GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007 [LWN.net]

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 11, 2008 14:57 UTC (Tue) by cantsin (guest, #4420)
Parent article: GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

"Ten years ago, using only free software, you could not do graphic design and illustration"

Too bad that, looking at the source code of the PDF, you find, among others: "CreatorTool="Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows"", "Creator(Adobe InDesign CS2 \(4.0\)" and "Producer(Adobe PDF Library 7.0".

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GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 11, 2008 15:51 UTC (Tue) by foo (guest, #1117) [Link] (1 responses)

You'll notice they didn't list "you couldn't produce
a self-congratulatory annual report" among the free
software hurdles that have been overcome. :)

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 11, 2008 16:06 UTC (Tue) by andrel (guest, #5166) [Link]

One can produce perfectly respectable annual reports using only free software, for example the Debconf report.

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 11, 2008 20:18 UTC (Tue) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (15 responses)

The designer used that software. If there is some other designer that would produce the same
quality using Free Software, so much the better. Note that the same question was asked when
the 2006 report came out. The issue isn't if it is possible, more that there is a need for
designers who use it.

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 11, 2008 22:32 UTC (Tue) by cantsin (guest, #4420) [Link] (14 responses)

These designers do exist, for example in the Open Source Publishing project at the CONSTANT media initiative in Brussels. This is a group of professional, art school-trained and commercially practicing graphic designers who work exclusively with Open Source software, i.e. Scribus, Gimp, Inkscape etc., and have commissions among others from the EU, from art schools, book publishers and art festivals.

It should not have been too hard for the Gnome project do some research in this area (all the more if one considers that Gnome still is an official part of the GNU project).

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 11, 2008 23:11 UTC (Tue) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (13 responses)

You seem to blame GNOME for software used by that designer. I'd rather focus on getting the
content right. I'm not dismissing that using only Free Software would've been better. However,
saying GNOME should've done research beforehand for a criteria you picked sounds strange. Most
of the work was done via a wiki + email.
I'll pass along the info (do they work for free btw?).

The GNU project relationship is ehr.. not close.

Note: I wasn't saying no designer uses Free Software, just this designer didn't.

Should use FLOSS to develop flyer

Posted Mar 12, 2008 1:35 UTC (Wed) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link] (8 responses)

I would agree that it would only make sense to use FLOSS to develop a flyer about FLOSS. I use FLOSS to develop my materials about FLOSS, even if eventually I have to present using PowerPoint.

Should use FLOSS to develop flyer

Posted Mar 12, 2008 8:22 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (7 responses)

I would've used Free Software. However, it would've looked like crap. People should be free to
do/use what they want, especially if they spend loads of time helping GNOME + always available
to help out at the last second, etc.

If you want to be constructive, find out what drawbacks the other software had that made him
switch to that Adobe stuff. Then improve it.

Requiring people to use Free Software is restricting yourself. The goal is to make everything
possible using Free Software and have everyone prefer only that. However, this shouldn't be
done by restricting others to what they can use. Especially the last part is what attracks me
to Free Software; free to do what you want.

Looking like crap

Posted Mar 12, 2008 14:16 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (6 responses)

"I would've used Free Software. However, it would've looked like crap."

Wow, that's a pretty damning criticism of the free options. There's nothing all that complex in the annual report; what, exactly, is there that can't be done in free software without looking like crap? I hope that the abiword / OpenOffice.org / Scribus / ... developers have been told about where their software falls short.

Looking like crap

Posted Mar 12, 2008 17:39 UTC (Wed) by cantsin (guest, #4420) [Link]

It's not only a pretty damning criticism, but one that is factually refuted by the work of the aforementioned professional designers using exclusively Open Source software.

Looking like crap

Posted Mar 12, 2008 17:45 UTC (Wed) by jake (editor, #205) [Link] (3 responses)

I was thinking (hoping) that he was referring to his abilities as a designer rather than the
inadequacies of free software.

jake

Looking like crap

Posted Mar 12, 2008 19:00 UTC (Wed) by b3timmons (guest, #40286) [Link] (1 responses)

>I was thinking (hoping) that he was referring to his abilities as a designer rather than the
inadequacies of free software.

