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Figma use the word "open" to describe some restrictive APIs in their wall garden, which is disingenuous coming from programmers who know what "open" really mean

Figma use the word "open" to describe some restrictive APIs in their wall garden, which is disingenuous coming from programmers who know what "open" really means. Usually collaboration is done using a Git-like external version control tool or just file syncing with Dropbox. Even Adobe Photoshop stores your data in files that you can share as you like. Figma's collaborative approach is certainly good UX, but on the whole a net-negative for the world if it catches on. If your code is stored exclusively on GitHub and can only be edited through the UI then you are at GitHub's continued mercy to have access to your own data. You lose it when your subscription expires or when GitHub thinks they no longer like you. This is the general trend of software turning into services and they are actually locking you in with your own data. But it is also a challenge to provide seamless realtime collaboration on the same document if sits in files rather than on the web. The best of both worlds would be a software that has both the convenience and openness of individual files and has seamless collaboration.

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scardine 9y ago
It is a bad example because when you use git, your local copy is a full repo with the whole history so it not like your code is lost forever if github cancels your account.
- kjsthree 9y ago
  It’s a good example because that’s what they’re saying. With GitHub you’re not limited to editing through the web UI. With Figma you are. Something like Figma backed by data you control would be fine.
- lucideer 9y ago
  @no-privacy's second paragraph is confusingly worded but I think this was the intent of the post - that comparing to Figma to Github is a good/bad example because they're easily differentiable/not alike.
- Kagerjay 9y ago
  Code is not lost forever, but you lose commenting on commit history, image uploads on comments, issue trackers , etc
xab9 9y ago
Don't they have a .fig format that you can export/import, share? Plus they have the standalone "native" app, so I don't really get you here. Have you tried parsing a PSD file? Have you seen the PSD spec? It's pure nightmare afaik... Are you storing psd resources in git? Probably not. Then perforce? God, have you tried using perforce from the command line? What else do we have for big binary files and versioning? Not svn, not cvs, not mercurial, dunno... But anyway... we're working with a fairly big (100+ppl) creative agency and they transitioned to figma - it's a joy to work with, I can finally use linux, no need to fool around with windows or a dumb os, the app is fast, exporting is great, collaborative features are cool... I'm pretty sensitive when it comes to apis and data portability, but heck, this tool is a godsend for us.
- notamy 9y ago
  > Have you tried parsing a PSD file? Have you seen the PSD spec? It's pure nightmare afaik... Of course, you can't forget this somewhat-legendary commentary on the PSD format: https://github.com/gco/xee/blob/master/XeePhotoshopLoader.m#L108 https://github.com/gco/xee/blob/master/XeePhotoshopLoader.m#...
Kagerjay 9y ago
Figma has some export functionality though, via SVG.

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scardine 9y ago

It is a bad example because when you use git, your local copy is a full repo with the whole history so it not like your code is lost forever if github cancels your account.

kjsthree 9y ago
It’s a good example because that’s what they’re saying. With GitHub you’re not limited to editing through the web UI. With Figma you are. Something like Figma backed by data you control would be fine.
lucideer 9y ago
@no-privacy's second paragraph is confusingly worded but I think this was the intent of the post - that comparing to Figma to Github is a good/bad example because they're easily differentiable/not alike.
Kagerjay 9y ago
Code is not lost forever, but you lose commenting on commit history, image uploads on comments, issue trackers , etc

xab9 9y ago

Don't they have a .fig format that you can export/import, share? Plus they have the standalone "native" app, so I don't really get you here. Have you tried parsing a PSD file? Have you seen the PSD spec? It's pure nightmare afaik... Are you storing psd resources in git? Probably not. Then perforce? God, have you tried using perforce from the command line? What else do we have for big binary files and versioning? Not svn, not cvs, not mercurial, dunno... But anyway... we're working with a fairly big (100+ppl) creative agency and they transitioned to figma - it's a joy to work with, I can finally use linux, no need to fool around with windows or a dumb os, the app is fast, exporting is great, collaborative features are cool... I'm pretty sensitive when it comes to apis and data portability, but heck, this tool is a godsend for us.

notamy 9y ago
> Have you tried parsing a PSD file? Have you seen the PSD spec? It's pure nightmare afaik... Of course, you can't forget this somewhat-legendary commentary on the PSD format: https://github.com/gco/xee/blob/master/XeePhotoshopLoader.m#L108 https://github.com/gco/xee/blob/master/XeePhotoshopLoader.m#...

Kagerjay 9y ago

Figma has some export functionality though, via SVG.