vector graphics help

[worker201]

Hello.  I am sick and tired of Adobe's corner on the vector graphics market, and I need your help.  My goal is an open-source vector graphics program which is as good as or better than Adobe Illustrator.  It will use non-proprietary industry standards (like SVG) at its core, but it will be able to import and export PostScript and PDF.  It will be able to deal with Type1, Type2, Type3, OpenType, Freetype, and TrueType fonts interchangeably.  It will be able to view and vectorize raster images.  Additionally, it will be fully integrated with open source graphics/X, providing such things as thumbnails and other desktop interactivity.  Primary focus is on a professional desktop vector graphics system, and specific prepress functions or artistic enhancements will be secondary.  I suppose that one day it might be ported to Windows, but I want no part of such a project.  However, a .app, like the OSX version of the GIMP which works through Apple X11, will be produced at each development stage.

Unfortunately, the only language I know really well is HTML.  I know a decent bit of JavaScript and XML, and a tiny bit of C, C++, PostScript, and Perl.

So ... any ideas, suggestions, directions, volunteers?

[adiment]

Try http://www.inkscape.org. I don't know if it has all that but it does have many tools and does SVG.

[worker201]

Try www.inkscape.org. I don't know if it has all that but it does have many tools and does SVG.

I'm familiar with inkscape.  It's a start, but they are a long way off, and don't seem to be heading in the right direction.  For some reason (probably having to do with the GPL), most developers, including those at inkscape, find the licenses required to deal with PostScript to be too much hassle.  Meaning that current work in PostScript is not/barely supported.  This does not meet my needs.

I want a program that can take PS and EPS and PDF and SVG and whatever other filetypes and open them and manipulate them with ease and finesse.  If that means the program won't be covered by the GPL, then that's okay.  It would be nice to be full-on GNU, but I'm not willing to sacrifice functionality for it.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Uhhh ... I'm not sure if this qualifies cuz it can't import/export ps, but it's easy to make pdfs with it, I use it ... scribus

[Pathos]

I'm familiar with inkscape.  It's a start, but they are a long way off, and don't seem to be heading in the right direction.  For some reason (probably having to do with the GPL), most developers, including those at inkscape, find the licenses required to deal with PostScript to be too much hassle.  Meaning that current work in PostScript is not/barely supported.  This does not meet my needs.

I want a program that can take PS and EPS and PDF and SVG and whatever other filetypes and open them and manipulate them with ease and finesse.  If that means the program won't be covered by the GPL, then that's okay.  It would be nice to be full-on GNU, but I'm not willing to sacrifice functionality for it.

...any links to licensing information ? I can't find anything on postscript. Is it additional features like font support ?

If there are restrictive licenses then its probably impossible to release it open source or for free.

What kind of programming background do you have ? (not trying to be insulting ... just this is a big and incredibly difficult project)

[piratePenguin]

With Writely and Google spreadsheet, maybe a web-based SVG editor would be nice...

See http://piratepenguin.is-a-geek.com/~declan/svg/persistent-draw/ (I somehow managed to break it recently so it produces errors in FF and doesn't work perfectly (the colour picker) and doesn't work atall in Opera, will fix it when I get time) Performance in that isn't as bad as I expected, but it's very slow compared to Inkscape, so a web-based SVG editor mightn't be practical.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Google spreadsheet ... neat

Looks like Writely is gonna be part of google soon

We have closed off new registrations until we move Writely to Google's systems.

[piratePenguin]

Google spreadsheet ... neat

Looks like Writely is gonna be part of google soon

Yea, google bought it out. Eventually they might have presentation applications (powerpoint) etc. Maybe they have a vector drawing program up their sleeves (but I doubt it highly).

[worker201]

...any links to licensing information ? I can't find anything on postscript. Is it additional features like font support ?

If there are restrictive licenses then its probably impossible to release it open source or for free.

Strangely enough, the licensing info is extremely difficult to find.  Like not available on the web, as far as I can tell.  If you look at the Ghostscript documentation, they make it sound like they just copied everything from the PostScript Red Book.  I own this book, so I'm going to look around for licensing info tonight.  You can download the whole book in PDF from here if you want to browse it yourself:
http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/ps/index_specs.html

What kind of programming background do you have ? (not trying to be insulting ... just this is a big and incredibly difficult project)

Haha, I have almost no programming experience whatsoever.  I actually handwrote the PostScript code for a simple business card once, and I can write simple for/while/if-else loops in C and C++.  Basically, I am not a programmer at all.  But dammit, this needs to be done!  And somebody's got to do it.  I'm quite certain I'll never finish, even if I get started.  Such is the way of things.  I'd probably do a much better job deciding what needs to go in and what isn't needed.  However, lesser men have accomplished greater things with fewer resources.  It could happen.

[piratePenguin]

How about downloading the inkscape code, understanding it, and writing the bits you want added? Then submit them, if they get rejected then fuck the inkscape developers, maintain a patch so other people can use it, or fork it.

