[Clipart] notes for consideration for release 0.13 announcement

[Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller]

Hi Aaron,
Since you invited some feedback here is mine :) I think the main problem
with it is a bit unclarity who the target audience is. Currently it
reads part being a message to the KDE community and parts as a press
release to the outside world. If the first then it reads way to much
like the second and if the second it reads way to much like the first.

If the main point is to tell the world about OCAL and KDE now working
together I think cutting down on the detail level is approriate (like
OCAL using categories, links from koffice webpage). 

Also I am not sure I would list OpenOffice as an OCAL supporter
considering they don't have any firm plans for having SVG import.

You pointed out the verbosity yourself (my own weakness too), guess
shaving of 30% of the adjectives would help a lot.

Christian


On Sun, 2005-04-24 at 22:15 -0600, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> hey everyone...
> 
> i've had a chance to discuss with one of our resident XML guys about the needs 
> of OCAL and an XSLT stylesheet that would be appropriate for extracting the 
> XML metadata into a format useful for clipart apps. he's looking into it and 
> hopefully will be able to offer some input here...
> 
> i also noticed that Danny Allen is a major contributor to OCAL. which is 
> really cool, because he's a name i recognize well from the KDE art community. 
> small worlds =)
> 
> i said that i'd put some notes together for the upcoming 0.13 announcement 
> this weekend, so... here it is for your consideration.. this is probably what 
> i'll submit to dot.kde.org, after another round of editing (it's a bit 
> verbose and mildly clumsy in places) and some spell checking. your feedback 
> (both positive and constructively critical) is welcome and desired:
> 
> Today Open Source is about more than just software. It's a complex fusion of 
> technology, localization, accessibility, documentation and art.
> 
> The Open Clip Art Library (OCAL) is an example of a thriving project focused 
> on the latter category. With more than 3000 high quality, public domain clip 
> art files which are most usefully organized into categories, OCAL is a unique 
> and valuable body of unencumbered artwork. These quality images are perfectly 
> suited for both personal and professional content creation.
> 
> The KDE desktop project has been shipping high quality, Open Source desktop 
> software for many years to a large and established base of users. Recently 
> there has been a growing effort to provide access to a growing body of 
> additional creative works that enrich the desktop experience. The thriving 
> communities around kde-look.org and the recent launch of kde-docs.org are 
> examples of this trend.
> 
> So it seems only natural that KDE and OCAL would begin to explore ways in 
> which to work together to fuse the best that both have to offer. As an early 
> step, the Open Clip Art Library is now referenced on both the KOffice website 
> as well as in the KOffice documentation. But this is just the beginning.
> 
> The OCAL project is currently working on the infrastructure necessary to allow 
> seemless browsing and use of the image library both locally and over the 
> Internet. As several KDE applications such as KWord and KPresenter already 
> support the formats used in OCAL, this will open up an array of creative 
> possibilities. With the additional support of OpenOffice.org, Inkscape, 
> SodiPodi, Creative Commons and the OpenCD project, OCAL is poised to make 
> quite a splash in the coming months.
> 
> <insert a quote from someone in the project ... perhaps Bryce?>
> 
> Software developers with an interest in document management, image catalogs, 
> SVG, XML and content creation applications are encouraged to join in these 
> efforts to provide Open Source desktop users broader access to OCAL.. Artists 
> are also encouraged to contribute SVG files to this growing collection and to 
> help out with the process of vetting contributions.
> 
> In the meantime, everyone is encouraged to download and check out the most 
> recent release of OCAL, version 0.13, which represents the work and passion 
> of over 200 individual artists.
> 
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