Re: Re: Reply To: Sodipodi / *nkscape...

I feel this eMail is important to repond to, since it has a few biases 
that I don't find are properly justified. I am by no means a fan of 
Inkscape.

Frans Englich wrote:
> In the text below, I express my personal opinion, as well as I must notify 
> that I don't have the necessary knowledge concerning Sodipodi, *scape and 
> this conflict(so it is possible I judge on inaccurate data). Also, I think it 
> is a good idea to keep our heads cool :) and remember that all of us are more 
> or less biased in this issue. We shouldn't draw too quick conclusion - we 
> haven't seen it from the *scape people's viewpoint. Yet.

I have seen it. I felt I had to to maintain a cool head. I had to 
actually SEE why they felt the split was necessary. I suggest you do the 
same. In the end, although I like the UI of Inkscape better, I'm 
sticking with Sodipodi.

> That was not a rant but very important information. I can't just stand passive 
> to this. Lauris, and the other developers - will you tolerate this? It is not 
> OK to drive over people like they do, and we really must do something about 
> it. Lauris, could you be a little bit specific about what you have discussed? 
> What have they said, and what have you replied/said? What they do is of 
> course legally correct but not morally and far from following open source 
> social rules. (And I again emphasize that I don't know the full story of 
> this)

Everything that was done is legal under the GPL. It's not 'nice', but 
it's legal. I remember spending hours trying to convince the (now) 
Inkscape guys not to split off, but it seemed no one but me was being 
rational about it. Lauris was much too arrogant (no offense, you were), 
and Bryce was much too pushy. To Lauris' credit, I believe he was 
extremely busy at the time with work and other things.

Now, Bryce is very legalese, excellent at documentation and management, 
but I don't think Gtk programming is in his list of skills. I could be 
wrong, but I think the split was approached less for the technical 
reasons, and more from 'typical user' point of view, in which case their 
choices are more justified.

<snip>
> This is what the FAQ entry says concerning the fork:
> 
> Q: Why the split from Sodipodi?
> Mainly just differences in objectives and in development approach. Inkscape's 
> objective is to be a fully compliant SVG editor, whereas for Sodipodi SVG is 
> more a means-to-an-end of being a powerful vector illustration tool. 
> Inkscape's development approach emphasizes open developer access to the 
> codebase, as well as to use and contribute back to 3rd party libraries and 
> standards such as HIG, CSS, etc. in preference to custom solutions. 
> 
> AFAIK, I judge some of those claims as insults towards the Sodipodi 
> development team. It would be good if someone commented on the correctness of 
> that FAQ entry.

I think this paragraph is accurate, as of the split. Since then Sodipodi 
has grown. Part of the reason for the split was features such as boolean 
ops not being available, and Lauris wanting to take time to think about 
it. Now both have boolean ops at the same release time, and once again, 
the only difference is UI.

In terms of UI, I've already said I think Inkscape is going in the right 
direction. I think HIG compliance is a good thing. Then again, Gimp, the 
centrestone of GTK, is not quite HIG compliant, though many aspects of 
its functionality are used to describe the HIG.

Once again, Lauris has taken an interesting stance. He wants to be 
desktop agnostic. This is why he has implemented the KDE integration 
features, and actually gives a rat's ass about Windows. This is why the 
project will likely never be Gnome sanctioned, but that's OKAY, it's 
GOOD even. But Inkscape would like to be with Gnome, which is also okay. 
It's just too bad that the split could not be in good faith.

<snip>
> This is of course just my ideas and suggestions(perhaps too serious and 
> exaggerated, I don't know). I also think it is good if we coordinate what we 
> do in this matter(for example, no one goes abusing :) or communicates in a 
> wrong way with *scape concerning this matter unless Lauris and the other 
> Sodipodi developers have agreed upon it).

No, you have the right idea. I simply urge people to try Inkscape first. 
Hopefully, you will see what's up, and feel firmer about using Sodipodi. 
Or you may not, which is okay too, since that's the spirit of free software.

--Pat


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