[scribus-dev] XPress 8 and Scribus

[Craig Ringer]

Louis Desjardins wrote:
> Hi Team,
> 
> Quark has announced XPress 8 at Drupa.
> 
> http://8.quark.com/
> 
> I don't know if it's my imagination or because of a too much
> Scribus-centered vision but I believe these guys are really reading with
> much attention our mailing list and the bugtracker. Or it's by chance that
> they come up with some of our ideas...

Well, Scribus does have a very relevant user base. While many use Linux,
far from all do, and it seems that many Scribus users:

- are outside the US/UK/Au region where Quark is totally dominant;
- are mostly new DTP users not people migrating from other tools;
- tend to participate more and make suggestions/contribute ideas;
- if they're not new to DTP have experience with many or unusual
publishing tools

In particular, from a commercial point of view the "new to DTP" group
must be very interesting. Additionally, more expert users' comments,
requests and suggestions must be very interesting when viewed with a
view to attracting those people (who may be leaders when it comes to
tool/app selection for large deployments sooner or later) to a
particular product.

As far as I'm concerned if Quark picks up on ideas on the mailing lists
or in Scribus and implements then they're improving the whole industry
(and it needs it!). I'd much prefer them to borrow good ideas rather
than twiddle their thumbs (think Quark 5 & 6) or pull useless but flashy
feature ideas out of thin air.

However, it's also worth noting that Quark has busy forums and lots of
contact with DTP users, many of whom will be thinking along similar
lines to people here. A feature appearing in Quark doesn't really say
anything about its conceptual origins.

After all, it's hard to deny that Quark draws from ideas in previous DTP
apps. Scribus in turn draws some of its broad UI themes and capabilities
from DTP efforts prior to its creation. The more of this there is going
around the better off everyone is - and it's not like Scribus has
commercial interests to "protect".

I happen to personally loathe Quark as a company and my opinions of
their product were unprintable until version 7.3, whereupon they improve
to merely unimpressed and frustrated. If I contributed some useful idea
or feature (the latter being somewhat unlikely these days) that'd make
my life easier and Quark adapted the idea to implement it in the next
version I'd be pleased rather than annoyed. Nicking the code, now that'd
be a different matter.

--
Craig Ringer