Right.  I see where he is coming from, and I appreciate his comments.  What concerns me more
than the production of the report is the fact that the same criticism was raised last year and
nothing was done about it.   As a GNOME user, I feel partly responsible for this problem and
will try harder to get involved.

Looking like crap

Posted Mar 12, 2008 22:51 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

> As a GNOME user, I feel partly responsible for this problem and
> will try harder to get involved.

Nice! Help is always appreciated. Suggest to contact Lucas Rocha, lucasr at gnome.org. He
coordinates the (now) annual report. Help is especially appreciated with writing the text,
proof reading and ensuring other people hand in their stuff on time. Maybe come to GUADEC,
give that designer a 'you must only use free software and this is how' course :)

Looking like crap

Posted Mar 12, 2008 22:31 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

Yes, I meant to say I am not a designer and that you would've noticed that ;)

Looking like crap

Posted Mar 12, 2008 22:58 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

> Wow, that's a pretty damning criticism of the free options.

Sorry, I thought it was obvious that I was talking about myself... didn't expect it to be
understood in any other way. IMO designs might look simple, but is hard to get right. E.g. for
colours I usually just reuse the Tango ones.

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 12, 2008 3:27 UTC (Wed) by b3timmons (guest, #40286) [Link] (3 responses)

>You seem to blame GNOME for software used by that designer. I'd rather focus on getting the
content right. I'm not dismissing that using only Free Software would've been better. However,
saying GNOME should've done research beforehand for a criteria you picked sounds strange.

To eat your own dogfood--free software, especially when you are promoting it, does not seem to
be just an arbitrary criterion, does it?

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 12, 2008 8:10 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link] (2 responses)

>To eat your own dogfood--free software, especially when you 
> are promoting it, does not seem to be just an arbitrary criterion, does it?

This assumes:
1. GNOME has software for this. There are programs which use GTK+ that could've been used
instead. Howver, these aren't part of GNOME. See http://www.gnome.org/start/unstable. So 'your
own dogfood' is out. I've asked and apparently Scribus was used in the beginning.
2. The report is about the GNOME foundation, to show what we did. It is not to promote Free
Software; it is to tell what was done by the GNOME foundation in a year.

Really, what is with looking at the 'source code' of a PDF to hunt for things to complain
about? You can see the same information using Evince, it isn't hidden. Please discuss the
contents.

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 12, 2008 17:45 UTC (Wed) by cantsin (guest, #4420) [Link] (1 responses)

This assumes: 1. GNOME has software for this. There are programs which use GTK+ that could've been used instead. Howver, these aren't part of GNOME. See http://www.gnome.org/start/unstable. So 'your own dogfood' is out.

There is still a performative contradiction to the state of the report that Free Software now offers viable solutions for, quote, "graphic design and illustration".

2. The report is about the GNOME foundation, to show what we did. It is not to promote Free Software; it is to tell what was done by the GNOME foundation in a year.

Yet the Gnome Foundation officially states as its a goal, in more general terms, "to create a computing platform for use by the general public that is completely free software".

GNOME Foundation Annual Report for 2007

Posted Mar 12, 2008 22:45 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

> There is still a performative contradiction to the state of the report
> that Free Software now offers viable solutions for, quote, "graphic design
> and illustration".

Might be viable (I have no idea), but it wasn't used by the designer. This is in no relation
to whatever state it might be. It wasn't used for whatever reason (like in an RFC; MAY vs
MUST, etc).

> Yet the Gnome Foundation officially states as its a goal, in more general
> terms, "to create a computing platform for use by the general public that
> is completely free software".

Searching for straws? I don't see the relation to this report. Even if the intention might be
to be able to do everything using GNOME software, then how does it relate to what was used to
create this report? The content is what the foundation did over the last year.


I think your intention is to say that any use of non-free software means that GNOME foundation
is not following its goals. I don't agree with that. Further, you can develop an alternative
while every once in a while using something else.