thanks for your explanations as well. We don't have to agree on everything to work together towards the things we do agree on. Great thing about the Open Source community is there are lots of differences of opinion, but we all share some common and important things, including a love of sharing, and a genuine desire to help each other and the world at large.

I wonder if there is a real benefit on just expanding the userbase, if that doesn't come with an expansion in the developer-base.

In terms of donation capital, yes. We MUST support popular operating systems to gain the popularity we need to be a successful software project *of any type*. The end-game does not matter in terms of the capital raised for development, except of course in the assurance that the software will always be free and usable by everyone.

A large userbase can only benefit the project if there's a way to convert that userbase in some sort of cash flow to support full-time paid development.

Agreed. That's where kick-starter and other crowd funding campaigns have been a success. We need a crowd for those to work, and that crowd is going to be composed almost entirely of users. The reason crowd funding works so well is that a small donation from a lot of people is far easier to get than large donations from a small user-base.

If somebody asks for successful free software projects, examples like

Blender or Krita come up. However, those projects are successful getting funds for paid development, successful getting the media and the "industry" attention, and succesful integrating to workflows that are not necessarily based on free software.

We have to present something that works with existing industry machinery. Yes, Blender supports CUDA for rendering and CUDA is a proprietary technology owned by nVidia. Without paralel multi-threaded graphics hardware rendering our scenes, we would not have Big Buck Bunny, we would not have Sintel, we would not have Tears of Steal, and we would not have as many people interested in Blender as an industry-grade alternative for Autodesk Maya, or 3DS Max, or Cinema 4D, or Lightworks, etc. etc.

So I think it's a valid question to ask if Blender and Krita are really

good examples of successful free software projects. They are indeed sucessful, but as "open source products", in the context of commercial software, within the rules of the market.

If we want to expand a software project beyond the realm of the hobbyist, we must first provide competitive software. We presently can't do that without making some compromises. The industry is too advanced, and too integral to cinema, gaming, and commercial video to be ignored, or waved off as unimportant. Blender knows this, and supports Unity 3D, as well as file formats for CAD programs, and various proprietary closed source technology. This is why they are popular, and why they are getting ample funding and media attention (and throngs of extension developers) right now. They are a *perfect* example of successful open source software projects. They stay true to their own open-source roots by providing all their code, while not expecting the world to conform to their personal software creedo. That is the only thing that moves Open Source software forward, and the only companies that are making a success of it are the ones that understand that. We stick to our FOSS morals, and we invite people to join, we do not demand it.

It's a tricky subject, because having programs as technically advanced as Blender or Krita makes free software platforms more appealing to users, but they are not necessarily successful bringing more people to free software operating systems.

Agreed, but their popularity and funding is a product of their willingness to compromise on what professionals need in terms of integration with existing systems, and new technology that is developed by companies whose bread and butter relies on keeping their drivers proprietary (for the time being). It is not reasonable to expect nVidia to open source their drivers just because we say all software should be open source. Not when we are a trivial minority. It is thus presently good-enough that nVidia is even willing to write drivers for Linux. When we buy nVidia, we are supporting Linux, because it is showing these large companies that Linux users mater as customers.

For that reason, I don't think that having a large userbase should be among the goals of any free software project. The goal should be achieving technical excellence and giving users powerful tools alone. If you have that and the program happens to be both free of charge as free as in speech, putting no restrictions about how you can use and modify it, it won't be difficult to attract a large userbase.

I think that's a bit like saying: "We want to open a coffee shop, but our goal is not to have lots of customers, or make money." It sounds nice, but it's self-delusion at best. Of course we want lots of customers, and of course we want money. It does not have to be a stated goal, but it is a goal of any business, just as a large user base is a goal of any software project (especially those that want things like crowd-funding).

To achieve the goal of technical excellence, power and flexibility,

projects need the right people contributing. Good developers, good interaction architects AND good users.

Define "good user".

Not just lots of users. Advanced users, people who really know what they're doing and what they want to achieve when they use the tools.

So, professional graphics people... fine. But we have to cater to what they need for work. In the case of Blender 3D that means supporting closed-source drivers, and file formats that existing proprietary software uses. We could immediately up the excellence and quality of Inkscape, as well as professional user base, by being able to read and write the file formats that work with industry-leading tools like Illustrator. That's not necessarily in-line with the end-game of having only FOSS, but it's a necessary first step to gain the professional user base we are after.

Now, let's go back to Blender and Krita and let's see what really made a difference, apart from their apparent success getting funds and attention: They listened to the right people, and made decisions that made the software better.

Yep, and made compromises. Lots of them, in-fact.

David Revoy switched from GIMP to Krita, and when he did he found a welcoming project that paid attention to his needs as an artist.

Like supporting .psd Photoshop format to be able to work with other industry artists without requiring them to learn a new software package. They are adding layer-effect support too this time around I believe.

He has both the skills and the experience to be considered a valuable asset in a project, even if he doesn't write a single line of code. A person like him gives a project credibility, since other artists who respect him as an artist will pay attention to the software.

Exactly. If Krita didn't welcome him instead of demanding that he toss out all his Photoshop projects and start over using open formats, would he would have still been interested? Probably not. Why? Well it's not very welcoming to evangelize new users, and demand they change, and go FOSS cold-turkey.

That's the userbase a project has to grow.

The guys from Blender did the same, and you can tell by the impressive quality of the art created with Blender lately that serious artists have chosen it.

And again, it's because Blender made necessary compromises. If Cycles were run on just FOSS software, most of that art would still be rendering on CPUs so hot you could cook your dinner on them.

So, is it really necessary to grow a huge user base for that? I don't think so.

Yes, it is. Blender had a fairly substantial user base before professional artists got wind that it was a decent replacement for Maya and 3DS Max. 14 years ago, I remember playing with it along side Maya (when it was still Alias Wavefront). It's reached a maturity lately that can compete with the big-boys, and in a lot of ways surpass them. If they didn't have the initial user base, it would never have gotten this big. If they didn't make compromises to get big, they would still be hobbyist. It takes small steps to climb a mountain, and it's never a straight path.

Why not hunting the people doing awesome art with Inkscape and ask them

about their needs to take decisions about the direction of the project instead? Defining an audience, trying to create the best tool for that audience.

It's a good idea. I would be surprised if Inkscape devs have not already been doing this. They are actually doing a fantastic job as well. I do luxury branding with Inkscape. I would be happy to help with direction for professional graphic designers. To be honest though, they surprise me with all the awesome things they add to the project with each release.

The main things that are lacking in terms of vector tools (from my perspective) are:

1. Proper real-time perspective transformation (like GIMP's perspective transform tool)

2. A better method for transforming a shape into another shape (like deforming a title like "FOOTBALL CLUB" into a football shape).

3. Output to CMYK FOGRA39 (or even 27) for print.

4. Export to JPEG, TIFF, and other formats (currently just PNG).

5. Multi-page support and output to multi-page PDFs.

6. Import and export to the latest Illustrator formats (at least CS3) for use with printing companies.

7. Layer preservation in PDFs

8. Proper export for blur to a raster version for PDFs (if a vector solution is not possible)

9. Mesh gradients

There are workarounds for some of these, but they are quite ugly and time consuming.

That said, there are many many things in Inkscape that actually work much better than Illustrator. For example, I was unable to produce full-scale convention booth wall graphics in Illustrator because it limits the scale of what you are making (which is ridiculous for a professional vector program to do). Also, you could only output raster samples at a minimum of 72 dpi, and for an entire booth wall that measures meters in length and height, that is still an insanely large file. I have designed three convention booths with Inkscape to date (working on the nest one now), and it's easy and simple to do so because they DO actually listen to their users. I can even output a 20dpi version of the whole booth to wrap around a blender 3d model of the actual booth, and my life is way way simpler as a graphic designer. If I had to use Adobe software, life would be much harder, and I say that as a 14+ year user of Adobe software products.

If the tool is compelling enough for serious artists, they might consider switching operating systems if the software is awesome and they can't get it in their OS.

