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>> and you are legally prohibited from fixing it Ah, ok. Dear Programmers, pleeeazee write me a Photoshop 5.0, a Quark XPress 3 and a Freehand 4 Clone in your

>> and you are legally prohibited from fixing it Ah, ok. Dear Programmers, pleeeazee write me a Photoshop 5.0, a Quark XPress 3 and a Freehand 4 Clone in your spare-time without financial compensation. Thanks.

jrockway 18y ago
If you haven't written it, you don't really need whatever feature you are complaining about not having. Let the downmods begin!
- access_denied 18y ago
  Fair enough. Ok here is the most important stuff, sorted by program category. Photoshop 5 This is a standard in forms of UI. What sequences of movements are necessary to get results. Like DJing or vim. The Gimp is absolutely horrible in that regard and completely ignores what the absolute majority of professional graphic designers are used to. Font handling under X in general is pretty weak. Color management has to work. Vector Grafx Inkscape is pretty good. But in some ways not good enough. It crashes to often with heavier files. But ok. I actually use it but would like to have Freehand back, UI again. Inkscape would be nice as native Mac App, yes, for UI reasons. UI is pretty important because it drives workflow, speed, productivity. Quark 3 Was a classic. Everything about it was done right. Again, main thing the UI. Font inspector. Main window resizing. How to create new pages, how to link Texts. It was dam fast, with hundreds of pages open and links to database full of graphics. Doing a magazine in real production time with any of the OSS alternatives? Bad idea.
ryanwaggoner 18y ago
The same thing could have been said about Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python, PHP, Rails, Firefox, etc, etc, etc. Open source runs the web. Don't make the mistake of thinking that open source == programmers writing hobby apps in their spare time.
- access_denied 18y ago
  Cool, open source runs the web. Why? I guess one reason is that LAMP & Co are actually better performers than their commercial counterparts? Well, open source production software for the content creation industries as it exists today, sucks.
  - ryanwaggoner 18y ago
    That might be true, but that's not what your comment communicated, to me anyway. To me, your comment communicated (rather snidely) that it's ridiculous to think that a bunch of programmers could create open source versions of the apps you listed in their spare time without financial compensation. All I was pointing out is that a lot of other software sectors have made the same mistake, and I don't see anything about content creation software that makes it immune to the same forces.
    - jrockway 18y ago
      He does have a point, although he's been so busy being a jerk that he hasn't communicated it particularly effectively. Software like Apache, Perl, Postgres, and so on all make the lives of software developers easier. When I spend time working on a project like that, it brings something I'm being paid to do closer to completion, or makes future paid work more lucrative. (I can charge the same amount, but it won't take me as long, etc.) I don't have the same incentives to make a Photoshop clone, though, because my interaction with graphics manipulation usually consists of an email like "here are the graphics" from the graphics department. I don't care if Photoshop doesn't work, it's not my problem. That said, I do edit my photos with Gimp, and I think it works great. So again, there is no incentive for me to improve it, I think it's fine already.
    - dasil003 18y ago
      I don't see anything about content creation software that makes it immune to the same forces I don't either, but empirically you have to concede that open source hasn't succeeded in the content creation domain. The closest thing is OpenOffice, and that's the least creative end of the spectrum, just one step away from databases and other back-end software. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say it's because programmers don't understand the domain. You can't create good graphic design software without graphic designers on the team.

jrockway 18y ago

If you haven't written it, you don't really need whatever feature you are complaining about not having. Let the downmods begin!

access_denied 18y ago
Fair enough. Ok here is the most important stuff, sorted by program category. Photoshop 5 This is a standard in forms of UI. What sequences of movements are necessary to get results. Like DJing or vim. The Gimp is absolutely horrible in that regard and completely ignores what the absolute majority of professional graphic designers are used to. Font handling under X in general is pretty weak. Color management has to work. Vector Grafx Inkscape is pretty good. But in some ways not good enough. It crashes to often with heavier files. But ok. I actually use it but would like to have Freehand back, UI again. Inkscape would be nice as native Mac App, yes, for UI reasons. UI is pretty important because it drives workflow, speed, productivity. Quark 3 Was a classic. Everything about it was done right. Again, main thing the UI. Font inspector. Main window resizing. How to create new pages, how to link Texts. It was dam fast, with hundreds of pages open and links to database full of graphics. Doing a magazine in real production time with any of the OSS alternatives? Bad idea.

ryanwaggoner 18y ago

The same thing could have been said about Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python, PHP, Rails, Firefox, etc, etc, etc. Open source runs the web. Don't make the mistake of thinking that open source == programmers writing hobby apps in their spare time.

access_denied 18y ago
Cool, open source runs the web. Why? I guess one reason is that LAMP & Co are actually better performers than their commercial counterparts? Well, open source production software for the content creation industries as it exists today, sucks.
- ryanwaggoner 18y ago
  That might be true, but that's not what your comment communicated, to me anyway. To me, your comment communicated (rather snidely) that it's ridiculous to think that a bunch of programmers could create open source versions of the apps you listed in their spare time without financial compensation. All I was pointing out is that a lot of other software sectors have made the same mistake, and I don't see anything about content creation software that makes it immune to the same forces.
  - jrockway 18y ago
    He does have a point, although he's been so busy being a jerk that he hasn't communicated it particularly effectively. Software like Apache, Perl, Postgres, and so on all make the lives of software developers easier. When I spend time working on a project like that, it brings something I'm being paid to do closer to completion, or makes future paid work more lucrative. (I can charge the same amount, but it won't take me as long, etc.) I don't have the same incentives to make a Photoshop clone, though, because my interaction with graphics manipulation usually consists of an email like "here are the graphics" from the graphics department. I don't care if Photoshop doesn't work, it's not my problem. That said, I do edit my photos with Gimp, and I think it works great. So again, there is no incentive for me to improve it, I think it's fine already.
  - dasil003 18y ago
    I don't see anything about content creation software that makes it immune to the same forces I don't either, but empirically you have to concede that open source hasn't succeeded in the content creation domain. The closest thing is OpenOffice, and that's the least creative end of the spectrum, just one step away from databases and other back-end software. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say it's because programmers don't understand the domain. You can't create good graphic design software without graphic designers on the team.