On Tue, 14 Dec 2004, Jozsef Mak wrote:
I think that they do understand the importance of user-friendly interfaces, but what is friendly to one person may not be to another.
I agree one hundred percent that user-friendliness is a matter of experience. When I went to graphic design school and I had my first experience with Illustrator it was neither user friendly nor �non user friendly�. When I finished the school I developed a feel for the adobe way of doing things. We can easily agree that this feature or that feature would be better implemented here or there but the fact remains that we keep finding easy what we got used to. And 99% of graphic design schools teach adobe programs. So the overwhelming majority of designers already developed a feel for doing things the Adobe way.
These people are _more than welcome_ to continue using Adobe software. Adobe puts out good products and, while expensive, they're very capable and much more powerful than what's available in Open Source today. If the artist has invested their education into Illustrator, then _no one_ is asking them to change. It's never been Inkscape's goal to clone Illustrator, nor to try to win over their userbase (well, maybe one or two).
However there are still others for whom Illustrator is not an option, either by preference (such as users of software that Illustrator has pushed to the sidelines), availability (it doesn't run on Linux), or principle (some people believe strongly in Open Source). These are the types of people Inkscape shoots for.
We recognize that a lot of people know Illustrator, so we will occassionally adopt an approach that is similar to it, but we try to keep that to a last resort. Inkscape was founded for the purpose of exploring new ideas in drawing tools, not to merely clone something.
For people who want something that provides 100% compatibility with Illustrator, you're in luck - Illustrator is still actively maintained and can be easily purchased. ;-) If your need is for an Illustrator-alike for Linux, I suggest emailing Adobe and lobbying for it. They've provide support for Acrobat Reader on Linux so they're at least aware of Linux; they may simply need more evidence of a market for it on Linux.
Early on in Inkscape we talked about userbase size, and adopted a certain philosophy. For proprietary software, certainly a large userbase size is good, since it means you have more money earned. But for an open source project, sheer size alone doesn't gain you anything. Indeed, sometimes small is beautiful. So for Inkscape, it's the quality of users that we want, not quantity. We want people like you who come join the lists and offer new ideas, and I think we're much more likely to gain that quality of user from doing more than just copying another program. People who don't have time to learn a new tool probably also don't have time to contribute interesting new ideas, anyway.
Here's another way to think of it. In a sense, Adobe is "stuck" by the need for backwards compatibility. Their customers are not going to want to buy new versions if they've adapted to a particular feel, like you point out. Since they've earned the lion's share of the market for drawing tools, this may have resulted in an environment where innovative new ideas simply can't gain enough sunlight to grow. Inkscape is not shackled by an entrenched userbase nor cornered by the need to sell copies, so the best thing we could do to benefit the artistic community is to deliberately *not* follow Illustrator and provide an alternative that allows unconventional ideas a place to prove themselves (and subsequently get adopted by Illustrator if they prove good).
Anyway, hope this doesn't come off too long and ranty, but I do feel strongly that directly cloning Illustrator is *not* the right way to go. We want to be an interesting alternative, not a boring replacement. ;-)
Bryce