Not unless they have viable pre-installed Linux machines to buy along side the alternatives, or are hard-core at experimenting with other OSs (like me), there is unfortunately no way most professionals are going to be able to switch OS just to use free software. It's neither worth the time nor the trouble, and unless we have industry integration built-in, they are not going to even consider it a replacement for what they have to work with for their daily bread. Their primary objective is to use what works, what makes them money in the industry. Switching what they know to venture into the unknown, and possibly break their working computer (and source of income) to do so is just not going to happen, and unfortunately, that's the reality of the current Linux desktop/laptop situation. It is getting better though, so it's not to say that the play would not work in the future, but most of us are just trying to get by financially, in the first place at the moment. I'm fortunate enough to have a job that pays me well enough to be able to lend a hand with Open Source software projects, and write huge dissertations like this reply to try and communicate what people in my profession are looking for. The vast majority are not in my position, and I've spoken to a lot of designers from all walks of life. Most of them are told from the beginning (just as I was all through university) that Macs are the best graphic design tools. Yes, the most expensive computers out there are the "best". That's what we are up against. We can't win unless we make compromises and expand user base first, and Linux needs to come on retail computers first for the vast majority to switch.

Seems unlikely? Think again. That's exactly what people do when they

move from Windows to Apple. They make the switch for a number of reasons, but one is definitely that they can get something they can't get in the other platform.

It ain't because it's free, that's for damn-sure. ;) And how popular would Macs be as an alternative if the user had to install the OS themselves? And the sound card doesn't work? And the wireless is broken? The video card makes the computer crash on resume from suspend? They would move to Windows faster than if we filled a kiddy pool in the front yard with water, locked all the doors, and set them on fire...

So, imho, there are a number of things that come before growing a

massive userbase. And if we are going to use loose terms as "popularity", I'd say "credibility" should come first.

"credibility" is just as nebulous a term. At least "popularity" is quantifiable by number of users = user base. Inkscape has a large and growing user base. That's based on an active community of people posting tutorials on how to use it to make stuff. Professionals don't need coddling. They (including myself) watch tutorials from other people (whether they are professionals of not), and deduce for ourselves whether or not the tool will replace the expensive ones we've been using for ages. Designers are not usually celebrities either. If you ask any given designer to name famous designers, they will probably give you names like "Jony Ives" (who is a fake designer in the first place). I'd be surprised if they could name 3 in total.

Now, that's not to say there isn't value in producing professional materials ourselves that cater to the professional market, and show them what can be done with our tools. There are plenty of excellent illustrators and designers that currently use Inkscape on their respective platforms to make jaw-dropingly stunning masterpieces that you have to squint at to see if it's really vector or not. (follow the Inkscape G+ feed to see some really wicked stuff). We could put together Inkscape showreels of this and post it on social media platforms and Youtube. That will get people of all types interested in Inkscape. We don't have to lose our current user base to expand further into the professional market, we just need to have more exposure, and know where we must go feature-wise to be able to compete. I can help that and with showreels as well, so if anyone is interested in doing that, let me know.

Get credibility from top notch users giving them the right tools to satisfy their creative needs, and the rest would come effortlessly.

Yes and no... we have to increase exposure, and it will mean making compromises like sticking with coding the Windows version and not requiring users to switch their entire OS just to use Inkscape.

-C

Do you have numbers that show how popularity in free software translates into more donation capital?

No, I just can't think of another way crowd funding would work if you have no crowd. Maybe you have some other way, but I doubt you have figures to back it up either. ;)

As I mentioned earlier, blender and krita are tricky examples because they don't run a traditional crowdfunding campaign.

Krita runs on kickstarter lately. Not sure what your definition of "traditional crowdfunding" is. Blender has all kinds of crowd-funded donations, including donations from the Open Movie foundation, which collects funds for independent films made with open source software. It also has websites like Blender Cloud where you can subscribe to get access to content from Movie-makers on how to do all sort of stuff with Blender 3D + movie materials, and making of videos. It's still almost entirely funded by it's user base.

Blender started funding development with the pre-sales of open-movies.

Krita with Training DVDs. They offered a product that was attractive to their users.

Yep. And they had to have enough users to make crowdfunding viable. Otherwise all the DVDs, etc. would not be sold, so the idea that we don't need a large user base for crowdfunding still doesn't make much sense.

There was a

physical product the paying contributors received for their money.

You will find that in most kinds of crowdfunding campaigns. They are called "perks", "rewards", "benefits", etc. depending on which crowdfunding websites you use.

Blender and Krita can afford creating a crowdfunding campaign on the promise of delivering better software in the future because they already have a captive audience.

Which... is not a large user-base in some way? Please explain. Your audience, no matter how niche or "captive" needs to be large enough to fund your project.

...

    A large userbase can only benefit the project if there's a way
    to
    convert that userbase in some sort of cash flow to support
    full-time
    paid development.

Agreed. That's where kick-starter and other crowd funding campaigns have been a success. We need a crowd for those to work, and that crowd is going to be composed almost entirely of users. The reason crowd funding works so well is that a small donation from a lot of people is far easier to get than large donations from a small user-base.

I don't have numbers to back this claim, but it always seemed to me that crowds donate really little money or no money at all, while specialized users and people making money with the tool consider donating more seriously, because they weigh the potential benefit that donating could mean for their jobs.

You don't need numbers. Look at how many of the low-donation level perks are sold in a crowdfunding campaign, and see how much that total is compared to the highest-level multi-thousand-dollar sponsor perks. Crowdfunding works on the principle that a little money from a lot of people translates to a lot of money.

It's tempting to think that if you have 10 million users and ask them 10 cents you'll make a million dollars easily, as you are asking an amount of money that anyone can pay. But that doesn't seem to be the case in reality.

What makes you think that? If you have 10 million users, and they all know about your kickstarter development campaign you may not make 10 million dollars, but does it not make sense that the more users you have the more money you are likely to make more money? That seems to be the reality of the situation, and why crowdfunding works in the first place. I have a friend that makes $8000.00 a month payed through her Patreon campaign page, and it's entirely based on people who follow her on YouTube. That's 100% income from her followers (her "users").

There are extremely popular applications being used around the world by lots of people that are unable to get just a couple thousand dollars when they start a crowdfunding campaign.

Examples?

We have to present something that works with existing industry

...

machinery. Yes, Blender supports CUDA for rendering and CUDA is a proprietary technology owned by nVidia. Without paralel multi-threaded graphics hardware rendering our scenes, we would not have Big Buck Bunny, we would not have Sintel, we would not have Tears of Steal, and we would not have as many people interested in Blender as an industry-grade alternative for Autodesk Maya, or 3DS Max, or Cinema 4D, or Lightworks, etc. etc.

Check your facts. The only open movie that required CUDA was the only made using cycles, Tears of Steel. :-p

I think you'll find they all do now. The point is, hardware acceleration is required for industry-grade 3D animation. Cycles has replaced the (now deprecated) Blender internal renderer.

...

If we want to expand a software project beyond the realm of the hobbyist, we must first provide competitive software. We presently can't do that without making some compromises. The industry is too advanced, and too integral to cinema, gaming, and commercial video to be ignored, or waved off as unimportant. Blender knows this, and supports Unity 3D, as well as file formats for CAD programs, and various proprietary closed source technology. This is why they are popular, and why they are getting ample funding and media attention (and throngs of extension developers) right now. They are a *perfect* example of successful open source software projects. They stay true to their own open-source roots by providing all their code, while not expecting the world to conform to their personal software creedo. That is the only thing that moves Open Source software forward, and the only companies that are making a success of it are the ones that understand that. We stick to our FOSS morals, and we invite people to join, we do not demand it.

See, that's exactly why free software and open source software mean different things today.

I don't see how Blender 3D or Krita are not in-line with the spirit of FOSS. Some people may see the fact that they support existing non-free software contrary to it, but you'll not find many professionals doing that. A professional knows their industry and works well within it.

Since the thread is "Educating users on Free Software" I think it's relevant to define what kind of success do we want. Are we pursuing relevance in the market or are we commited to create an alternative that respects the users freedoms?

And my point again, is that short-term compromises are necessary to get to the long-term goals. We can either have relevance in the professional market through integration and eventually domination, or we can sit on our FOSS ivory tower and scowl at everyone who doesn't conform entirely to our ideal world view. The latter isn't good for funding, and doesn't respect the user's freedom to choose for themselves either.

Adhering to Free Software ideals doesn't necessarily mean that we have to sacrifice quality and power in our tools. But maybe we do have to sacrifice a position in a market that requires us to put compromises on our ideals.

It seems we are getting more and more nebulous with our debate here. Does supporting PSD import and export in Krita mean that they have compromised their ideals? Would supporting AI files in Inkscape do that? If so, why?

...

