Evolution of a 100% Free Software-Based Publisher 210
NewsForge (also owned by VA) has a quick and interesting look at the evolution of a 100% free software-based Italian publisher. From the article: "Today, Sovilla acknowledges that choosing a 100% free software workflow complicated his working life. He also notes, however, that a great part of his troubles came from an early start, at a time when programs such as Scribus weren't mature enough yet. Today, he says, the situation has improved considerably, and publishers who are willing to experiment with an alternative software platform can, and should, try it without fear."
Not surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Publishers Using Tech (Score:5, Informative)
I know that Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas have used LaTeX for every one of their books. They have some home-grown macros to make compiling and checking the example code automatic. This just cannot be done with Word or FrameMaker and is critical for eliminating copy errors.
For papers or books where the content is quite complex
Re:Publishers Using Tech (Score:2)
Even DocBook doesn't have completely clean model, but it's much further along the path than TeX.
Re:Publishers Using Tech (Score:2)
Re:Publishers Using Tech (Score:3, Informative)
It is also very easy to separate LaTeX documents into chunks which can be written/editted and version controled separatly. When combined into the master document, it is simple to up
Re:Publishers Using Tech (Score:2)
Re:Publishers Using Tech (Score:2)
HBJ does a good deal of textbook publishing where I would be suprised if they did not make use of markup-based formatters at some level, but I take your point.
The other thing of course which inevitably happens is that as soon as fast as Open Source tools stabilize t
Re:Not surprising (Score:2)
I imagine if the true numbers were known, it would be pretty amazing how much is still being done with Quark 4.5 on OS9.
This is of course changing thanks to Indesign, but old versions of quark are still being used..
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
Many of them even provide their own style packages (noticed that all Springer's books look alike?); see http://www.tug.org/interest.html#publishers [tug.org].
Not 100% good (Score:5, Funny)
Did you know? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
(Actually, no. Crazy people learn latin. Trust me, I was one of them.)
Re:Actually... (Score:2, Funny)
Well, yeah, they learn it because the PHTWs (Pointy Haired Toga Wearers) require it, but real men code in Phoenician, or maybe Classical Attic Greek if they want to feel "cutting edge."
There are still a few long haired, bearded, sandal wearing Cuneiform coders, but Jesus, they should get with the times. Modern hardware makes that short of dirty business pointless.
KFG
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
I see at least some things haven't changed. Only now we spell it "nekkid".
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Actually... (Score:4, Funny)
-- Finnish
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Not to mention that in every other language you can simulate its effects by the use of prepositions, postpositions, other cases etc. So really you loose nothing at all by not having it.
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Funny)
Italian is a small price to pay... (Score:2)
I think italian is a small price to pay, considering that this must be the first example of a fully functional publisher based in software, and Free Software at that! AI of this magnitude is revolutionary, not evolutionary.
That is possible now days.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Scribus & Other Open-Source Software (Score:5, Insightful)
This comment shows a little wishful thinking, IMO. I recently tried Scribus, and it's nowhere near mature. This is typical of a lot of open-source software I think; might work good enough for light 'hobbyist' use but nowhere close for real professional work. Probably because it's hobbyists writing the stuff for the most part.
Another good example is Sodipodi/Inkscape. Lots of potential there, but I only used it for about an hour before I 'hit the wall' so to speak and became frustrated with its lack of capability.
Not a dig on open-source, just an observation...
Re:Scribus & Other Open-Source Software (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is asking for patches, but some feedback from professionals is always appreciated. Implementation hints are also welcomed, even if you are not a programmer.
Re:Scribus & Other Open-Source Software (Score:2)
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20060430 [userfriendly.org]
Ufie and CMYK (Score:2)
That's a bit vague. However, it was actually being followed up on before that strip even hit the web. And among other pertinent things, Little CMS [littlecms.com] integration into Inkscape [inkscape.org] started shortly after Libre Graphics Meeting [libregraphicsmeeting.org] not too many weeks ago. Illiad hasn't covered any of the features he'd actually like for his workflow, but he has been asked.
As soon as the next release of Inkscape is done (starting any day now), then more CMS support wil
Patents (Score:2)
OK, so what if I write up a spec for a new feature for a Free application, but then I find that the feature is a patent minefield in one or more major developed countries? As I understand it, prepress color management will be that way until key patents owned by Adobe, Pantone, and other imaging companies run out.
Re:Scribus & Other Open-Source Software (Score:2)
Re:Scribus & Other Open-Source Software (Score:3, Informative)
Some questions:
Did you use the latest version ?
Define "immature" ?
What is your professional qualifications to make such a judgement ?
I will just point some relevant links:
The "hobbyists" - NOT: The Scribus Team bios [scribus.net]. There are a handful of people who are involved with Scribus who have extensive experience in publishing, pre-press and image engineering among others.
