Proposal: Merging Open Clipart Library into Inkscape
Hi all,
This past year, the Open Clip Art Library has been both very successful, and very unsuccessful. From the standpoint of collecting clipart, it's been going like gang-busters, and currently has an incoming queue bursting with some very nice work.
Unfortunately, it's also suffered from not having a sufficient development community behind it. By and large the project is simple: Just build a collection of clipart. However, the sheer quantity we gain poses its own set of technical challenges. There's also little issues like keyword translations, searching, detection of invalid SVG, etc. etc. On top of that, we've also been maintaining our own infrastruction (wiki, website, mailing list, accounts, etc.)
The idea has been floated to merge OCAL back into Inkscape. OCAL was originally a spin-off from Inkscape, with the hope that we'd gain participation from other projects like OpenOffice, Sodipodi, KDE, etc. Unfortunately, that never really turned out, and it's mainly just been a few of us Inkscapers plus people not really associated with drawing program projects.
Two other reasons why I think this proposal makes sense at this time: First, with Inkscape joining the Software Freedom Conservancy, it makes sense to bring OCAL under that umbrella as well. Second, with us looking at new hosting providers for Inkscape, it would be worthwhile to include provisions for OCAL, as well.
OCAL will benefit from this merge in that it will consolidate the infrastructure administration into Inkscape, and will hopefully make it easier for Inkscape community members to work on clipart technology too. OCAL is in the process of bringing online a new tool called ccHost, which is a powerful tool for managing community-contributed media (it was originally designed for music, but it's in process of being adapted for handling clipart); Inkscape will benefit from having access to this tool as well - which could prove useful for managing community submitted screenshots, example files, tutorials, palettes, and other such things. Inkscape also gains by increasing the scope of its community, and of course gains the clipart library itself.
Please let me know what you think of this proposal, assuming you've read this far. ;-)
Bryce
On 7/8/06, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...961...> wrote:
The idea has been floated to merge OCAL back into Inkscape.
What happened to the idea of making it wiki-like, so that users can do most of the sorting work themselves? If this is still planned, will the merge with Inkscape help it or harm it?
On Sat, Jul 08, 2006 at 07:34:37PM -0300, bulia byak wrote:
On 7/8/06, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...961...> wrote:
The idea has been floated to merge OCAL back into Inkscape.
What happened to the idea of making it wiki-like, so that users can do most of the sorting work themselves? If this is still planned, will the merge with Inkscape help it or harm it?
This is the ccHost app I referred to earlier. It's great - the program works and is being maintained by creative commons; it needs to be adapted for use with clipart.
I think the merge with Inkscape will help it in several ways. First, since we can probably find ways to use it for Inkscape for other kinds of contributions besides just clipart (e.g. palettes, screenshots, about screen submissions, etc.), the effort of setting it up will pay off more greatly. Second, being part of Inkscape will hopefully bring in more technically-oriented participants who will be able to help in augmenting and administering the tool.
Of course, running ccHost on SourceForge would probably be a nightmare; much worse than the issues we've had with mediawiki. But since Inkscape will be moving the website to a new host, this will hopefully not be an issue. And of course, worst case is, we'd just run it on freedesktop.org.
Bryce
participants (2)
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Bryce Harrington -
bulia byak