[Scribus] Scribus in the Art Lab

[pixelnate]

Craig Bradney wrote:
> No.. thats a technical college... 
>
> Craig
>   
Art Directors learn their trade in universities or in art schools, i.e. 
Texas State University, University of North Texas, Art Institute of 
Houston (all noted for their design programs in Texas), etc. They do not 
go to technical schools like DeVry or Hallmark Institute. 
Trade/technical schools are for learning blue collar trades in the US, 
such as air conditioning repair, electrical work, plumbing, etc.

All of the Art Directors I have ever worked with would not, at this 
point, move to less capable solutions, OSS or otherwise. I am glad that 
there are people who can make use of the OSS solutions. Currently, in 
this city of San Antonio, Texas, it would be impossible to dump Quark, 
Indesign, Photoshop, et. al., and replace them with OSS tools. We would 
not be able to produce the same kid of work with them. One job I am 
working on at the moment has an Illustrator file (.ai, not EPS) that 
includes transparency placed in an Indesign file next to a CMYK 
Photoshop EPS with transparent items placed on top of the both of them. 
And the transparency is handled properly with the various transfer 
functions displaying properly on screen! You just cannot do this with 
Inkscape and Scribus. I wish it was possible, but it is not.

Again, the professor's decision to switch to completely OSS tools was a 
shortsighted one. While it is important to be aware of OSS tools, IMHO 
it would have been better to use them for an intro to graphics class, 
and then move to the _established_ commercial apps for more advanced 
classes. That way the students could see how good the tools are, and 
have something available to them for work at home. Then if they 
progressed to the point where they needed advanced features, they could 
buy those apps later if they chose to.

For a good number of people who need to do some dtp work the OSS tools 
currently available may provide all the functionality they need. For the 
ad agency I work for, they just aren't at the point where we would be 
able to contemplate replacing our current toolset with OSS apps. That 
may change in the future. Remember, Quark wasn't really accepted by the 
industry until v3.3, and Indesign was a steaming pile of poo for v1 and 
v2. I cannot wait to see Scribus v3!

~Nate