Capabilities: Scribus Specs [scribus.net]
(In the users words) Success Stories: http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Success_stories [scribus.net]
Made wi [scribus.net]
Re:Scribus & Other Open-Source Software (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you use the latest version ?
Yes. Note that I used the word "recently" to describe when I tried it out. I tried Scribus 1.3.3.1 on both Windows and Linux.
Define "immature" ?
Not having many features that most professionals take for granted. Palette windows that don't resize correctly and other goofy UI bugs. Lack of solid, professionally written documentation. No text box margins. Broken PDF exporter. Broken PostScript importer. Opening even moderately-sized documents takes forever. Would you like me to continue?
Scribus is admittedly usable for some projects but it's not yet qualified to be a mission-critical application. I certainly wouldn't stake MY job on it.
What is your professional qualifications to make such a judgement ?
Besides knowing how to conjugate the verb "to be" you mean? How about 10 years as a graphic designer? That enough for you??? That sort of accusatory question really grates on me, and doesn't exactly invite me to come over to Scribus.
Incidentally, the Scribus bios make my point nicely. I see a lot of things like "DTP/IT Consultant", "pre-press and software engineer", et cetera but I don't see much in the way of experienced designers. Scribus is what you get when engineers try to design software; typical of most open-source applications.
Re:Scribus & Other Open-Source Software (Score:2)
The fact that you put inkscape and sodipodi in the same class indicates you haven't looked for a very long time. I know a quite a few people who use Inkscape professionally (my work, for example), and some base their business on it and do well. What is this wall you speak of?
Re:Scribus & Other Open-Source Software (Score:2)
Haven't used Scribus, but pdftex is very solid, and has worked great for me, although there is admittedly a very steep learning curve if you need to write your own class
It would have been nice (Score:4, Interesting)
It would have been nice if the article had given some information on the advantages a 100% free software solution gave him. Obviously the article is on NewsForge and aimed mostly at folks that already know, but I'm picturing someone from the 'mainstream' reading this and coming away baffled - why did he put himself through all this trouble for no gain?
Of course there are tremendous gains there, the article just focuses on the problems, assuming the readers already know the advantages. They may not be so obvious to some readers, however.
Re:It would have been nice (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It would have been nice (Score:4, Informative)
By way of comparison, I have before me a copy of sed & awk (Dougherty & Robbins, O'Reilly Press, 2nd ed., 1997). It tells me that "Text was prepared in SGML using the DocBook 2.1 DTD. The print version of this book was created by translating the SGML source into a set of gtroff macros using a filter developed at ORA by Norman Walsh. Steve Talbott designed and wrote the underlying macro set on the basis of the GNU troff -gs macros; Lenny Muellner adapted them to SGML and implemented the book design. The GNU groff text formatter version 1.09 was used to generate PostScript output."
And that was NINE YEARS ago (though the first edition was in 1990, and I'm guessing it was typeset similarly). If nine years' progress in publishing with free software consists of replacing that stack (and its beautiful output) with OOo, something is very wrong.
Re:It would have been nice (Score:2)
Agreed, this is not an advertisement for doing typography in FOSS. OOo: import text, export to PDF; simple, effective; ugly. TFA says he tried using Scribus, but gave it up for OOo as it was too hard. I was hoping for an article about someone using Scribus in the real world.
One thing the proprietary DTP publishers are doing is opening up their APIs to allow users to add new functions -- Adobe's InDesign notably. Not free, but you get the
Re:It would have been nice (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.nonluoghi.net/Bicicrazia/bici.pdf [nonluoghi.net]
It seems to've been done in OpenOffice.
That said, it's unfortunate that Scribus hasn't followed InDesign and made use of TeX's H&J algorithm.
For those who're curious, I've a similar
http://members.aol.com/willadams/portfolio/typogra phy/thebookoftea.pdf [aol.com]
Serif used to be done in TeX and _The Free Software Magazine_ is, as is of course TUGboat
The Book of Tea (Score:2)
I don't think making it available would increase the risk of plagiarism any, since it's already in PDF form; I'm just curious how it was done.
Re:It would have been nice (Score:2)
Re:It would have been nice (Score:2)
I think it's hinted at in "Sovilla couldn't find any other publisher who was already working in the same way. Even the most militant and progressive ones were firmly fixed on proprietary software."
The goal here is being "militant and progressive". I don't think he's even claiming there's any pragmatic advantage to it.
There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are standardised image formats, regardless of what software you use. Proprietary image editing software doesn't keep you locked in to it's own formats, so publishers of such software have to compete on product quality rather than relying on you being forced to keep buying their latest versions.
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2)
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2)
True story: my company (a large telecoms) still uses Office 2000. We appear to manage to have avoided being forced to upgrade.
