[OT] Alternative to Inkscape

[Richard Gaskin]

Bob Sneidar wrote:

 > Sadly, I have experienced this before with Open Source software. Devs
 > can be much less open to new ideas or ways of doing things. As a
 > result they lose a lot of their base, but if it costs them nothing
 > they can afford it.

I suppose that could be said about many projects, even proprietary ones. 
  How often have you submitted a feature request to Adobe or Apple and 
seen it acted on in the next release?

I've met the lead dev for Inkscape at the SoCal Linux User Group.  He 
takes out a booth there because he very much wants feedback.

The key to this particular issue lies in the details of the two reports 
Alejandro linked to:

 > https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170049
 > https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/364036

In summary, Inkscape predates its SVG import (by many years), and as 
code bases go the original print-centric coordinate system (remember, 
Postscript uses the same coordinate system Inkscape does) included a lot 
of assumptions based around that coordinate system, and a few hard-coded 
values.  All in all, changing it is non-trivial.

Also, there was some discussion in that thread about whether this is a 
true bug or a feature request, because the software is working as 
originally designed and simply flipping the coordinates would pose a 
backward compatibility issue.

The best option would be user-definable coordinate systems, and that 
would be a feature request.  And quite a bit of work.

As one of the devs in that thread wrote:

    If you think it's so easy to fix, know that we are more than happy
    to accept a patch from you. ;)

While it is a long-standing issue, we've all seen issues in other 
software, both FOSS and proprietary, hang out longer.  These are often 
things that may be important but perhaps to a relatively small 
percentage of the software's audience.  I've used Inkscape for years but 
never noticed this one until I read this thread.

The difference with open source is that if it's really holding you back 
you can rally the resources to get it done yourself right now, something 
that would be impossible with any proprietary code base.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com