Agreed, but their popularity and funding is a product of their willingness to compromise on what professionals need in terms of integration with existing systems, and new technology that is developed by companies whose bread and butter relies on keeping their drivers proprietary (for the time being). It is not reasonable to expect nVidia to open source their drivers just because we say all software should be open source. Not when we are a trivial minority. It is thus presently good-enough that nVidia is even willing to write drivers for Linux. When we buy nVidia, we are supporting Linux, because it is showing these large companies that Linux users mater as customers.

I strongly disagree. Sorry to put it in these terms, but it is delusional to think that you're doing any favour to a free operating system when you choose buying from a company that has refused systematically to provide open information about their products.

I find it equally delusional to think that you can get around the reality of the fact that Linux will not be a viable option for most professionals until it's available on equal footing with the industry ubiquitous alternatives. So fine, we don't support new hardware. It's also delusional to think professionals will sacrifice a competitive edge that comes with new hardware just because it isn't in line with FOSS.

Also it's delusional to think that while "we are a trivial minority" we

have any impact on the decision of nVidia about making drivers for linux. I'm pretty sure they have other reasons.

Not sure what you're trying to say here. We are a trivial minority compared to the whole of nVidia's customer base. This all-or-none attitude about FOSS is one of the reasons for it.

...

I think that's a bit like saying: "We want to open a coffee shop, but our goal is not to have lots of customers, or make money." It sounds nice, but it's self-delusion at best. Of course we want lots of customers, and of course we want money. It does not have to be a stated goal, but it is a goal of any business, just as a large user base is a goal of any software project (especially those that want things like crowd-funding).

I think you're confusing needs and goals. Making money it's not a goal. It's a need. And even though it's a need, there are several free software developers who prefer to work for free and avoid the obligations, deadlines and responsabilities that come when money is involved. Some people can afford working for free, as a hobbie, while other really need the money.

Wait, so in your view money is a "need" and not a "goal". So does the project need money? If the answer is "yes", I'm not sure what your point is here either.

Also I wouldn't say that getting a lot of people using inkscape is a goal if that people will regard it as a "freeware" applications and won't care about free software at all.

That's probably another area you and I differ on views. The software is free software whether or not the end user thinks it's "freeware" or not. The view does not change the fact that Inkscape is free software. If people want to donate to fund "that freeware project called Inkscape", is their money any less useful in the project? Does their input as a user matter less? We can tell them it's free software and educate them on what that means without evangelizing, or devaluing them as users because they happen to be stuck with Windows or MacOS as an operating system for now.

I don't think that supporting proprietary formats and technologies is a must if free and open technologies can provide the same degree of flexibility.

So if a client sends you an Illustrator file, you're going to tell them.. what exactly? Go re-do it in open source software? Good luck with that.

Quite the other way around, supporting proprietary technologies usually is an obstacle for progress.

Only if you have sway in the professional market. Inkscape doesn't have that much sway at the moment. It's main obstacles are actually that it doesn't work with the industry formats that are used by professionals. You may have noticed the some of the open standards have been holding Inkscape back for quite some time now in terms of functionality with the new SVG standard having not been fully agreed upon for years. We still don't have multi-page documents for this reason. You have to have sway in the market before you can push in the direction you want. We don't have that yet.

I can understand that sometimes is inconvenient when interacting with workflows based heavily on proprietary formats, but if we don't push for open standards that situation will perpetuate

We can push, just not until we have sway. We don't currently have any. If we push now and draw a line the industry moves right along without us, and leaves us standing back there, behind our self-imposed limitations.

And it's not just about ideals. It has a practical side too: see how the

vfx industry gradually moved to open standards like EXR which eventually made collaboration easier without having to deal wih the multiple drawbacks of supporting proprietary formats.

Oh definitely. I'd prefer if everyone used open standards. I'm just not willing to deny service to people who have to use proprietary formats because there are not equivalent open ones currently. There has to be a better open source solution to make that professionally viable for most people/companies.

...

    David Revoy switched from GIMP to Krita, and when he did he
    found a
    welcoming project that paid attention to his needs as an
    artist.

Like supporting .psd Photoshop format to be able to work with other industry artists without requiring them to learn a new software package.

It's their choice. The risk is that people starts using only PSD by default because it allows easier interaction with Photoshop.

Krita is still not popular enough to push. Once they are, they can... but they also may not need to. If their software is ubiquitous with digital painting, then they become the new standard. They will also soon be able to provide a solution that's better than Photoshop, and they will have the user base to make the changes they want to see in the industry. It's because they didn't draw their line too early that they may have a chance at getting big enough to make a change.

That weakens the possibility of an open format and puts a toll on the development of Krita, that has to be always up-to-date with watever changes Adobe introduces to the PSD format.

If users are willing to pay for that, then it's not really much of a problem. The real problem is lack of funding for the project if they don't.

And we're not even talking about the possible legal consequences of supporting a proprietary format without licensing it.

Do you know about that, or are you just-sayin it might be an issue? The GIMP project has also support for legacy PSD files. Are they evil too?

They are adding layer-effect support too this time around I believe.

Layer effects are inspired in Photoshop's but are not necessarily something done to support non-free workflows.

I believe it supports them in PSD format for interchange with Photoshop.

Non-destructive layer effects and adjustments are useful tools that allow improved productivity. Pretty much like Inkscape's filters.

Irrelevant. These are features requested by Photoshop users to provide interchange with Photoshop artists in the industry (and some things are just easier in Photoshop still).

Exactly. If Krita didn't welcome him instead of demanding that he toss

...

out all his Photoshop projects and start over using open formats, would he would have still been interested? Probably not. Why? Well it's not very welcoming to evangelize new users, and demand they change, and go FOSS cold-turkey.

Look, I'm a graphic designer like you, and I've been using free software only for my professional work for the last 7 years. I started gradually, but I could made the switch when I decided that my freedom as a user was more important to me that some convenience and shortcuts for my everyday work.

Then you must understand what I mean. If you've been a professional graphic designer (if that's how you make your money), then you already know everything I've told you is true. And yes, I've been doing what you have been doing. I use GIMP for everything despite the fact that Photoshop is more mature, is used by most of the industry, and is insisted upon by graphic designers everywhere. We are the strange, the few, the penguins! Lol.

I takes some effort. We should be focusing on reducing or even removing that effort instead of making the free software behave more like proprietary software just to make its former users feel cozy.

It's rather about compatibility. I can get around a lot of the problems with current implementations, but I do not expect everyone to do that. In fact I do not expect the vast majority of everyone to do that either. It would be awesome if everyone shared our collective vision of Free Software, and a completely open format environment, but you gain no traction by insisting upon it when you do not have the user backing yet. People will use Inkscape for a while, until they hit a roadblock. It may be a printing company that their company works with that insists on an AI file for printing. At that point, they will have to use Illustrator to do it. Now, would you rather have a user go back to Illustrator, or continue to support the Free Software project?

And again, it's because Blender made necessary compromises. If Cycles

...

were run on just FOSS software, most of that art would still be rendering on CPUs so hot you could cook your dinner on them.

Unrelated and not necessarily true:

An i7 running free drivers may be faster than many models of nvidia GPUs with CUDA for rendering.

It's not "unrelated". And you know why it isn't. We are talking about proprietary drivers and software integration. Faster? Not any recent ones. Maybe some nVidia cards from 5 years ago... It's how it is. If you have figures that say differently, fork em over. Shoot me any processor graphics benchmarks you can find that can match the nVidia Titan series cards. Not to mention that abusing your CPU for rendering will end the life of your computer much much faster than a GPU designed with many hundreds (or thousands) of threaded processing cores designed specifically to process graphics. I believe you told me to "check my facts" earlier. I might offer the same advice.

    So, is it really necessary to grow a huge user base for that?

...

    I don't
    think so.

Yes, it is. Blender had a fairly substantial user base before professional artists got wind that it was a decent replacement for Maya and 3DS Max. 14 years ago, I remember playing with it along side Maya (when it was still Alias Wavefront). It's reached a maturity lately that can compete with the big-boys, and in a lot of ways surpass them. If they didn't have the initial user base, it would never have gotten this big. If they didn't make compromises to get big, they would still be hobbyist. It takes small steps to climb a mountain, and it's never a straight path.

I don't think there's anything wrong about looking at what the "industry" does (both right and wrong) to make decisions about how to shape a project. If you take a high-end program like Nuke, for instance, you can find valuable information about what high-end users need for their work. Does that mean that you have to copy it to be successful? Not at all. Does that mean that maybe you should pay attention to what they did because their audience needs it? SURE.