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml [blackfiveservices.co.uk]
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2)
You don't get it, many (of course not all) *nix geeks can't differentiate the meaning of commercial and evil, even if they try real hard for real long.
It's part of a culture, the sign of something becoming a part of a culture is that you just follow it, you don't question it. Noone wants to argue for example if Micro
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2)
That's because there isn't a difference. Code that you can't change, modify, or improve is evil. Commercial software can't be changed, modified, or improved. Hence commercial and evil are one in the same.
Here's an interesting take: http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html#39 [openbsd.org]
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's even better that he was willing to play trial-and-error because that helps the software to improve to meet his
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:5, Insightful)
And most of all, it's the #1 method to get stuff developed where there's more money than "scratch an itch" developers. Granted, there's some commercial OSS developers too, but for the most part closed source is dominating in areas like:
I don't think OSS will be able to adapt to every possible form of software development. In fact, I would be happy if it could corner the market for "basic" desktop use, so that commercial software would get written for the Linux platform. For me personally Oblivion is right now (and other games to come) a huge hook to Windows, and I don't see OSS developing anything like it any time soon.
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2)
writing the software is easy.
whats hard is writing the rulesets. screw up with your interpretations of the tax law and your customers (and possiblly you depending on just how enforceable that no-liability clause really turns out to be in your country) could get in serious trouble.
I'd imagine with commercial tax software you are mainly paying for two things
1: lawyer time to write/check the rulesets
2: insurance in case they screw up writing the
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2)
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2)
I'm sorry, if it was (say) VGCats, or Penny-Arcade, or some comic that actually had some quality artwork attached to it, I might be convinced.
Re:There is such a thing as pragmatism... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's possible to do, in some industries (Score:3, Insightful)
Apart from software availability, regulatory issues prevent many companies from going to 100% free software, even if a product was available.
GIMP! (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the world of a fustrated GIMP user. How long has this been a "must have" feature that hasn't happened?
Re:GIMP! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:GIMP! (Score:2, Informative)
Anyhow the reason CMYK is
Re:GIMP! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:GIMP! (Score:2)
Re:GIMP! (Score:2)
Re:GIMP! (Score:4, Informative)
The RIPs (Raster Image Processors) that produce, proofs, film, or plates expect (in many instances require) images to be in the CMYK colorspace (four 8-bit channels). So, lack of robust CMYK support makes the GIMP largely useless in a print production environment.
Re:GIMP! (Score:3, Informative)
Actually RGB is a wider gamma than CMYK, any CMYK color can be accurately represented in RGB but not vice-versa.
In the old days, image editing/retouching for print often involved performing operations on specific channels to achieve specific effects (ie adjusting the levels of the magenta channel to remove a color cast in the shadow tones or whatever).
Also, in the old days, your source digital image c
Re:GIMP! (Score:2)
Gamut.
Re:GIMP! (Score:4, Informative)
Bottom line is: RGB is additive, ie you start with black and add light to get the mix you want. Paper is reflective and so you start with white sunlight and subtract colours to get the mix you want. Thus cyan absorbs Red, magenta absorbs Green and yellow absorbs Blue - the opposite of RGB. Theoretically you could get black by mixing CMY but in reality making the primary colours accurate enough to do that is impossible and black is added to the system to make things easier.
This all means that there are colours you can see on an RGB monitor which are impossible to show with CMYK (not difficult - impossible) and vice-versa. CMYK is not the ultimate either, due to the same imperfections of the primary colours that make black impossible, and something like 60% of Pantone colours can not be shown using CMYK.
So, converting from RGB to CMYK can be tricky and causes some surprises to the unwary when they get a colour proof back and discover that their nice shade of deep green has come out bluish. Since printing is mostly in CMYK, this means that you need some form of colour management system to warn you if your colours are going "out of gamut" and to automatically adjust others to look right on paper.
TWW
Re:GIMP! (Score:2)
One Man Publishing House Uses OSS Only! (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on, give me a break. This is a one man show publishing pamphlets that he calls books.
When O'Reilly goes 100% OSS, I'll be impressed and interested. When Doubleday goes 100% OSS I'll be flabbergasted. This one man show? Yawn!!!!
Should read... (Score:2, Funny)
What?
Live, Cinelerra, MainActor (Score:3, Insightful)
So far, I have not seen any comprehensive Desktop publishing tools on GNU/Linux so far. Majority of them are web server plugins/cgi/perl/php/java/python/etc. And by using a browser to do publishing, many useful functions are limited in many way.
Same as for non-linear video editing tools for GNU/Linux, a limiting hurdle is the Desktop itself. Native Gnome apps runs unstable under KDE and KDE apps do not even run well in Gnome. It's painful for me to say it, but Cinelerra for Fedora Core with KDE just sucks and unstable, same goes for MainActor and Lives. Even Hydrogen can't sustain stably after few minutes of usage. This forces me to choose one Desktop over other just because of just one useful tool.
