February 2014 - Inkscape Users

Get Previews from the Open Clip Art Library
by E. G. A. 15 Feb '16

15 Feb '16

Just an absolute newbie running Inkscape 0.48.2 in a well working, really beautiful, vintage declared but loved computer (2.1 GHz PowerPC G5 & Mac OS X.5.8). To get Previews from the Open Clip Art Library*, it is needed to be registered at the openclipart.org site and fill up the user account data in the Inkscape Preferences**? * File > Import from Open Clip... ** Import/Export > Open Clip Art Library Username & Password. Thank you. -- Eneko Gotzon Ares

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Summer of Code 2014
by Josh Andler 07 Mar '14

07 Mar '14

Hey All, We've been accepted again as a mentoring organization for Google's Summer of Code. This is the 10th year they've held it and our 10th year participating! If you're a potential mentor or student, please sign up at melange (1). If you are interested in participating as a student please visit our page on Melange (2) to find links to our Ideas for summer projects on our wiki and our developer mailing list. As usual, please either introduce yourself on our developer mailing list or let us know what you're interested in working on this year. Cheers, Josh (1) http://google-melange.appspot.com/ (2) http://google-melange.appspot.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2014/inkscape

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Re: [Inkscape-user] [Inkscape-devel] Inkscape joins the Open Invention Network
by Bryce Harrington 28 Feb '14

28 Feb '14

On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 05:41:02PM -0300, Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira wrote: > Em Qua, 2014-02-26 às 18:18 -0800, Bryce Harrington escreveu: > > > Inkscape has been invited to join as a member of the Open Invention > > Network. > > > This is important news. Why isn't posted on the inkscape.org[1] site? It will, be patient... I already have a blurb written for it, but I just posted about the book campaign, and I didn't want to bump the GSoC news item off the main page too quickly. Perhaps we could make the GSoC item sticky (maybe it could replace the "Developers" block for a few weeks?) Bryce

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Re: [Inkscape-user] [Inkscape-devel] Summer of Code 2014
by Bryce Harrington 27 Feb '14

27 Feb '14

On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 12:06:19PM +1100, Nathan Hurst wrote: > On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 10:24:45AM -0800, Josh Andler wrote: > > On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 10:10 AM, Krzysztof Kosi??ski <tweenk.pl@...155...>wrote: > > > > > That's true, but the rules for GSoC are quite restrictive when it > > > comes to teamwork - I'm fairly sure that joint applications (e.g. 3 > > > students applying to participate in this model) are not allowed at > > > all. > > > > > > > This is correct. It would definitely not be allowed. They require very > > clear and obvious separation of work. My guess is that it's to ensure that > > each student is doing what they are supposed to and that they are not > > subject to failure due to shortcomings imposed by other students. That, certainly. Also, whenever there are multiple pieces being developed in parallel it requires a high degree of communication to ensure both projects end up fulfilling their requirements in a compatible fashion. > The whole point of kanban is that each task is self contained. It's > easy to assess what each student has done, look at the bzr logs, look > at the tasks undertaken, look at their report. Students can't affect > each other, because at the frontier all the tasks are independant. When I was doing development on Launchpad we used Kanban, so I'm reasonably familiar with the process. But it's nothing magical, it is just a way to organize and coordinate sequential interdependent tasks. It still requires a fair bit of upfront planning and coordination. It's like our traditional Roadmap system on steroids (I bet we could even implement Kanban *within* Inkscape with a bit of coding if we wanted.) The team I was on had only 6 members, and frankly Kanban was a bit overkill for us. I think it's best suited for larger teams. Or maybe teams with finer grained tasks than we had, or that require more intensive team coordination. So, I would love to play with Kanban more in team coordination, but I think for GSoC even if we did have 2-3 students working together I'm skeptical it would help all that much. Bryce

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Inkscape joins the Open Invention Network
by Bryce Harrington 27 Feb '14