Who says we have to "copy"? I'm talking about compatibility, not copying. There are many things Inkscape does better than Illustrator. That does not mean that it's not useful (and often necessary) for it to work in conjunction with Adobe products.

Does inkscape need to copy Illustrator? Does inkscape need to support

the file format of Illustrator and implement all their features? No. If inkscape provides the same or more flexibility and power than the other program has, then it will become an interesting alternative.

Sure, why not. Let's ignore the success of programs that do, and just hope it all works out. :) Solo artists can possibly do that. Industry artists don't have the luxury. If you're part of a team working on graphics, and you want to use FOSS software that doesn't support the file formats everyone else is using, and refuse to comply, how long you going to have that job?

PDF is an industry standard for press files. PDF is considered an open

standard. Do we need AI support for sending stuff to a print shop because a bunch of designers and printshop owners use it as a delivery format? NO!

YES. lol you give them what they need. Have you ever tried to open a pdf and change what's in it for a printer? It's a goddamn mess. AI files preserve all the layers, the layer names, and a lot of formatting information that makes it easy to edit. Also, some companies have software made to handle ai files in a specific way that the employees have absolutely no control over. For example the company that my company subscribes to for web services requires all web graphics be submitted in ai files because their software automates a lot based on the structure of the file. If you work in the industry, you run into these problems constantly. they are not trivial, and they often have little to do with a company's choice. Inkscape isn't visible enough to the industry (again we go back to user base) for it to be an option. The first thing they would ask is: Is it going to work with our printers, and parter companies, and what the industry expects to get our work done and get paid. if the answer is "NO!" then it's not really going to be an option.

What about the problem of interchange formats? Let's push for open standards instead of supporting proprietary formats.

Sure, if we can agree on open standards (eventually... SVG 2), why not? Well, unless the industry doesn't support them. Then we may be a bit screwed in the same fundamental ways. ;)

On a personal level, I do push open formats. When we need an article printed, or website automated, we gotta give them what they need, not what we want them to use.

Also, what happens when there's only a handful of people working on the standards, and it takes them years (and years) to come to the full spec?

As far as I know, there isn't a formal initiative but inkscape developers are quite open to users suggestions and requests. But so far it's just them receiving suggestions and requests rather than looking for users and interviewing them about their workflows. I think it would be interesting if they took a more active approach getting a stuff of professional "consultants" (I mean users who have a certain degree of proficiency with the tool, use it for their work and have a reasonable experience in the field).

Well, I'm here if they want to do any of that. I'll be glad to help.

The main things that are lacking in terms of vector tools (from my

...

perspective) are:

This e-mails got already too long. Let's leave the feature suggestions for another time. An IRC meeting with users and developers maybe?

At least we can agree on that much. ;) If I were a developer, I'd have stopped reading this long ago. lol. I think I will leave a separate email for feature requests.

I was a bit curious to see what you thought of my feature list, since you are apparently also a graphic designer. If you've lost interest, that's cool too.

I'm also a professionl graphic designer with more than 15 years of experience and half of that using free software exclusively, we can share our views there.

It surprises me that you wouldn't understand the difficulties of using Inkscape in an industry dominated by Adobe products. Maybe you don't have to work for a company, or with other artists? Are you freelance only? How much of the 15 years is industry experience?

Please do not mistake my questions for disrespect, I am genuinely curious. I also have respect for people who can make most of their money freelancing as well, so there is nothing "unprofessional" about freelancing in my opinion.

Just a heads-up: working with Illustrator files is going to be high on most designer's priority list. Esp those who have worked in the field for any length of time. It's all you get from other people, customers, etc.

I did get one .xcf file for engraving once though. Even though it was the wrong format for engraving, seeing a GIMP file used in the wild it made my whole week! :D

-C

No, that's wrong. PDF is a proper delivery format, there are special PDF variants specifically designed for press and they provide all the needs for printing a file properly.

Unless their system parses ai files to make stuff, or you want to include special instructions for gold deboss, etc. Then the ai file is more useful because it allows separation of the layers in a single file. One of our printers in China requires this. Saying they should do it another way is your own opinion.

Minor mistakes can be fixed in the pre-flight software. If a preflight

software is not enough, then the file should go back to its source in order to be fixed.

PDF loses information from the original. In our case information that's important to the methods of our printer(s).

Print shops don't have to fix files. That's an ill workflow and no

serious print shop does that.

Ours gets fantastic results and for a really decent price. So again, all your own opinion.

Supporting AI or CDR is not mandatory for sending files to press.

Depends on who you are printing with. I've had people insist on FOGRA39 pdf, and they would accept nothing else. It may not be resonable, but it's the way it is.

Although the free software stack could use some love to make the export of press-ready PDFs more straight forward, it is absolutelly possible to create industry-grade PDF files with free tools.

Definitely, but that's not the point. The point is getting the printer what it needs (or thinks they need) to print. It's not my job to educate people who know their own systems better than I do. My Chinese is also not that good, and I'd have to fly out to Shenzhen just to introduce them to the wonders of Inkscape, Scribus, and GIMP.

Most of my graphic design work goes to offset print shops, and I haven't had any problems during the last 6 or 7 years after I polished my pre-press workflow.

We've clearly had different experiences. If you have the luxury of only working with a few local printers, great. Pretending like every printing company needs the same thing... not so great.

On a personal level, I do push open formats. When we need an article

...

printed, or website automated, we gotta give them what they need, not what we want them to use.

Also, what happens when there's only a handful of people working on the standards, and it takes them years (and years) to come to the full spec?

That gets harder when people use their efforts to support proprietary formats instead.

It takes a lot more effort NOT to. I know that, and if you've "polished" your workflow you also know that. I am willing to make the extra time sacrifice. I do not expect everyone else to.

A good enough implementation of proprietary formats could make the need

of a proper open alternative less urgent.

And it doesn't matter at all if the implementation isn't interchangeable with the software everyone else uses. It's a good alternative only if everyone is on-board with it. People are going to choose the software that supports what most people use for work.

Supporting proprietary technologies does harm open formats. See ODF vs.

DOCX and the rest of the MS XML office formats. Supporting proprietary technologies we're always a step behind. It's their format, and we have to catch up.

Boss: Hey, can you send me that new letterhead as a docx file? Me: No! You should use Libre Office, because it's free (as in freedom), and proprietary software is bad for you, and abuses your freedoms! Boss: Uh, yea... just send the file over in .docx, please.

Gonna continue to tell him "no?"

I was a bit curious to see what you thought of my feature list, since

...

you are apparently also a graphic designer. If you've lost interest, that's cool too.

Not at all. I disagree with you regarding several points, but we share the same interest of making free software better.

Awesome. I think maybe we will get farther towards common goals discussing these points.

3. Would be nice. afaik is not possible at the moment because of Cairo.

The workaround is taking the file to Scribus (the method I use). That works fine but the workflow could be improved a lot.

That's also the method I use. I usually wind up flattening most of the vector stuff into png and shoving it into the background, importing text separately in many cases seems to work better. It works, but as you noted, it's a bit tedious.

5. AFAIK It's on the radar. That would be very useful.

6. Import is possible since AI files are PDFs with some extra juice. The

import is not perfect but there are some methods to get the appearance right. The imported stuff becomes RGB though. Not a show-stopper because you can use a late or intermediate binding workflow though. As I mentioned earlier, exporting shouldn't be a concern. Proper PDF support is what we need for press, not AI.

Unfortunately, the latest release broke it. Illustrator CS3 errors with "Can not open Image". I've filed a bug report, but I do wonder if there's anything that can be done given Illustrators lack of detail about what has gone wrong.

7. That would be really useful indeed.

That would almost entirely negate the need for an ai file, since as you noted, they are essentially the same format. Well, negate it as long as Illustrator will open it on the other end, of course

8. If you look Illustrator closely, you'll find that all the non-vector

features get rasterized by its "flattener". We don't have a tool for that, and the rasterization in the PDF exporter is flaky. You can still use manual workarounds (like moving the filtered objects to a layer and create a bitmap copy separated from the pure vector objects).

Yep, that's the method I use currently. I've found it's asking for trouble to send out files with raster transparency (alpha) though. I generally will flatten shadows into the background and let vector text hover over it to prevent horribleness around the edge of the transparent area.

