[Scribus] Create intiative

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Sun, 2005-10-23 at 01:59 +0200, Christoph Sch?fer wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> for everybody interested in the future of DTP/graphics applications on 
> the Linux desktop, a very interesting introduction to the Create 
> initiative has been published on Newsforge:
> 
> http://software.newsforge.com/software/05/10/11/2055236.shtml?tid=132&tid=75
> 
> As it seems, the initiative addresses some important points and 
> obstacles in Linux/FOSS productivity applications.
> 

It's an interesting idea making graphics programs more interoperable by
using common directories for brushes, and using the same hotkeys for the
same functions among other things.

I think for it to work it really deserves a project though, with actual
releases. A bunch of guys on mailing list blowing hot air isn't going to
achieve the goal.

Better would be if someone just created a distro or graphic design live
CD with relevant apps patched to have similar key bindings, similar
menus, common folders for brushes, good fonts that Just Work across
apps, etc. The project would mostly be maintenance of a collection of
patches against applications.

If it was executed properly and took off, the upstream projects might
accept the patches. And if they don't, well a fork doesn't really seem
necessary for front end patches. But I'll bet other distributions would
accept such patches.

That seems like a more open source way to do it to me. UI consistency
across the important applications is something that is a little better
in Windows, a lot better on the Mac than in GNU/Linux. But because
GNU/Linux is open source (changeable by anyone with inclination and
ability) and we have users more willing to accept change than those
other platforms, it seem FOSS would be able to do a better job.

-- John.