27 Feb '14

Inkscape has been invited to join as a member of the Open Invention Network. On Tuesday, the Inkscape Board voted in favor. In so doing we pledge to never use patents aggressively against the Linux System. We would never do this of course so the step is merely symbolic, but an important symbol. We are joining almost 750 projects and companies from the software industry (see http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/licensees.php) in a pledge that covers over 2,100 Open Source packages. This helps to reduce risk on the core Linux System and other middleware technologies. Valer Mischenko of OIN sums it up: "This is the largest community to address software patent challenges in the world. The idea is: when everybody pledges freedom, there will be no wars." For more information, please read on, or go to openinventionnetwork.com Bryce ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Re: [Inkscape-board] [REFERENDUM] Should Inkscape Join the Open Invention Network? Resolved: The Inkscape Project agrees to join as a member of the Open Invention Network. In so doing we pledge to never use patents aggressively against the Linux System. Votes: Five votes in favor, none against. Motion passes. Josh Andler a Johan Engelen a Bryce Harrington a Jon Cruz a Tavmjong Bah a (Votes not received from Ted Gould and Mental Guy) http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=20140225080118.GB2… On Sun, Feb 23, 2014 at 11:38:07PM -0800, Bryce Harrington wrote: > Proposal: > > [ ] a. Join the Open Invention Network (OIN). Pledge that the > Inkscape organization would never use patents aggressively > against the Linux System. > [ ] b. Remain independent from the Open Invention Network. > > > Background: > > Hi Bryce, > > My name is Valer and I am writing to you on behalf of the Open Invention > Network (OIN). Our mission is to support projects developing or using > Linux-related and open source technology by deterring patent aggression. > > We do this through a community that pledges not to assert patents > against each other over the Linux System technology. This pledge covers > over 2,100 Open Source packages. It is structured to reduce risk on core > operating system and middleware technologies. Almost 750 projects and > companies from all areas of technology creation, deployment and use have > joined our community so far (see not very up to date list: > http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/licensees.php) > > We want to invite Inkscape to our community. > > You may be interested in our community credentials and to get some more > context about our work. Here is an endorsement from Eben Moglen, > Chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center: > http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/now/organizations/OIN > > Here is an endorsement from Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux > Foundation: > http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/jzemlin/2009/09/09/protecting-linux… > > Our community is free to join. The only thing we want is a pledge that > Inkscape would never use patents aggressively against the Linux > System. Of course it never will, and that's a symbolic gesture, but it > remains very important for our work. When we also bind big companies > with this pledge we are sure they will not attack ç in this context for > example. But their participation in OIN is also very important in > various other aspects. > > And these companies are numerous. For example Valve Software and Dropbox > are on of the latest bigger companies joined in. UnitedStack from China > joined just a weeks hours before. Pretty much everyone else is in there > too, from Red Hat to GNOME, Fujitsu to CentOS, Google to KDE to > OpenStack Foundation. This is the largest community to address software > patent challenges in the world. The idea is: when everybody pledges > freedom, there will be no wars. > > We are passionate supporters of the Linux System and open innovation. I > hope we can work together by welcoming Inkscape to our non-aggression > community. Every single voice helps us face current market challenges > while investing in a more collaborative future. > > Attached is a very short overview of OIN + FAQs, but I am happy to > answer any questions and to explain in more detail why the pledge of > Linux System and open source patent non-aggression is so important for > open innovation. > > May you decide positively there is a possibility to sign online: > http://licenses.openinventionnetwork.com > > Please consult to Johan, Tavmjong, Ted and Josh and let me know what you > guys think. > > Regards, > Valer Mischenko, > Open Invention Network > > www.openinventionnetwork.com

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Quick Note & Question
by Arlo Barnes 26 Feb '14

26 Feb '14

I was preparing to vectorise some images from a website, and to try to save extra steps I decided not to save the images and drag'n'drop (or Open, or Import) them into Inkscape, but to see if I could not just copy the images to the clipboard (in Google Chrome there is a right-click option, 'Copy Image') and paste into Inkscape. It worked, but the transparency in the PNGs turned to black; apparently not just a display issue, because all the raster extensions (that I understood how to use) acted as if it was a regular opaque black, and Extract/Export produced opaque black pixels also. This would not be a problem since I was just using the image for reference, except that several of the images were originally black where not transparent, so I ended up with a solid black rectangle. I tried downloading and importing the images as I would normally do anyway, and this time the transparency was treated properly. Therefore this is not a problem for me, it just seemed like something I ought to understand the reason behind. A quick search shows that people have had related issues in other contexts, due to the fact that transparent pixels in PNG are black by default or something (so the colour can be 0,0,0,0?). Anyway, I thought someone here might be interested to hear about it, or knows more. Thanks! -Arlo James Barnes

