Hi Bernhard,<br><br>>Why not join forces on a tcl/tk based Skencil1/sK1 development?<br><br>We absolutely agree that it will be the best way. But on this moment our <br>team is "in stream" i.e. in active prerelease stage. If we start projects
<br>joining we lost development speed. More over we should stop development <br>because in joined project new roadmap, coding conventions etc. should be<br>created. Therefore our opinion is to try join forces after sK1 v0.9
release.<br><br>sK1 summer preview was commonly announced into russian and ukrainian Linux<br>community, therefore many users are waiting for the release. We hope involving <br>the community into sK1 development.<br><br>
>The main common interest is that Skencil has been not seen<br>>much development in the last years and applications like inkscape<br>>have drawn more attention from the users and developers community.<br><br>Inkscape project has several weakness. First is SVG primary format which is
<br>useful for screen graphics only. Second is pure C++ core codebase which delimits <br>slow development. Third - very slow "livarot" engine. In our tests with hardware<br>accelerated XRender sK1 renders complex drawing faster than Inkscape.
<br><br>>The stability and design of the Skencil tcl/tk version shows that<br>>there is a place for such an application and the GTK port has never<br>>reached a usable state.<br><br>Yes, we known this fact that tk-based Python applications have ultimate stability
<br>under unix-like systems. The application works until main thread is live.<br>Such stability is unusual for pure C/C++ applications and very imortant for <br>day-by-day working in vector editor, for example in prepress.
<br><br>>Skencil/sK1 is still a strong application,<br>>so joining forces would help to grow the community.<br>>Packaging and documentation efforts would be reduced and all this.<br><br>Practically there is only one potential competitor - XaraXtreme. But this application is
<br>not a favorite under Win32 platform, because it's not suitable for printing industry.<br>As you can see sK1 interface and behavior is highly similar to Corel or Illustrator.<br>We plan that our potential users (first of all, designers) will find in sK1 a friendly
<br>enviroment like under Win. Therefore we don't plan any extended help system for<br>first release (only short application description). But we have professional experience <br>in DocBook documentation. For example, we contributed some efforts in
<br>tkZinc project documentation (we tried to use this OpenGL canvas as a primary <br>canvas for sK1):<br><br><a href="http://www.tkzinc.org/tkzinc/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Documentation" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://www.tkzinc.org/tkzinc/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Documentation
</a><br><br>>Personally I am quite open regarding the name, maybe sK1 would even<br>>be the better one, given that it resembles Skencil1 closely enough.<br><br>I think it is not a main issue in this project :)<br><br>
>We have wondered why the fork has happened in the first place without<br>>some more communication from your side.<br><br>The first reason is that Internet communications in Ukraine were primitive in <br>2003-2004 years. We has only dial-up connection, therefore there was no way
<br>for active community collaboration. Now, personal LAN connection is usual thing.<br><br>Second reason is our experience in OSS world. When we start fork we were <br>"newbe" in the community.<br><br>Also there is commonly held view in Linux community that Skencil development is
<br>something like "closed private club". Even this fact is reflected in <a href="http://wikipedia.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">wikipedia.org</a>, <br>at least in russian article about Inkscape. The project should be more open and
<br>more active to increase popularity.
<br><br>>So what do you think about the general idea?<br><br>We like this idea! :)<br><br>Sincerely,<br><br>Igor Novikov<br>sK1 Team<br><a href="http://sk1.sf.net" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://sk1.sf.net</a><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">
On 11/19/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Bernhard Reiter</b> <<a href="mailto:bernhard@intevation.de" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">bernhard@intevation.de</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi Igor,<br><br>On Saturday 11 November 2006 15:19, Igor Novikov wrote:<br>> GTK migration wasn't a main fork cause.<br><br>I have chatted a bit with Bernhard (Herzog) and my idea was:<br>Why not join forces on a tcl/tk based Skencil1/sK1 development?
<br>Bernhard's initial reaction was quite positive.<br><br>The main common interest is that Skencil has been not seen<br>much development in the last years and applications like inkscape<br>have drawn more attention from the users and developers community.
<br>The stability and design of the Skencil tcl/tk version shows that<br>there is a place for such an application and the GTK port has never<br>reached a usable state.<br>Skencil/sK1 is still a strong application,<br>so joining forces would help to grow the community.
<br>Packaging and documentation efforts would be reduced and all this.<br><br>We can offer a development plattform based on a free software (gforge),<br>hosted by Intevation with trackers, svn. mailinglists and more.<br>
See
<a href="https://wald.intevation.org/projects/skencil" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">https://wald.intevation.org/projects/skencil</a><br><br>Personally I am quite open regarding the name, maybe sK1 would even
<br>be the better one, given that it resembles Skencil1 closely enough.
<br><br>> In 2003 before Orange Revolution<br>> Microsoft initiated in Ukraine hard software legacy inspections across<br>> printing firms and we were forced quickly migrate on Linux. Sketch<br>> 0.6.15was selected as a most useful software to substitute CorelDRAW
<br>> (ai and cmx<br>> import was a most impotant point). The codebase was slightly extended<br>> (resize, rotate, move dialogs etc.). User interface was adopted to usual<br>> Corel layout: <a href="http://sk1.sf.net/screenshots/sk1.png" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
http://sk1.sf.net/screenshots/sk1.png</a><br><br>We have wondered why the fork has happened in the first place without<br>some more communication from your side.<br>As Bernhard H. was open for more patches and<br>to consider the development strategy as well.
<br>The changes up to 0.6.17 (and the upcoming 0.6.18) should be interesting<br>for your as well.<br><br>So what do you think about the general idea?<br><br>Best Regards,<br>Bernhard (R.)<br><br>--<br>Managing Director - Owner,
<a href="http://www.intevation.net" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">www.intevation.net</a> (Free Software Company)<br>Germany Coordinator, <a href="http://fsfeurope.org" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
fsfeurope.org</a> (Non-Profit Org for Free Software)<br><a href="http://www.kolab-konsortium.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
www.kolab-konsortium.com</a> (Email/Groupware Solution, Professional Service)<br><br><br></blockquote></div><br>