Re: About The Gimp 2.0 2004-04-21 - By nospam
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Bonjour Claudia,
I understand your point.
I would suggest that you have a look at Blender as a supstitute to
Carrara (sorry, Eovia, I dont mean it, I just answer Claudia's
questions) : http://www.blender.org/
This would solve your vector import problems.
You know, open-source developpers tend to be more conscious of the
need to use open-source formats (such as SVG) for their import/export
features.
In fact, I decided to switch to open source myslef about three years
ago.
As a professionnal, I needed do do it the professionnal way, because
softwares are the gravy train for me, and here is the receipe :
- don't be a fool. In some cases, there is no open-source equivalent
to existing proprietary solutions. A good example is Optical Caracter
Recognition (OCR). There is absolutly nothing interesting in this area
in open source.
- take what you can when it comes. In 2001 I switched to OpenOffice
(20 % of my workload), elaving Wordperfect. In 2002 I switched to
Mozilla (+ 10 %), leaving Internet Explorer. In 2003 I switched to
MySQL + PHP (leaving Paradox + ObjectPal as database /database
manipulation) (+ 10 %). In 2004 I guess I will switch to Gimp (leaving
Photoshop) (+ 10 %). One advantage of this process, apart waiting for
open source solutions to gain a mature statute, is that you don't have
to learn twelve big softwares in one day. The transition is smooth,
but certain. If you do the count, 40 % of my professionnal worload is
currently using open source, against 0 % three years ago.
- do not jump into an open-source solution before carefully checking
their import/export features. First, you may have to import your old
proprietary files. To switch to OpenOffice, for example, is easy : all
proprietary softwares are able to export to RTF which can dthen be
imported in OpenOffice (in fact, OpenOffice can even import Word files
straight). To switch from Paradox to MySQL was easy as well, Paradox
exporting tables as sql files. More tricky was the switch from Object
Pal to Php. There is absolutly no bridge between ObjectPal and
anything else. In that case, I had a good "luck" : At the exact time I
planned to switch from ObjectPal to Php, the main clients whose for I
was using ObjectPal disappeared. In that case I just dropped Objectpal
without trying to re-use old code I developped in that language
(methods are the same anyway in all languages).
- most of all, disconnect the OS issue and the softwares issue. As
you can see, I carefully choose cross-plateform open source apps. It
is too much to change all your habits, softwares and OS, the same day.
My idea is that when 80-90 % of my workload will use cross-plateform
softwares, I will be able to switch the OS (Which is my ultimate
goal). In the meantime, I am learning Linux (and monitoring progress of that
OS) on an old computer at home when I have got some spare time, and I use and
learn FreeBSD as a root user as the plateforme for my
clients web sites.
-now there are those softwares that have no equivalents. I am afraid
that for some times you will need to have too computers, one with
Linux, the other one with, well, you know what.
But it doesn't mean you cannot prepare the switch little by little.
For example, you can privilege open-source export features of a
propietary sofwtare when they are available. For example, even if you
can't stop using Photoshop, you can save your images in png instead of
psd. And you can start using The Gimp whenever possible, using
Photoshop only when absolutly needed (all images in The Gimp, except
raw images in photoshop, for example). You get the point.
You know, it is not mainly a question of costs.
For ten years I have felt the everyday pressure of proprietary formats
; what will be Microsoft next move ? should I upgrade or not,
considering the cost ? should I avoid this upgrade and wait for
the next one ? should I jump in that proprietary wagon ? what
if the company decide tomorrow to stop that product ? what happens,
company X as divided its product lines in two lines, standard and pro,
and they ask me a huge sum to go to the pro version (of course, they
manage to slice the standard and the pro version in such a way that I
have no choice but the pro version ...) ! Look at that, there is an
interesting rebate ... but for Pantagonians only ...
...... You know all that.
With carefully chosen open source projects, you don't feel these
trouble. You upgrade as many times as you wish. Developers are users,
so features are user-oriented. And you can even give a hand,
translating a page of the documentation...
You will feel gooood !
Welcome to the free world !
c> Hi nospam,
c> Well, it's good to know more about the SVG format and I agree with you
c> about adding this to the CS4 wishlist. Hopefully things will get more
c> standardized as they go along. Eventually I will need to get a decent
c> vector-based program, but I'm always on the look-out for good freebies
c> that might save me some change. So the search continues... :)
c> Thanks for the info.
c> Cheers.
c> Claudia
c> "Selocic"
c> (a newbie)
--
Cordialement / Sincerly yours,
nospam
Flocons de P?ques
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