[scribus] Scribus vs. QuarkXpress

[John Jason Jordan]

On Mon, 2 Aug 2010 00:24:24 +0200
"a.l.e" <ale.comp_06 at xox.ch> dijo:

>for people like me, who for a long time didn't have any access to the
>"wonderful" quark express but had to work with the good old page
>maker, the biggest difference between the old proprietary world of DTP
>and Scribus is not the price but the huge chance to participating in
>the evolution of the project and get long standing bugs FIXED and new
>features implemented that ease our work.
>
>for what i've heard this applies to the quark world, too!
>
>but in the meantime, the world has changed. adobe has managed to sell
>a product which makes the masses happy. and it works. mostly.
>
>yes, i'm a bit tired of earing people telling that the biggest
>advantage of scribus is that you can get it for no cost.
>
>i don't know how the situation in your country is, but where i live,
>you get any software for no cost if you really want.
>
>here most people won't use scribus, even if i pay them to switch to it!
>
>the cost of somebody learning for one week a new software is much
>higher the licensing costs for any closed source DTP package!
>
>why do i write this?
>
>well, i have the feeling that none of us really knows for whom we are
>developing scribus and we don't even know who is using scribus (we
>know of some users, but we have no clue about any typology of users).
>
>and i get depressed every time i read somebody writing "you should try
>it: it does cost you nothing". we should be able to tell them: "you
>should try it: it fits your needs"!
>
>and now that i got over my "for free" allergy, i can congratulate you
>for your nice description of working with scribus and with quark
>express.

I think a.l.e. has some excellent points. That Scribus is free is not
completely unimportant, but the most important reason for people to use
Scribus is that it fits what they need to do. That it is open source
and the user can participate in its development is also very important.
"Free" comes somewhere near the bottom of the reasons to use Scribus.