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

Let me add my own two cents to this. While it is easy to brand the
Inkscape fellow as being 'wrong' that is a huge mistake in my view.

As Pat points out there are other considerations here and some things
that is probably left unsaid. I think Lauris's  complaints are rather
off mark IMHO. It is not Bryce's 'contacts' that has drawn new
developers to Inkscape, it is their will to integrate with GNOME and
others. It fork was not caused by a wish for fame and fortune, but by
things like Lauris constant refusal to use new libraries, his insistence
on doing things in non-standard way (like special GTK widgets which are
neither accessible or works with pixmaps themes). His desktop agnostic
stance which in theory means work equally well everywhere, but in real
life means work equally bad everywhere. And discussing Sodipodi issues
with Lauris often feels like you are trying to communicate with the
oracle in Delphi or some other riddle talking entity.

Also considering that Sodipodi started out as a fork of Gill so do I
feel this hollier than thou attitude is more than a little
hypocritical. 

Personally I still use Sodipodi for my work with gnome-themes-extras
since Inkscape has been to unstable for me the times I tried it. I also
feel I contributed quite a lot to Sodipodi marketing through my work on
gnome-themes-extras and the flag collection. I am also doing an SVG
article atm which will feature Sodipodi prominently. But stop the
complaints and war drums in this issue, it is not warranted. 

Christian

On Fri, 2004-02-27 at 10:13 -0500, Pat Suwalski wrote:
> 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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