On Mon, 4 Mar 2002, Omer Zak wrote:
>
> On Mon, 4 Mar 2002, Shlomi Fish wrote:
>
> > I am very fond of Corel-Draw. The first version I used was Corel-Draw 2.0,
> > after which I switched to Corel-Draw 4.0, which I received free with a
> > printer my family bought. Corel-Draw 4.0 is very good and almost
> > entirely bug-free, but it still a Win3.11 program, and gives me some hard
> > time. I wanted to switch to the newest version.
>
> I suppose that instead of moaning how Corel screws Israeli students, some
> talented Israeli students, with some free time on their hands[1], can
> screw Corel instead - by developing (or probably improving an existing) a
> GPLed drawinging program, until it is sufficiently strong to compete
> against Corel on its merits.
>
There are good vector graphics programs out there. But I don't find any of
them as complete, or easy to use as Corel-Draw. Designing a Vector
Graphics program require a modular design, and a lot of interesting
algorithms. It can be done as O-S but will take a lot of time to become up
to par with Corel-Draw. (if at all - Corel has programmer working on it
too you know)
The GIMP proved that it was possible to produce first-class Open-Source
GUI programs. I (and I think many others) still consider the Linux'
flag-ship of GUI applications. But obviously it is a bitmap drawing
program and does not aim to replace Corel-Draw or compete for its same
grounds.
Most O-S Vector Graphics programs out there don't have more than one very
active maintainer. I do not claim they should merge forces, but obviously
they could use more developers. But I cannot also force someone to
contribute to such a project. I can however call upon universities and the
such to enact projects that will contribute to such programs for which
their students would be credited. But again, I cannot force potential
supervisors to adopt such a project.
Which leads us to the first law of O-S development: don't whine unless you
are going to contribute. (lately it seems that what I said once seems to
bite me in unexpected places). For the time being, I'll have to do with
Corel-Draw 4 (which is not too bad) or with the existing Open-Source
solutions.
I thought of a contest in which a team would receive money for producing
the best and most complete open-source software of some sort. And the
thing which I found that most has to be done for the first year is a
vector graphics program. (followed by a computer algebra system). You can
have as many developers as you want and even use an existing code base.
I thought of it as an anti-thesis to a contest I heard about, which
eventually banned people from using Perl because someone wrote what he was
required to do in Perl and came out with a much smaller codebase than the
rest. The point is that this would be a software engineering contest, in
which people can use any language or any combination of languages they
wise as long as they produce the most complete package.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
> --- Omer
> [1] However, they intermingle all the time with Santa Claus, the Tooth
> Fairy, and honest lawyers.
>
> There is no IGLU Cabal. In its place, there is a thick jungle, full of
> fingers pointing at each other.
> WARNING TO SPAMMERS: see at http://www.zak.co.il/spamwarning.html
>
>
> =================================================================
> To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
> the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
> echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups..."
"Wait a second - is n a natural number?"
=================================================================
To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
