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

[Craig Bradney]

Hi Mike

> The question:  What is the goal of the developers?

I think the best answer is to produce a DTP/layout/assembly (your
definitions you mentioned) program of professional quality - to allow users
to be able to replace other apps on Linux, and compete with those same apps
on OSX and Windows (and any other platform for that matter).

That puts Scribus with an aim to reach to the stars, where in the
professional world, the liftoff and man hours are provided by those well
known companies to get them there, and about 10 years advance over Scribus.

As for imposition, as you specifically mentioned it, as I have rarely come
across a print shop that wanted it done for them - it is a little hard to
place in terms of requirement. We certainly see the need for the basics for
those wanting to replace the functionality in say MS Pub, but to go all the
way and replace the software worth thousands specifically designed for
imposition.. well.. one day.. but maybe not on our first priority list.

So we skipped a few years, most people have reviewed Scribus at a "Quark 4"
level in most areas (on what, I cannot say right now). In some things, its
way ahead.

Yes it is true, we are currently 100% unfunded and 100% part-time. At this
point, that amounts to 4-8 hours per night, for up to about 8 people all
working full-time elsewhere. All in all, at this point, I would say with
busy schedules included, that 4-8 hours might be a maximum spent total per
day for the whole team. Without funding of some sort, this won't increase
unless we are on holidays from our real work. The time spent will also
increase once we get 1.3.5 done - its a major work that is just taking along
time to get finished up, and we will all party hard when 1.3.5 is finally
out the door.

As for stability - there is Scribus 1.3.3.x. We are making VERY few changes
to it. It works for many tasks and works well. There are bugs, and there are
issues in certain uses of the program, but it is pretty stable and usable.
No more new features are going into 1.3.3.x, and I do not expect we will
release anything after 1.3.3.13. 1.3.3.x can open all files from before it,
1.3.5svn should be able to open all files from before it.

1.3.5svn is what is being worked on and we really are working on a lot of
small finishing touches, while slowly working through any major issues
outstanding. Looking at the bug tracker open bug count is a little deceiving
- many of those bugs, or specifically features, just wont be fixed until we
are at something like Scribus 1.6 or 3.0 (random guess). People do dream up
wonderful ideas but many take a long time to do, or require substantial
underlying changes to be even able to start on them.


> Now I know you have been working on this application for at least five
> years, and are currently working on a new version.  As a (potential) user,
I
> would like to see, once the new version (1.3.5?) is released, that you
spend
> time cleaning up the bug reports and polishing the application to make it
a
> truly effective package for the printing industry.  I wish I had had
> something like Scribus when I was in the business.

You will find that many of the bugs in 1.3.3.x are already fixed in 1.3.5,
including many small usability issues. Including issues created by 1.3.5
itself (moving to a new toolkit, rewriting the canvas somewhat, etc), 1.3.5
includes fixes for well over 1000 bugs. We used to do 30-100 per release
maximum - 1.3.5 has covered a LOT of ground.

Future development releases post 1.3.5 will be short (around 3m) and will
allow us to have smaller targets, and allow added projects into the
development codebase (eg GSoC additions). Eventually we will release this
codebase into a new stable series. 

Craig