I am not sure if anyone is having such painful experience, but few good advice on Cinelerra and Hydrogen on Fedora Core is welcome.
Re:Live, Cinelerra, MainActor (Score:3, Informative)
An alternative to consider would be Blender to 2.42 when it comes out. With the addition of ffmpeg for greater input and output flexibility, and its improved memory handling for video it is now a fairly capable video editor (see documentation on the sequencer).
LetterRip
Re:Live, Cinelerra, MainActor (Score:2)
Calling this guy a 'Publisher' is stretching it (Score:5, Informative)
There are other publishers using OSS exclusively that deserve the term. For instance T3N [yeebase.com], a regular german magazin on Typo3 [typo3.org] uses the CMS Typo3 as publishing tool. They generate the digital prints by Typo3 driven PDF generation. And the bi-monthly 80 Page magazin - available at every larger Newspaper dealer - , albeight having a slightly 'technical' 2-column layout, is a full-blown professional publication, and not just some fanzine. That's what I call OSS driven publishing.
Oh, and, btw, if your wondering why in heavens name someone would have the wacky idea to publish a magazin on Typo3 like others publish magazines on, let's say, PHP or Java, you might be interested to hear that T3N is just in it's 3rd issue and is growing *fast* and steep in print run volume. That is because in Germany _*EVERYBODY*_ uses Typo3. Everybody. Which is unfortunate for me because I'm trying to make a living in Germany doing web developement and don't like T3 that much.
Re:nothing to fear... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:nothing to fear... (Score:3, Insightful)
They decided to use
Re:nothing to fear... (Score:2)
Re:nothing to fear... (Score:2)
Re:nothing to fear... (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I've noticed simple preference to be why people would ignore a given FOSS package. It's not hard to see how that works - FOSS packages tend to be designed using baroque interface methods that are preferred only by hardcore 'elite' types who like to lord their 'mastery' over others. The general
Re:nothing to fear... (Score:3, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with "lording mastery". The difference is in the power vs time curve. Many so-called "ordinary" users think that they prefer a power vs time curve that grows logarithmically so that they can learn it quickly. The developers of FOSS, on the other hand, prefer a power vs time curve that looks more exponential, so that as soon a
What is wrong: (Score:2)
In other words, those lusers don't know what they really want. They just THINK they know what they want.
Reminds me of what my father (once a programmer for IBM) used to say once in a while... "Look at those people. They think they're having fun... they're not."
Honestly, user interface in F/OS software tends to suck. There are exceptions- Firefox isn't too bad. OpenOffice, however... well, let's compare o
Re:What is wrong: (Score:2)
In other words, those lusers don't know what they really want. They just THINK they know what they want.
Their goal is to "save time", but often they are not aware of the best way to save time in the long run, because they are trying to save time in the short term. This is not a revolutionary concept.
Honestly, user interface in F/OS software tends to suck. There are exceptions- Firefox isn't too bad. Ope
Re:What is wrong: (Score:2)
Re:What is wrong: (Score:2)
Note to developers, Firefox or otherwise: Tabs-within-tabs is almost always a terrible idea. Whenever you consider doing someth
Re:nothing to fear... (Score:2)
Like how MS has the standard windows forms UI for most apps, a toolkit for office, one for visual studio, windows media player being totally different, windows explorer having a load of non-standard parts, and the XP-style control panel being different again. And this is within a single company, ignoring other popular propietary apps like winamp, itunes, maya/lightwave, etc. And even using standard toolk
Re:nothing to fear... (Score:2)
mod parent down (Score:3, Insightful)
the key word is "pre-packaged" (Score:3, Insightful)
I recently had an example of this when a couple of engineers asked me for a solution to something they were doing. They had a very complex Excel spreadsheet which showed some graphics, but they wanted polar plots, which Excel doesn't do. I gave them as an alternative a rather simple Perl script which read their input file
Re:the key word is "pre-packaged" (Score:2)
Re:the key word is "pre-packaged" (Score:2)
Re:Such Is The Story With Linux (Score:2)
Yeah, but how much does it cost when you compare to the time you waste when fighting with Microsoft Windows? I mean, get a daily dose of blue screens, reformat, reinstall, blame it on the hardware, download new drivers, install anti-virus software, blame it on Windows For Workgroups, upgrade to Windows 95. Then you get a daily dose of blue screens, reformat, reinstall, blame it on the hardwar
Re:Such Is The Story With Linux (Score:2)
Re:Such Is The Story With Linux (Score:2)
So I guess if I were starting a publishing company from scratch with Linux, I should start with Redhat 1.0, right? Then not have drivers for my software, so upgrade to
Re:Gramer and speling nazi (Score:2, Funny)