It's not automatic but it gives you a great deal of control with little effort. That's what I do and the results I get are excellent and nobody in the print industry complains :-)

If you can choose your own printers, sure. Owning a design company has those perks. I've got to work with popular magazines who I can't up and say "well, we just aren't going to advertise with you then", and packaging companies chosen by our supplier factories, whom we are stuck with. Think I'll come to work for you though. Sounds like heaven. lol

    I'm also a professionl graphic designer with more than 15

...

    years of
    experience and half of that using free software exclusively,
    we can
    share our views there.

It surprises me that you wouldn't understand the difficulties of using Inkscape in an industry dominated by Adobe products. Maybe you don't have to work for a company, or with other artists? Are you freelance only? How much of the 15 years is industry experience?

I own a small design firm. We use free software, and we hire freelancers who use free software too. We are commited to free software so we don't do things that requires the use of non-free software (like designer flash ads, for instance)

See, now that's making more sense. I don't have the luxury to say "no"... to anyone. Unfortunately most graphic designers are in my position. Freelancing is nicer in that respect, because I can, (and do) choose open formats for everything. It makes it easier to give the customer files they can edit and use free of charge.

But for the rest of our work, which is traditional graphic design, branding, printed stuff, large format prints, motion graphics and web, free software is enough.

Oh definitely. Photoshop has been collecting dust for a long time now on my work machine, and is non-existent on my home machines (Ubuntu Linux). Illustrator is only fired up when a printer complains. Scribus is not even close to being as easy to use as InDesign, but it's usable, and I'm not generally doing a lot of layout these days anyway, fortunately.

Not perfect, sure. But we get the job done, and none of our clients see

any difference.

True. That's how my freelance work goes. And I use local printers who are willing to work with what I have to do that. Lots of happy clients.

We have some protocols to avoid the problems with proprietary formats,

and they work most of the times. It's not that hard really.

You should share them. Have you thought about publishing your workflow for the benefit of other design companies? I'd consider my workflow pretty good, but I learn new stuff all the time.

...

Just a heads-up: working with Illustrator files is going to be high on most designer's priority list. Esp those who have worked in the field for any length of time. It's all you get from other people, customers, etc.

Not here. We use PDF as delivery format. It's good for press-ready files, and it's also good for logos, identity manuals, etc. Our clients hire us for final work, not for editable files, so we deliver files in a format they can view and print without any problems. If they need editable files we have files in open formats that don't require any expensive software to be opened and edited. Most of our clients see this as a benefit. It's how you sell it :-)

Yes, that's how my freelance projects go... but you had mentioned wanting industry artists to be spokespeople for Inkscape. I'm letting you know these people will want compatibility as a high-priority, because it's the reality of the industry at this point in time. It's gotten much better though, esp since Scribus came along to help with printed document export.

...

I did get one .xcf file for engraving once though. Even though it was the wrong format for engraving, seeing a GIMP file used in the wild it made my whole week! :D

Many free software advocates with no experience in print usually suggest that people should send SVGs to print shops. That's absolutely wrong. SVGs are not suitable for print, as XCF isn't an adequate format for print. The standard for press is currently PDF and TIFF. We can make them with free software.

It was a logo, and I converted it to vector easily using Inkscape. I was just happy to see people using Free Software. It matters not-at-all to me if they used it correctly. I am good enough to compensate, and it's part of my job to make things easy for the customer using my expertise.

Thanks for your thoughts. And share your workflows ffs! ;)

Got a company website by chance? I may be able to direct my freelance overflow in your direction.

-C

On Sun, May 10, 2015 at 1:42 AM, Gez wrote:

As I mentioned earlier, blender and krita are tricky examples because they don't run a traditional crowdfunding campaign.

Ah, ancient history again :)

Blender e-shop launched in 2002. Elephants Dream launched in 2005.

I don't have numbers to back this claim, but it always seemed to me that crowds donate really little money or no money at all, while specialized users and people making money with the tool consider donating more seriously, because they weigh the potential benefit that donating could mean for their jobs.

Of course you have the numbers. Everyone does :)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/krita/krita-open-source-digital-paintin...

690 backers:

€5 reward: 155 backers €15 reward: 158 backers €25 reward: 134 backers €50 reward: 128 backers €75 reward: 17 backers (3 not taken) €100 reward: 19 backers €150 reward: 5 backers (all gone) €250 reward: 2 backers €750 reward: 1 backer

I don't think that supporting proprietary formats and technologies is a must if free and open technologies can provide the same degree of flexibility.

Precisely. Sketch has no PSD support last time I checked, and yet nearly everyone switched from Photoshop to Sketch for doing wireframes and stuff.

Supporting legacy data is important, but only as long as you can do your work elsewhere. Otherwise it makes no sense.

As far as I know, there isn't a formal initiative but inkscape developers are quite open to users suggestions and requests.

Overwhelmed by those, I'd say :)

Alex

...

If we want to expand a software project beyond the realm of the

hobbyist, we

...

must first provide competitive software. We presently can't do that

without

...

making some compromises. The industry is too advanced, and too integral

to

...

cinema, gaming, and commercial video to be ignored, or waved off as unimportant. Blender knows this, and supports Unity 3D, as well as file formats for CAD programs, and various proprietary closed source

technology.

...

This is why they are popular

There has been no newer survey, but this should give you a slightly better idea:

http://www.blenderguru.com/articles/the-big-issues/

Neat. Thanks for that link.

It seems that almost half of all blender users surveyed use it in a professional capacity. That's a lot more than I would expect, actually. 74% have used commercial software 3D programs - 3DS Max, Sketchup, Maya. 3rd party software support was the 3rd largest request. After rendering Engine and Simulation (almost just as much).

The fact that most people don't currently use blender to make money is a bit troubling... mainly because hobbies often fall by the wayside for more important things in life. It means Blender may lose a substantial portion of our users over time if we don't push to make Blender 3D ubiquitous with 3D graphics in the industry. It's come a long way towards doing that, and I think these figures show it.

They stay

...

true to their own open-source roots by providing all their code, while

not

...

expecting the world to conform to their personal software creedo. That is the only thing that moves Open Source software forward, and the only companies that are making a success of it are the ones that understand

that.

...

We stick to our FOSS morals, and we invite people to join, we do not

demand

...

it.

Doesn't work for GIMP all too well, though. I suggest you think of Blender more in terms of "providing education", "growing an ecosystem" etc. Again, that will give you a slightly better idea.

Sure, but it doesn't make them any less FOSS to support interchange formats in my opinion. It makes it more likely that Blender will become a viable option for an increasing number of VFX professionals.

...

We could immediately up the excellence and quality of Inkscape, as well

as

...

professional user base, by being able to read and write the file formats that work with industry-leading tools like Illustrator.

Inkscape opens both .AI and .CDR. What other industry-leading apps do you know?

Yea, and it's a horrible mess. lol It also does not write AI files back out, which packaging companies are notorious for requiring.

...

...

David Revoy switched from GIMP to Krita, and when he did he found a welcoming project that paid attention to his needs as an artist.

Like supporting .psd Photoshop format to be able to work with other

industry

...

artists without requiring them to learn a new software package.

I'm sorry, but I'll have to facepalm here. David joined the fun around 2010, when there was no support for PSD support in Krita _whatsoever_. The PSD plugin was written about two years ago. The reason was that he had to jump between GIMP-Painter and MyPaint with his OpenRaster files all the time, so he eliminated this by switching to Krita. If you argue history, at least please study it :)

That was not my history lesson lol. My argument was not about the history either, it's about the function, and one of the reasons why Krita is now a more attractive option for digital artists.

We really need something that works much better with Photoshop files (including all the effects, etc). If a client sends you a psd, scolding them for not using an open format is not going to convince anyone.

...

...

So, imho, there are a number of things that come before growing a massive userbase. And if we are going to use loose terms as "popularity", I'd say "credibility" should come first.

"credibility" is just as nebulous a term. At least "popularity" is quantifiable by number of users = user base.

That makes no sense whatsoever, and I can argue about that till I'm blue in the face :)

Photoline is probably about as much used as GIMP. How much have you heard of it? Have you seen astounding work made with Photline that you can recall immediately? I bet you haven't. Because, like many free/libre projects, this proprietary app doesn't do enough PR/marketing. They exist on the edge of the world dominated by Photoshop, while providing about as many core/advanced features required to get complex work done.

There is no fixing that with quantity. This is not how marketing works.

I would not say that GIMP is a shining example of something everyone knows about either. Very few know about it compared to Photoshop. People want professional artists doing spots for GIMP, etc, you've got to provide software that is compatible with the industry established software, and yes, press is very very important as well. You can have all the press in the world though, and if people pick up the program and found out it can't handle what the industry expects, it's not going to do a whole lot of good for most graphic designers. There is not enough incentive to switch, and hurdles that cost time (a lot of time) and business.