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Re: [Inkscape-user] [Inkscape-devel] Summer of Code 2014
by Josh Andler 26 Feb '14

26 Feb '14

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 5:06 PM, Nathan Hurst <njh@...3068...> wrote: > The whole point of kanban is that each task is self contained. It's > easy to assess what each student has done, look at the bzr logs, look > at the tasks undertaken, look at their report. Students can't affect > each other, because at the frontier all the tasks are independant. > The way you had said it earlier, you had mentioned they would work off the same kanban queue as a team. The students are supposed to have firm proposals outlining what they will specifically accomplish and what the corresponding timeline looks like. Because of this, it's not really possible to have multiple students working from a pool of tasks to be completed. Honestly, I like your idea, however I don't believe there is a way to achieve this with GSoC that Google would approve of. Cheers, Josh

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Re: [Inkscape-user] [Inkscape-devel] Summer of Code 2014
by Josh Andler 25 Feb '14

25 Feb '14

On Tue, Feb 25, 2014 at 10:10 AM, Krzysztof Kosiński <tweenk.pl@...2504......>wrote: > That's true, but the rules for GSoC are quite restrictive when it > comes to teamwork - I'm fairly sure that joint applications (e.g. 3 > students applying to participate in this model) are not allowed at > all. > This is correct. It would definitely not be allowed. They require very clear and obvious separation of work. My guess is that it's to ensure that each student is doing what they are supposed to and that they are not subject to failure due to shortcomings imposed by other students. > A safer bet would be to merge some of the items into larger projects. > If someone with a good sense of which ones would be appropriately combined would be willing to do so and add them to http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Google_Summer_Of_Code#Suggested_Ide… would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Josh

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The Developer Education Book Campaign 2013 !
by Bryce Harrington 25 Feb '14

25 Feb '14

On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 11:10:49PM +0100, Johan Engelen wrote: > In an effort to give back to our developers, I hereby present to you > the Developer Education Book Campaign 2013 ! > > We'd like to give an educational present to our most active > contributors. The board has decided to buy a programming book for each > of the top 10 contributors of 2013! > > These 2013 rockstars can choose from one of the following books: > a) Effective C++, 3rd Ed. by Scott Meyers > b) Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler > c) A Tour of C++ (C++11) by Bjarne Stroustrup > > Thank you very much for your great work in 2013!!! All books have been ordered as last week. Recipients in the US should be receiving their books now. Canadians should receive books over the coming week. European residents should be receving the books within a month. If you provided me with an address and do not receive a book within these time frames, please let me know. Let me add to Johan's thanks a thank-you out to everyone who has donated to Inkscape. Your funding has made this educational effort possible. If in the coming months and years you find Inkscape to be more robust, responsive, and performant, the credit could indeed originate from your contribution to the project. Bryce

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What features would you like to see in Inkscape?
by Anna Morris 24 Feb '14

24 Feb '14

Hey, my name is Anna, I am a Free Software advocate from the UK. I am working for Open Initiative http://funding.openinitiative.com/ at the moment on their new feature-by-feature Free Software crowd funding platform. I am also an Inkscape user (here is something I made http://fsfe.org/graphics/xbox-infographic.png). So, some a question - which features would you just LOVE to see in Inkscape? What is missing? I will compile a list, using emails, forum posts, Facebook messages and the current list on the forums. I will also be talking to developers of course! I know crowd funding campaigns often don't get past the ideas stage because all the words and pictures are hard work to put together and people are busy etc - but I am here to help prepare the campaigns, which I am delighted to do, for at least the next month. My time is your time ;) Let me know Anna Morris

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