I want a program that can take PS and EPS and PDF and SVG and whatever other filetypes and open them and manipulate them with ease and finesse. If that means the program won't be covered by the GPL, then that's okay. It would be nice to be full-on GNU, but I'm not willing to sacrifice functionality for it.

I don't think it's to do with the actual GPL, more the developer's opinions on PS/etc. If they're strongly (or even not so strongly) against not-completely-open* standards, then alot of them will be be pro-free-software, so they can chose the BSD license, the GNU GPL etc, and if alot of them are pro-free-software-staying free, they'll go with the GPL - which is what they did. Noone's motivated to add support for the not-completely-open standard - nothing to do with the license, but the developer's opinions.

*I don't know the details of the PS/etc licenses.

[piratePenguin]

http://ajaxsketch.com/ Wow!

[worker201]

For all those who are interested, here's what the Red Book (PostScript Language Reference, 3rd edition, Adobe Systems Press) has to say about the copyrights surrounding PostScript:
     

The general idea of using a page description language is in the public domain. Anyone is free to devise his or her own set of unique commands that constitute a page description language. However, Adobe Systems Incorporated owns the copyright for the list of operators and the written specification for Adobe's PostScript language. Thus, these elements of the PostScript language may not be copied without Adobe's permission. Additionally, Adobe owns the trademark "PostScript", which is used to identify both the PostScript language and Adobe's PostScript software.

 Adobe will enforce its copyright and trademark rights.  Adobe's intentions are to:

 * Maintain the integrity of the PostScript language standard. This enables the public to distinguish between the PostScript language and other page description languages.

 * Maintain the integrity of "PostScript" as a trademark. This enables the public to distinguish between Adobe's PostScript interpreter and other interpreters that can execute PostScript language programs.

 However, Adobe desires to promote the use of the PostScript language for information interchange among diverse products and applications. Accordingly, Adobe gives permission to anyone to:

 * Write programs in the PostScript language.

 * Write drivers to generate output consisting of PostScript language commands.

 * Write software to interpret programs written in the PostScript language.

 * Copy Adobe's copyrighted list of commands to the extent necessary to use the PostScript language for the above purposes.

 The only conditions of such permission is that anyone who uses the copyrighted list of commands in this way must include an appropriate copyright notice. This limited right to use the copyrighted list of commands does not include the right to copy this book [oops], other copyrighted publications from Adobe, or the software in Adobe's PostScript interpreter, in whole or in part.

 The trademark PostScript(R) (or a derivative trademark, such as PostScript(R) 3(TM)) may not be used to identify any product not originating from or licensed by Adobe. However, it is acceptable for a non-Adobe product to be described as being PostScript-compatible and supporting a specific LanguageLevel, assuming that the claim is true.

 Weird that Adobe would authorize using prose to say this, as opposed to dense legalese. However, the 3rd edition of the Red Book, and especially this passage, has probably been pored over by teams of lawyers. I think it is safe to assume that this is the "license", or at least a usable version of it.


 So it looks to me like it should be legal to write a PostScript interpreter (or use GhostScript) and insert it into a software package, and there should be no trouble opening or manipulating or saving a PostScript file. However, my understanding is that the Linux community as a whole is against this kind of licensing, no matter how liberal it is. The source of PostScript is open, but it is not "open source". Correct me if I'm wrong, but a minor little copyright restriction was the reason Linux uses X.org instead of XFree86 now. Anyway, it looks like a case of the FOSS community getting sorta screwed by their own narrow-mindedness. Such strong convictions can be useful, but you have to know when to let them down and when to bend the rules, even the rules you have imposed upon yourself.


 Comments on my take of the license, and the license itself, welcome.

[piratePenguin]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a minor little copyright restriction was the reason Linux uses X.org instead of XFree86 now.

XFree 86 still exists. Most distros chose to use Xorg over it, however, because 1. Xorg is better in many ways (autotools ftmfw) and 2. the licensing conditions of Xorg make it easier to redistribute. With XFree 86 you gotta include the authors names prominently. I don't really understand it, but it's easier to distribute Xorg.

Scribus can import PS and EPS and can export PDF and EPS.

WTF is PS useful for anyhow?

[piratePenguin]

Oh and if you did ever look into the Inkscape code you would probably notice this, looks like a PS to SVG converter. Hasn't had any changes in 14 months, maybe the author changed his mind on the licensing stuff? (not likely)

[mobrien_12]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a minor little copyright restriction was the reason Linux uses X.org instead of XFree86 now.

The reason X.org is used is because the XF86 core team went completely insane.  They pissed off all their developers, and stifled innovation, which lead to the fork in the first place.  

The final straw was when they decided to change the licencing to the old BSD licencing format with the advertising clause.  This licence is incompatible with the GPL.  

Thus, if anyone shipped binary versions of GPL programs or libraries (such as QT for KDE) linked against the new version of XFree86, they would violate the
GPL.  This pretty much leaves most distros (even BSD ones) DEAD in the water if they chose to use the latest version XFree86, although you could download and compile XFree86 yourself if you so desired.  

Like I said... insane.  

We had a big thread on this a couple years back.