We could put together Inkscape showreels of this and post it

...

on social media platforms and Youtube. That will get people of all types interested in Inkscape.

Posting won't do it. Sharing and promoting might. Talking to leading online magazines and writing articles for them might. Writing for Envato et al. might.

Let's do it. :)

-C

...

The fact that most people don't currently use blender to make money is a

bit

...

troubling... mainly because hobbies often fall by the wayside for more important things in life. It means Blender may lose a substantial

portion of

...

our users over time if we don't push to make Blender 3D ubiquitous with

3D

...

graphics in the industry. It's come a long way towards doing that, and I think these figures show it.

It's more complicated than that. You can't push Blender to studios that have tons of custom scripts and plugins for Maya, After Effects etc. No support for proprietary file formats can fix that. It's a workflow thing. It's a bit similar with InDesign and Photoshop users too.

It's true, but you could still work as a freelancer with a studio for modeling if you support their in-house formats. It also makes it easier for people to transition if there is a way to get everything to work together.

...

Sure, but it doesn't make them any less FOSS to support interchange

formats

...

in my opinion. It makes it more likely that Blender will become a viable option for an increasing number of VFX professionals.

I'm unsure how you arrived from FOSS morals (in your own words) to interchange formats, but OK :)

Sorry, it's vaguely what the argument Gez and I are having is about. Really, it's all gotten a bit tedious, and I'd be surprised if anyone is benefiting from that part of the discussion at this point in time anyway.

...

...

Inkscape opens both .AI and .CDR. What other industry-leading apps do

you

...

...

know?

Yea, and it's a horrible mess. lol It also does not write AI files back out, which packaging companies are notorious for requiring.

Maybe I've hanged around on #ardour too long, but when Paul Davis says "that's bullshit. there's always one more thing. every crowd has their own "one thing"", I tend to completely agree.

Currently the only thing that allows us to have our open-source way in print-industry is the print Industry is the fact that Adobe decided to make their PDF an open format. If not, you would have some people still saying it's not needed, because you have TIFF, but TIFF doesn't support vector graphics... oh but you don't need that, really either... right? Everyone may have one more feature, everyone also has one more excuse why the feature isn't important, because it's not important to them personally.

I've been a huge proponent for legacy data support in free software for a long time and personally contributed to some of the relevant efforts, but with time I revised by attitude towards that. The thing is, you don't change the industry by running after major players and doing "one more thing" all the time. You focus on making a bloody amazing product instead (see another reply with reference to Sketch).

It's not really what the conversation is about. It's not about doing "one more thing" it's about supporting something that most of the graphics industry uses. This is not a feature issue, it's a format issue. If you think differently, that's fine. You can write off what I think as important as "one more feature" too.

It changes nothing, because when a client sends me an ai file, in most cases I have no choice but to use Illustrator to get the job done, or spend hours (or days) rebuilding it in Inkscape.

There are lots of people who are okay with it not supporting illustrator files. Maybe Inkscape is for them, exclusively. Maybe that's where it is going. In that case, I really hope we win! lol. Because I hate having to load a Windows VM just to use Illustrator to make minor changes to an AI file. I'd much much rather do that with Inkscape.

Look at the thing with Visio. It took years to get this sorted out for

just reading, and crowds who were unhappy that free software doesn't support VSD at all are now unhappy about quirks in the VSD support.

That's.. actually the same issue. lol A poor implementation may be no better than no implementation... so what? It's kinda how AI reading is in Inkscape right now. Sometimes it's passable. Usually it's not.

It's important that it is done anyway, but it can't and shouldn't be

the primary focus. You are not building a VSD reader, you are building a vector graphics illustration package :)

Why is one feature request tantamount to "building an AI writer"? :P That's like saying the new Ruler added to Inkscape transforms it into a program made to measure the space between lines.

Same with AI: you are not building an AI writer (which should be a low-hanging fruit anyway).

It's a major obstacle. I've tried to get other designers on board with using Inkscape as an AI replacement for vector editing, but all their package designs, magazine adverts, etc. are in AI format, and the answer has been a universal "we'll pass", for obvious reasons. Maybe these people aren't the target group for Inkscape?

There's often a baseline. For vector graphics, that is PDF, PS, and EPS. Support it well and fix the rest by social means: actually talk to printing companies about their need to absolutely take everything in either .AI or .CDR. Not neccessarily _educate_, but _talk_.

Time and time again I do. The problem is, the people you talk to haven't a clue about any of it. Most of them couldn't tell you the difference between raster and vector graphics in the first place. All they know is it doesn't load up like everything else does, so you must have done it wrong. You're expecting a level of technical prowess that just isn't there, unfortunately.

...

If a client sends you a psd, scolding them for not using an open format

is

...

not going to convince anyone.

Do you know about GIMP# much? When Maurits started working on support for Photoshop actions, he had to implement every Photoshop filter that works differently from its GIMP counterpart and write a few missing filters. That got him about 50% coverage AFAIK. This is the kind of work you have to do when you aim to support other software's project data. It will never be perfect.

Not requesting/expecting something perfect. I would personally donate to have that feature added, and I'd bet there are many many more that would too (Krita is a good example of that as well). Maybe it's worth someone's time. If not, well, doesn't change the reality of the client situation.

When you have limited human/time resources, what do you make your priority? Adding support for something you can't do much with (remember: those layers effects are commonly used in web design, for which Krita has no features at all) or adding features that help people getting their work done _from scratch_?

I have no idea what it takes to add the feature, only that it is useful to be able to handle a clients ai files, and the format is required by companies I have no choice but to work with, and most graphic designers in corporate jobs do not have the choice either.

...

I would not say that GIMP is a shining example of something everyone

knows

...

about either.

Exactly my point.

Point... ah... accepted? ;)

...

Very few know about it compared to Photoshop. People want professional artists doing spots for GIMP, etc, you've got to provide software that is compatible with the industry established software

Are you absolutely sure that artists, that is, people whose primary tools are brushes, absolutely need opening their old PSD files with a layer effect or two thrown in for a good measure?

If you are asking "does it make GIMP unusable?" Nope. I don't believe I ever said that. Is it something they want? Um, yea... why is that so hard to understand? In some cases it's required for the job. The client wants you to make changes to a PSD file of their website with layers in-tact, and give them back the PSD file with your changes made. You would have to say "no". That may not be a dealbreaker for everyone, but graphic designers don't often have the luxury to make these calls, unless they are freelancers, or working for Gez. ;)

-C

Bryce Harrington-3 wrote

Inkscape's not a business though...

I suppose the better analogy would be, you want to grow and hand-roast your own coffee beans to brew in your garage. Some of your neighbors pop by to try out the coffee, and many of them pitch in to help with the various chores. Word gets out that you're providing free coffee, and before you know it half the city is passing through your garage.

Then someone points out, "You only have half the city coming through; if you want to get the rest you need to make coffee that tastes more like Starbucks."

Hence you call your neighbors and say: "We should _educate_ people not to drink Starbucks as it's not free. Then we'll have all the city passing through my garage without becoming a business or having to conform to people's tastes! You see: now they don't like ours but they'll get used to...".

:)

Does the concept of freedom discussed here incorporate the freedom to choose not to be free (for whatever reason)? Is a free software that deliberately chooses not to implement or support some features, because they let users still use proprietary software, really "promoting" freedom? Or is it trying to "force" freedom?

I don't like the word "educate" on the title. As a user, I'd be less biased in reading this thread if there was a more humble and respectful word, like "promote".

Regards. Luca

-- View this message in context: http://inkscape.13.x6.nabble.com/Re-Educating-users-on-Free-Software-was-C-1... Sent from the Inkscape - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Bryce Harrington-3 wrote

On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 02:24:32AM -0700, LucaDC wrote:

...

Bryce Harrington-3 wrote

...

Inkscape's not a business though...

I suppose the better analogy would be, you want to grow and hand-roast your own coffee beans to brew in your garage. Some of your neighbors pop by to try out the coffee, and many of them pitch in to help with

the

...

various chores. Word gets out that you're providing free coffee, and before you know it half the city is passing through your garage.

Then someone points out, "You only have half the city coming through;

if

...

you want to get the rest you need to make coffee that tastes more like Starbucks."

