4 ms·
Why are all the good chart generators that aren't dwarf fortress-esque always for-profit ventures?
by diminoten 13y ago
Why are all the good chart generators that aren't dwarf fortress-esque always for-profit ventures?
- cheald 13y agoProbably because someone put in a lot of effort to write visualization software that isn't dwarf fortress-esque and would like to be compensated for it. If you'd like to build an equivalent open-source library, though, you have my vote.
- diminoten 13y agoI mean this is the obvious answer, but I don't find it holds muster when considering open source projects like Linux and gcc, two projects who are immensely more complicated and are entirely Free. I just wonder what it is about visualization that lends itself to monetization.
- cheald 13y agoLinux and gcc are somewhat atypical, IMO. They are also both developer-oriented tools rather than layman-oriented tools (though Linux is rapidly moving to be more layman-friendly, granted!). I would argue that among tools written for the layman, the commercial versions seem to be better than their OSS counterparts. This isn't universally true, but people without expertise are often willing to pay some money to not have to develop expertise. When it comes to visualization libraries, there are plenty of high-quality visualization tools that are highly accessible to the experienced developer, but not to the layman. Developers don't have much incentive to make them easier for the layman to use outside of financial motivation.
- bigreddot 13y agoIf you are looking for an open-souce plot library that works from JS, python, scala (and potentially driven from any language) you should check out Bokeh. http://bokeh.pydata.org http://bokeh.pydata.org