[CREATE] LGM 2010 Website

[Yuval Levy]

Christoph Schäfer wrote:
> at least in my opinion, is the attitude of some developers, which comes down 
> to: "You don't like something or desperately need a feature? Well, here's the 
> Free code, go and do it yourself." This is a safe way to turn users, 
> especially professionals, away from Free software, because they have better 
> things to do. And no, we cannot compare creative professionals to IT 
> professionals, since the latter are expected to have programming experience, 
> while the former are not.

it's a fine line. "do it yourself" is sure a harsh answer. but how 
about: "sponsor a bounty"? "do some testing"? "help us with a website"? 
"handbooks"? "translations"?

in the end, these tools only work if they are made by the users for the 
users. I started as a user with no clue of C++ and increased my 
involvement in Hugin. It's a give and take. If the feedback is good, 
I'll give more. If it is bad, I'll find alternatives (including opening 
up my wallet for a closed software package). And it's two ways. Now that 
I am on the developers side, I coach and help users that shows an open 
attitude, and I am allergic to users that expect "service" (whatever 
they mean by that).


> Jan's original point was the idea of a Free alternative to Adobe's CS Suite.

do we need to be a Free alternative to Adobe's CS Suite? can't we be 
something different? and better? until not so long ago, Hugin had on its 
Sourceforge description: "similar to Windows tools PTgui and 
PTassembler". I don't have to define myself in relationship to them. 
Hugin now has a legitimate standing on its own, and on many areas is 
better than the two mentioned tools. me-too? no-thanks.


> FLOSS graphics projects "suffer" from the use of 
> different UI toolkits, like GTK+ or Qt.

suffer? why suffer? make it an advantage! I'm pretty much agnostic in 
terms of UI toolkits as long as it enables me to achieve a result in the 
least possible number of keystrokes and mouse clicks. Others may have 
stronger preferences. We also have multiple tools to achieve the same 
results, while the commercial competition "streamlines" its offering, 
acquiring competing products and shutting them down. This too is an 
advantage of FLOSS. Nobody will take the carpet under your feet, forcing 
you to learn Illustrator because FreeHand is being euthanized.


> but on Windows, OS X or even eComStation, all bets are off. And of course I 
> expect some people to step up right here and claim that people shouldn't use 
> these platforms, while in reality they do and also don't care about 
> statements that operating system xyz or desktop abc sucks. It's what they 
> have and are used to.

indeed, think *USER CENTRIC*. where there is a user there is a need. and 
where there is a critical mass of users, there is support.


> Things being what they are, there is actually a constant flow of information 
> between most projects, albeit most of the time in the respective IRC channels 
> or mailing lists (Oh, and I can't remember having met you in the #create 
> channel ;)  )

IRC does not work for me. Sorry. And I have a problem with its transient 
nature. I prefer mailing lists, with archives one can draw on later on. 
Human beings without history are lost (and dangerous). We still don't 
learn all there is to learn in history, but having archives and being 
able to discuss asynchronously and without being on-line is a bonus. And 
don't mention Google Wave to me, you'd get a serious rant (I surf the 
web with noscript completely locked up. I don't like aggressive 
marketing. I don't like to be targeted - directly or indirectly, I like 
to keep my privacy).


> And since the Create Wiki seems to be the homepage of the project, I'd say it 
> is in desperate need of an overhaul (and to be honest, we'd rather need a 
> decent and visually appealing website for Create, independent of the Wiki).

honestly, I don't even recall the URL of the Create Wiki, and when I 
google "create wiki" it happens to be in competition with a lot of other 
uses :-)

I believe content comes before form (even though for a bunch of graphics 
project, the form must look good, I agree).

And I got some decent results at energize our community around [0].

The wiki alone is not enough. People don't visit a Wiki automatically. 
They do visit their inbox every morning. Whoever works on the Wiki 
should post updates (with a link) here. I've begged our users a few 
times to document building for the different platforms, until the 
snowball started to roll. I could have never done this alone.

In the case of "Create", I would not even know where to start. I don't 
want to step on anybody's toes. And I also have not found anything there 
that itches me and that it is in the realm of what I consider a 
realistic target for myself / something I can contribute positively to.

These are my personal views. YMMV.

[0] http://wiki.panotools.org/Development_of_Open_Source_tools