[CREATE] LGM 2010 Website

Tue Oct 6 20:17:03 PDT 2009

Am Mittwoch, 7. Oktober 2009 04:43:11 schrieb 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"?

I absolutely agree, and I don't even say this kind of unfriendly "Eric Raymond 
answer" is the rule, especially in Free Graphics community, but it still 
happens.

One thing that could be stressed in a positive sense is that Free Software 
_enables_ users to shape a project they like or rely on more directly than 
they could with software developed behind closed and developers dependent of 
budgets and marketing strategies. And involvement need not mean programming, 
as there are many other tasks left.

>
> 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).

Well, I think that users should expect a certain degree of service (e.g. 
support or feedback to bug reports), but in general the free service of Open 
Source projects is already much better, i.e. faster and more competent than 
the one for closed source packages (some small companies being the exception 
to the rule). Remember that Adobe apologised publicly for its abysmal service 
a few weeks ago!

> > 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.

100% agreed, although better integration between different applications is 
certainly not a bad idea. Hence the idea of a specialised and neatly 
integrated Linux distro.

>
> > 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.

While the latter is true, the former isn't, at least IMHO, and it's not just 
look'n' feel. Just look at the different file dialogs in, say, FontForge, a 
GTK+ app, a KDE app and a Qt app.

>
> > 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.

1) The current wiki structure is from the pleistocene and certainly needs an 
overhaul.

2) As I wrote, we need a real website. A wiki, with all of its limitations, 
should be used for dicussions and the more technical stuff.

>
> These are my personal views. YMMV.
>
> [0] http://wiki.panotools.org/Development_of_Open_Source_tools

Well done!

Cheers

Christoph