Re: Ubuntu

Steven Fisher wrote:

Likewise, there are ethical issues with most open source software. On
the desktop, there are few original ideas in it,

Absolutely. Like, for instance, Apple invented the graphical interface and
the mouse. Linux didn't and is using it.

Oh, but wait, wasn't the WIMP interface invented by Xerox at Palo Alto's
Research Center (PARC)?

And the tabs you are using in your browser? Firefox. And the WWW? It's a
gift from Tim Berners-Lee working for the CERN in Geneva. And the BSD
stack? And so on. The fact that we can share here has a lot to do with Open
Source. It Microsoft or Apple had built the internet, we'd all be stuck
with different standards. Microsoft is still trying hard to impose its
standards on the net.

Some people believe that since The GIMP lags behind Photoshop, it's
because Linux developers are unimaginative. Believe me, if image processing
was as popular as word processing or browsing the net, there would be more
resources put into The GIMP.

And the interface is so boring, you'll! But, as San Sawyer puts it:

"GIMP frequently may be maligned for its un-Photoshop-like interface and its
utilitarian approach to filters, but I've grown to love it precisely for
these reasons."

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9706

And so do I. I like to work on a whole picture onscreen, undisturbed by the
interface.

But... 8 bit color, no CMYK (though there's a plug-in)...

That's where Krita comes along. It's still young, but it does offer 32 bit
color and CMYK. Read the section beginning with:

"Built from the ground up on LCMS, Krita's 32-bit color management system is
flanked by well-built, sophisticated tools for accessing it."

It's a different beast that's coming along.

"Krita has a large array of tools. The 1.6 release contains freehand, line,
rectangle, ellipse, polygon, polyline, star, bezier curve, duplicate,
paint-with-filters, crop, move, transform, perspective transform,
contiguous fill, gradient, text, color picker, pan, zoom, perspective grid,
selection paint, selection erase, rectangular select, elliptical select,
polygonal select, contiguous area (magic wand), outline, magnetic
selection, bezier curve select and select by similar colors. All paint
tools can be used in soft brushes, hard pencil, airbrush or eraser mode.
SIOX-like foreground extraction is in the works.

Krita has image layers, group layers, adjustment layers and the innovative
part layers: any KOffice document can be embedded as a layer in Krita."

http://www.koffice.org/krita/

Krita is far from Photoshop, but either it or The GIMP can do what 90%
of people do with Photoshop, which is reframing, retouching, sharpening
pictures, adding a layer, for printing on a home printer or sharing them on
the net. There's absolutely no way the industrial needs can justify the
number of copies sold. The Photoshop craze is just big fuss.

But, as Dan says:

"Although GIMP is useful, it's showing its age, and the time is coming soon
when it either will adapt or be shuffled to the wayside by more capable
tools."

If the GIMP dies, it won't be a big pain. Some code will be recuperated, and
things will move on. That's the way things work in the Open Source world.

A few years ago the Knoppix distro was very popular. Hey, you could boot
from a CD, all your hardware configured auto!!! Now, Klaus Knopper is
working on a project for the blind because his wife is blind. It's of much
interest for blind people, not for you and me, but now, most Linux distros
offer Live-CD.

And Knopper didn't start from scratch either. He worked, amongst other
softs, with Kudzu, which had been developed by Red Hat, didn't work very
well and seemed like a dead end. But it was there, the code was open.

That's what Open Source is all about. Somebody needs a software, writes it
and he's done. Instead of starting from scratch, somebody picks the code,
brings it further.

Open Source is also about open formats so that companies such as Microsoft
cannot make billions from defining the way they produce bold in their word
processor and change it now and then so that you have to "upgrade", and pay
again.

Proprietary *formats* puts you into serfdom and, as Tim McNamara notes,
cloud computing will only make things worst.

The problem of our so-called new economy is that too many people got money
for nothing and, to make more profit, lent it to people who work hard and
get next to no money, then couldn't pay back. Software tycoons, just like
finance tycoons, are part of this picture.

That's the stupid system Linux can get you out of. In a proprietary world,
it does take a little attention to get out of the trap. Just a little
effort.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: If I was Ron Hovsepian...
    ... that's not an attack on Linux though I ... You're just a braggart who knows even less about The Gimp than I. ... I asked quite often from some Windows shareware and professional software developers. ... OTOH, if Novell wrote to Gimp developers saying that their clients are complaining about the interface, they might have more success. ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)
  • Re: If I was Ron Hovsepian...
    ... after an equal nunber of Linux on the desktop years, ... of improvement in user-friendliness - the thread has already mentioned ... GIMP is rather odd. ... there is some kind of interface out there which is ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)
  • Re: Learn from XARA
    ... >> Linux and Mac. ... GIMP people should take a look at the demoes and LEARN ... >> how to make an easy and good user interface. ... I don't think there's anything wrong with the GIMP interface. ...
    (comp.graphics.apps.gimp)
  • Re: Any GIMP users (Linux)
    ... i am muther-f'ing sick of windows, bill gates, and redmond, wa. ... i want to migrate over to linux, but need to know if the gimp is ... layers via PS, and curves. ... Gausiann blur ones seem to be inthe gimp. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: Learn from XARA
    ... GIMP people should take a look at the demoes and LEARN how to make an easy and good user interface. ... And what is that weird text about Linux being behind without the help of Xara?? ...
    (comp.graphics.apps.gimp)