Hence you call your neighbors and say: "We should _educate_ people not to drink Starbucks as it's not free. Then we'll have all the city passing through my garage without becoming a business or having to conform to people's tastes! You see: now they don't like ours but they'll get used to...".

:)

Does the concept of freedom discussed here incorporate the freedom to choose not to be free (for whatever reason)? Is a free software that deliberately chooses not to implement or support some features, because they let users still use proprietary software, really "promoting" freedom? Or is it trying to "force" freedom?

I don't like the word "educate" on the title. As a user, I'd be less biased in reading this thread if there was a more humble and respectful word, like "promote".

Regards. Luca

Heh, I guess that's one way to interpret what I am trying to say, but really I should be more explicit:

If we have a mission here at Inkscape, it isn't to get everyone using our software. Nor is it really to stop people using Illustrator or anything negative about proprietary software; after all, we're actively supporting proprietary OS's and enabling people to remain on those systems with our Windows and Mac builds.

Rather, I think our mission is to _educate_ people about _making_ free software.

So, in our coffee analogy, what we should be doing is educating the people who come by about how we roast our beans, maybe tricks for getting different tastes out of them, and how to do all the various chores needed in operating a garage coffee shop. They may come by simply for the free coffee, but we want to see that working together to *make* the free coffee as part of a community is even more rewarding.

Good positive elaboration :) I second it, of course. Still, I dislike the word "educate" (I'm not a native English speaker, so maybe I'm wrong). What about: "Help people realize that contributing to free software is more rewarding than simply using it"? IMHO starting from the assumption that only contributors deserve attention, the final product is going to miss a big actor in the process, that is the mass of passive users from where new fresh and innovative contributors may come. A product which is not attractive for who is "outside" is going to slowly deflate or stall. This to say that people should be brought "inside" not by "teaching" (educating) them what they should do, but by showing them the advantages of being an active part of the game.

-- View this message in context: http://inkscape.13.x6.nabble.com/Re-Educating-users-on-Free-Software-was-C-1... Sent from the Inkscape - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 06:36:42AM -0700, LucaDC wrote:

Bryce Harrington-3 wrote

...

Heh, I guess that's one way to interpret what I am trying to say, but really I should be more explicit:

If we have a mission here at Inkscape, it isn't to get everyone using our software. Nor is it really to stop people using Illustrator or anything negative about proprietary software; after all, we're actively supporting proprietary OS's and enabling people to remain on those systems with our Windows and Mac builds.

Rather, I think our mission is to _educate_ people about _making_ free software.

So, in our coffee analogy, what we should be doing is educating the people who come by about how we roast our beans, maybe tricks for getting different tastes out of them, and how to do all the various chores needed in operating a garage coffee shop. They may come by simply for the free coffee, but we want to see that working together to *make* the free coffee as part of a community is even more rewarding.

Good positive elaboration :) I second it, of course. Still, I dislike the word "educate" (I'm not a native English speaker, so maybe I'm wrong). What about: "Help people realize that contributing to free software is more rewarding than simply using it"?

Does educate have a bad connotation in your language? In the US 'reeducate' can give images of cult brainwashing and such, and 'indoctrinate' gives images of missionaries putting the fear of god into natives, but I don't know of common interpretations of plain old 'educate' that are quite so negative. Maybe teach or coach would be better.

In any case, it doesn't really matter what we call it, so long as we're good at doing it - helping new folks learn what makes free software so great, and showing the ropes of how to get involved. Make them feel comfortable making contributions, and give them tips to help improve their work techniques.

I also like the idea of organizing deliberate lessons on key topics, to help disseminate good know-how. We did a bit of this at the hackfest on several different topics (Architecture of Inkscape internals, State of imported libraries, Editing the Website, etc.), and I'd love to see us start doing that more broadly, perhaps through Hangouts or similar.

IMHO starting from the assumption that only contributors deserve attention, the final product is going to miss a big actor in the process, that is the mass of passive users from where new fresh and innovative contributors may come. A product which is not attractive for who is "outside" is going to slowly deflate or stall. This to say that people should be brought "inside" not by "teaching" (educating) them what they should do, but by showing them the advantages of being an active part of the game.

If you re-read my analogy above, I think you'll see we're in violent agreement. :-)

Bryce

No doubt we agree. I just tried to express what the initial approach seemed to me after reading the first posts.

And yes, it's probably a language issue. In my mind the word "educate" recalls something imposed on a good-bad and right-wrong bases: you do something wrong or don't know what to do, I'll educate you on what is good (right). School and parents educate children. It's not a negative thing per se, it just makes me think about someone that is superior that teaches someone else that has to learn something. I see it as a mainly one-way interaction hence it implies that who puts himself on the educator side has to think to be superior than who he is going to educate. Also, it makes me think about something that is a prerequisite for some environments: if you are not educated enough, you should stay out (here education has the sense of knowing some special rules to follow: sometimes such rules are essential for coordination, sometimes they are set as an entry barrier on purpose).

Please, don't take me wrong: I'm not against education. IMHO it's a vital ingredient of our social way of living and growing as individuals and as mankind, in its positive and constructive sense and if fairly used; we wouldn't be what we are without it.

I only find the connotation I see in it of teacher->pupil or one-way-interaction not well suit for representing the desire to spread the free software philosophy. I much prefer to think about it as sharing knowledge inter pares, just as it's in the scientific community. Obviously, there will always be someone that knows more than others and, hopefully, is going to transfer his knowledge to others that are willing to receive it; but eventually who has received knowledge will grow to the point to become active part of the system and help others to get into. If in this process somebody starts to think that he is superior to others and, as such, feels he has the right to impose (not share) his view and decisions (his knowledge), then he breaks the implicit agreement between participants of a free community. The teacher doesn't have to prove the pupil that what he's teaching is right, the pupil just has to accept and learn it as it is. On the other side, the free software community should convince (and keep convincing) people that its view is preferable among others so to gain consensus and participants; and this is not because it doesn't have enough power to impose it: this would be the opposite of its nature.

Sorry for bothering you with my thoughts. To me it's clear enough that we have the same ideas and that I'm probably too restrictive and ignorant about the correct meaning of the word "educate". Perhaps I could say the same for this word in my own language. If others don't feel this possibility of misunderstanding and misinterpretation, then that's it: I'm fine (and reassured) with all the explanations and clarifications received. Thanks.

-- View this message in context: http://inkscape.13.x6.nabble.com/Re-Educating-users-on-Free-Software-was-C-1... Sent from the Inkscape - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

El dom, 10-05-2015 a las 15:10 -0700, Bryce Harrington escribió:

I've been of similar mind to this. Value is gained by the project not from use but from contributions.

That said, now that we have a donation system set up, it is likely that expanding the userbase will result in cash flow. We just have to ensure there's a reliable way to convert $$ to development.

I'm not against expanding the user base and funding development either. As far as I could see, one of the best ways to turn money into code that makes a difference is funding hackfest / hackatons / coding sprints. Funding specific featurs is always more problematic for a number of reasons: - Not everyone shares the same opinion about the feature about to be implemented, specially if it comes from a request from users. - It creates some tension, because some people gets paid and the rest doesn't.

On the other hand, there are bugs that are cans of worms that nobody wants to open, and in that case nobody will complain if money is used to pay for fixing that kind of stuff, as nobody wants to do it.

I would like to know how does it work for inkscape to do something along the lines of what Ardour does: Charging for the binaries. The GPL license doesn't prohibit that and the source code would be available to anyone willing to build the program themselves, but he money could be used for paying packagers, developers and code reviewers.

It would be interesting to let users choose how their payment is used in the project (like www.humblebundle.com lets you choose where the money goes and you can select which percentage goes to the developers, to the site and to charity). Something similar would allow people to choose if they want their money to be used for supporting inkscape for their chosen platform, for new features, bugfixing, hackfests, for using at Inkscape board's discresion, etc.

Maybe... we really have no shortage of requests for changes. It's an interesting idea though to identify high profile users.

Sure, but there has to be some criteria to filter those requests. Not to be elitist, but it's not the same when a request comes from a regular user of the program who is an experienced creator and a feature requested by a casual user who expects that inkscape works the same as another program s/he is used to. High profile users could not only provide meaningful new feature requests, but also help to filter the existing requests, telling which ones are important for creative work and which ones aren't. (keep in mind that I'm not ignoring the fact that different people uses tools differently, but there has to be some guidelines if the program has to cater the needs of a certain audience).

Gez.

