[Scribus] Quark 7

[Louis Desjardins]

>>I've found some interesting info on the upcoming quark
>>7
>>
>>http://www.publish.com/article2/0,1759,1766264,00.asp
>>
>>
>>jozsefmak

Hi Christoph,

>Fine! At first glance, Quark seems to implement some features 
>scribus already has (or will have as soon as 1.4 is out -- I'm 
>waiting with baited breath ...).
>
>To be honest, I don't think scribus developers should look at Quark 
>anymore as an example. InDesign is state of the art today, and as 
>much as I dislike proprietary software, it's great. In my view, 
>scribus should be able to offer an alternative to InDesign without 
>simply "copying" its features.

Actually, what we (in a large sense) do, is not looking at Quark or 
any other software offering, but listening carefully to people using 
this kind of software. This stands for the number 1 strength of FLOSS.

>
>Unfortunately, matching InDesign's features and reliability won't be 
>enough to compete with Adobe's offerings. GIMP and Inkscape are 
>marching at an impressive pace, but when it comes to printing, they 
>are useless without scribus and/or Photoshop and Acrobat.

Considering the trio who rules (still) the graphic art industry, 
Illustrator-Photoshop-Quark, when it comes to printing, lots of us 
never ever relied on anything else than Quark. Period. FLOSS has 
Scribus (and its PDFs) and for the many jobs I processed through my 
Harlequin RIP (and the Xerox-CREO duo that brings us digital 
printing), we never ever had *a single* printing problem.... so far! 
I think this is robust, reliable and... competitive.

>
>As much as I admire the progress of FOSS, there are still lots of 
>pieces to add to a seamless Open Source publishing workflow (think 
>about job tickets, software like pitstop etc.)

Well, there is lots more to workflow than job tickects and pitstop: 
just handling the right files to the right people in the right time 
is the big part of a successful workflow. Prepress workflow is mostly 
jammed by people who don't have a clue of what they're doing rather 
than software itself. Used with proper care, FLOSS can do a lot.

>
>Back to parent: QuarkXPress is dead in the water. For those who have 
>suffered from Quark in the past (a lot of people), this might be 
>final justice, but after Adobe buying out Macromedia, the publishing 
>community has to deal with a new monopoly.

My god! This is a bit strong a statement. Anyway... not going to 
argue much on this. One thing I want to point out, though, is about 
monopoly. This is certainly one thing we don't need and we all suffer 
from. Hopefully, FLOSS is there to stay, and to challenge the 
monopolies.

That said, I know as a sure thing there is a very long way ahead to 
make a better Scribus. But it is clear in my mind, as I said, the 
number 1 strength of FLOSS is not talking. It's listening, and making 
it happen.

 From the bottom of my heart! No hard feelings! :)
Don't want to sound rude, hey!

;)

Louis

>My apologies for the rant.
>
>Christoph
>
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