On Tue, Dec 12, 2006 at 11:23:39PM +0100, Flachland Tapir wrote:
A research under a scientific aspect has to set up a hypothesis and verify it. I don't know if the answer to my hypothesis will be yes or no, so one shouldn't derive that I am for or against OS. To let you know, I am a great supporter of OS and so it came to my mind as a professional user of graphics software why programs like Inkscape and Gimp are not widely in use compared to e.g. Photoshop or Illustrator! So how would it sound to you if the hypothesis claims: "Inkscape is mature for a professional workflow, so it isn't widespread and this is because it's free"! Anyway, I am glad to get feedback!!! It is hard to stay neutral on that matter, and I'll try to rephrase my question in the survey.
My opinion is that this is because the software isn't mature, what doesn't mean that I am against Open Source.
See, but "maturity" is such a generic label that regardless of the results, your survey is going to be useless, except to push a particular point of view. "Maturity" is a subjective measure, and is going to be driven by your sample population. A scientific method would construct an experiment that someone else could re-run and get the same results. Yet with this survey, if if you ask 100 Inkscape users if Inkscape is ready for professional use, and I ask 100 Adobe users, you're going to we'll probably see completely opposite results.
If you really want to measure maturity, then look for some quantitative thing you can latch onto - rate of bug fixing, or time required to create a particular drawing by equally skilled artists, or number of crashes per day, or something.
If your real underlying question here is "Why is Open Source not more used professionally," then a better questionare would directly ask this. "Are you using XYZ software in a professional context?" "If not, please rank the following reasons from 1 to 10". ...
If I were to guess why Inkscape is not more used professionally my own guess would be:
* Proprietary software is better marketed * Key features are missing * Doesn't interoperate with necessary applications * Doesn't adhere to xyz standard
Your survey would actually be useful if it were geared to answer one or more of these questions. Which particular lacked features are forcing people to non-open software? Which file formats are most needed? If they've not heard about Inkscape, what approaches would be best to get word out to them?
Also, it is very surprising that you do not include Scribus in your survey - of the three graphics apps, Scribus is the most professionally oriented, and is intended to be used alongside gimp and inkscape for professional work.
Bryce