[scribus] The Scribus target - a question for the developers

[Mike Morris]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 4:37 PM, Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote:

> Mike Morris wrote:
>
>> I am new to Scribus, but not to DTP.  I have been exploring Scribus, and I
>> am an avid reader of the mailing list messages. I am using Scribus
>> 1.3.3.11on a Windows XP platform. My question for the developers is a
>> result of the
>> many comments and questions posted over the past month on such topics as
>> who
>> is (or should be) using Scribus, and such features as imposition, color
>> management, printing, and even spell checking.
>>
>> The question:  What is the goal of the developers?
>>
>>
> I am not one of the developers, but have been on the sidelines from some
> time, and am one of those working on our manual. For a question like this,
> you probably need several answers from various members.
> The way I see the development having taken place, the emphasis has at first
> been on high-quality output from the program: making PDFs compliant to the
> standards set by Adobe, including color management, and including the
> ability to use high-level components (ie, various image formats) to work
> with for this DTP work, primarily with commercial printing in mind.
> Consequently, things like imposition were not primary goals. Some things,
> such as being able to embed a PDF within Scribus, while desirable, are major
> tasks and will simply take time to accomplish.
> The current development series, 1.3.5svn, is a major step forward in
> usability, and incorporates of a number of things such as those you mention
> that others have indicated are more or less essential. It is at least hoped
> that the file format at this point will be more stable, which should help
> create a greater sense of comfort for users. The upcoming manual should also
> help, since it will explain a lot about using Scribus heretofore not
> well-documented or not documented at all.
> Since there are many things to be worked on, and a limited number of
> developers available to do the work, decisions have to be made about where
> to focus energy and time.
>
> I saw an interchange posted on kerneltrap.org between Linus Torvalds and
> some other developers, when they were wondering if they could stop
> incorporating new features for a while, so that they could stop to fix all
> the bugs before moving on. *Linus replied that to artificially stop new
> features would mean the death of the project*, and in reality, you can't
> stop this from happening.


Interesting thought.  And , as an ex-engineer, understandable . . . yet I
consider Open Office (at least the word processor) as a "finished" product.
Perhaps the corporate involvement in Open Office provides the additional
resources, of the right kind, to "finish"  the product.


> Projects develop a life of their own outside of the desires of the
> individuals working on them. You can't tell people to stop working on
> something they're intently interested in, and making positive contributions
> about.
> If you look around at the many projects that might in some sense be
> considered "stable", no one is working on them anymore. They stopped at
> version 0.9, because the developer(s) lost interest.
>
> All in all, I think Scribus is a remarkable thing. A number of people
> scattered across the globe continue to work on this project begun by Franz
> Schmid, all trying to advance it with no significant monetary gain in sight.


Thank you for your response.  Perhaps Scribus will always remain a work in
process.  If Linus Torvalds is correct, that is probably a good thing for
the capabilities of the application.  Although, in my opinion, that will
limit the impact of Scribus on the industry.  Despite that, I agree that
"...Scribus is a remarkable thing."  Thanks to the developers for the work
so far.  I would like to hear from any of the developers willing to take a
moment from their busy schedule on this issue.

>
>
> Greg
>
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