On May 10, 2015 7:34 PM, "Martin Owens" <doctormo@...400...> wrote:

On Sun, 2015-05-10 at 19:55 -0300, Gez wrote:

...

• It creates some tension, because some people gets paid and the rest

doesn't.

No. We must be clear in setting a standard of fairness. It /is/ fair if one person is paid to work on something and someone else is not. I have more (and wrote more) but it's for some other time...

To reaffirm what Martin is saying, at this point, I'd say that is correct. We all get to make choices and that in itself is fair.

I think a few of us had concerns about possible tensions or frustration, but after discussions in our community it was really a minority that felt it might be unfair. In addition, any volunteer developer can either sign up for a funded development task or work with someone to create one in an area of mutual interest. If getting paid is an objective it can be achieved, even for fun/exciting stuff. If motivation lies in spreading free culture (or giving back to the community), people tend to know what they're signing up for. In short, we understand that how we choose to participate is on our terms (there are always gotchas or possibly obligations that come with our choices, but welcome to life).

Cheers, Josh

Am Sonntag, 10. Mai 2015, 19:55:09 schrieb Gez:

[...]

I would like to know how does it work for inkscape to do something along the lines of what Ardour does: Charging for the binaries. The GPL license doesn't prohibit that and the source code would be available to anyone willing to build the program themselves, but he money could be used for paying packagers, developers and code reviewers.

Does Inkscape actually provide binaries? Or is it the packagers' private fun and Inkscape just hosts them?

It would be interesting to let users choose how their payment is used in the project (like www.humblebundle.com lets you choose where the money goes and you can select which percentage goes to the developers, to the site and to charity). Something similar would allow people to choose if they want their money to be used for supporting inkscape for their chosen platform, for new features, bugfixing, hackfests, for using at Inkscape board's discresion, etc.

I would be very careful with letting donators decide how the money gets spent. While that might make people happy and more willing to part with their cash it has the inherent problem that only sexy and shiny new toys get support while the boring but in general way more important grunt work (cleaning up the code, building infrastructure, refactoring, you name it) gets neglected. Or do you think anyone would tick "spent my donation for C++ification" on the donation page? No. They would ask for "multi page files" and "animation". Which is nice to have but less important for the project. So I would suggest to only allow people to put money into one big box and rely on the board to distribute the money. If they decide to fund bling that's cool, but at least they will most likely not forget about priorities.

[...]

Gez.

Tobias

Am Montag, 11. Mai 2015, 12:57:09 schrieb Alexandre Prokoudine:

On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 12:45 PM, Tobias Ellinghaus wrote:

...

So I would suggest to only allow people to put money into one big box and rely on the board to distribute the money. If they decide to fund bling that's cool, but at least they will most likely not forget about priorities.

Alternatively, make one big box with explanations, why this or that "boring" feature is important and how it benefits users in the end + add roadmap for exciting features or, if applicable, make it possible to vote for shiny stuff to be done _after_ important boring work is over,

In essence that's the same, it's one fund that gets distributed, just the time point when the distribution gets decided upon is different: you argue for doing it in advance while I said it might be done afterwards. I (*) am fine with both (as long as adjustments are allowed when needed).

Alex

Tobias

(*) ... while being fully aware that I have no say in that. I am a firm believer that developers should have all the power in free software and pure users have the obligation to keep their mouth shut. People have to earn their right to vote. This is not a democracy. There, I did it again and made myself unpopular. :)

On Mon, 2015-05-11 at 13:54 -0300, Gez wrote:

I'm perfectly fine with that. I know it's a meritocracy and people who contribute the most is the people who will make the decisions about what is done, how it is done, etc.

I'm not fine with that at all. It's a disrespectful idea.

It says there are two great classes. Developers and users. Which is such a false dichotomy it hard to start at any one place.

A user that gives me $10k to develop inkscape features is not just a user. A user that contributes user experience testing is not just a user. A user who contributes bug reporting or triage is not just user. A user who argues respectively for certain workflows is not just a user.

Basically as soon as a user open her mouth, she is no longer a user. She is a contributor. And should be respected as such. Asking contributors to shut up as policy is rejecting contribution as bad as rejecting code because I didn't write it.

Martin,

On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 10:30 PM, Martin Owens wrote:

On Mon, 2015-05-11 at 13:54 -0300, Gez wrote:

...

I'm perfectly fine with that. I know it's a meritocracy and people who contribute the most is the people who will make the decisions about what is done, how it is done, etc.

I'm not fine with that at all. It's a disrespectful idea.

It says there are two great classes. Developers and users. Which is such a false dichotomy it hard to start at any one place.

A user that gives me $10k to develop inkscape features is not just a user. A user that contributes user experience testing is not just a user. A user who contributes bug reporting or triage is not just user. A user who argues respectively for certain workflows is not just a user.

All of your examples are examples of meritocracy. Users who contribute as much very nearly become part of the team.

Alex

Am Montag, 11. Mai 2015, 15:18:30 schrieb Martin Owens:

On Mon, 2015-05-11 at 13:10 +0200, Tobias Ellinghaus wrote:

...

users have the obligation to keep their mouth shut

No.

Please don't take my words out of context. I was clearly talking about decision making, not discussion. After all, I am discussing here, too. Just because I managed to go through the enormous hassles to register to a mailing list or go to IRC via a webchat doesn't empower me (or anyone else) to _decide_ on the things a project does. It's merely a necessity to participate in the discussions that might lead to a decision. If you (as a project) allow people to buy the right to decide and therefore give more power to those that can afford it is up to you as the Inkscape project that I am not a part of and can't speak for.

TL;DR: I am sick of the attitude that many users have, namely that they deserve anything iff all they do is taking the present you are offering.

Martin,

Tobias

On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 05:42:03PM -0400, Martin Owens wrote:

On Mon, 2015-05-11 at 23:03 +0200, Tobias Ellinghaus wrote:

...

TL;DR: I am sick of the attitude that many users have, namely that they deserve anything iff all they do is taking the present you are offering.

I find it's more helpful to guide users towards being productive.

It's better to ask new contributors to put some time into research, design, and bug management to build their case. It's certainly proves the interested from those who might not have time for sustained contribution. Be positive with the newbies.

Completely agreed. Early on in Inkscape's development history I made a point to try to connect with each person that stopped by IRC with a suggestion or patch, to try and help with their immediate need and lure them in to do further development. As a newbie to a project, a helping hand and welcome from a long timer can be hugely important in securing their ongoing participation in the project.

If one person without time/resource can't convince some people with time/resources that their point is worth investing in; it doesn't really matter if said person is right, well respected, a developer or anything. It just won't happen.

Inkscape's leadership is quite hands-off, but also a democracy (voted in) by invested parties (contributors with sustained contribution). It is both democratic /and/ meritocratic with a possible future adjustment for what counts as sufficient merit.

I hope we're not an unusual project having such a well balanced leadership and contribution philosophy.

At least in terms of *successful* projects, from what I've seen our organization approach seems unusual. Most big established projects have fairly high barriers to contribution, with leadership better described as feudal (and sometimes feud-ish!)

We actually do need more Inkscapers to take on leadership roles in order for the project to scale up to the next level. We need folks to help organize events and development efforts, folks to write up development plans and and mentor new developers, folks to set up and run fundraisers.

So, if anyone has an itch to do something that will help further the project, please don't be dissuaded by a fear of someone telling you 'no'. If you're willing to put in the time and effort, we're certainly going to give you green lights to help make it happen.

Bryce

If you want to fundraise for Inkscape, why not kickstarter the next development cycle like Krita does? They've been doing very well lately without pester-boxes in the application.

-C

Hi,

Just an idea how we could promote free software inside Inkscape without 'pestering' people:

We could - add a tutorial named Introduction

- use it to explain what Inkscape is, what FLOSS is, what we expect from our users and what they can expect from us, why FLOSS is something we promote and how people can help, etc. (Martin already has some useful illustrations for this, I think).

- complement this by an explanation about what vector graphics are (in contrast to bitmaps), which is not explained in the Basic tutorial

- if we want to include a donation link, we can put one in, too

This way it won't just be some kind of 'user education' from our side, but people would also have a reason to read it if they're not so much interested in being taught about FLOSS ideals.

At the same time, we'd close the hole many new users fall in, which is not understanding the object/path/node character of vector graphics, and also we'd introduce ourselves and the 'why' of the software.

We could point our users to that document when they first open the program.

I think a lot of people love tutorials, and we could use that to benefit everyone ;)

Maren