RE: [SLUG] I told them . . .

From: Ken Elliott (kelliott4@tampabay.rr.com)
Date: Thu Aug 26 2004 - 19:30:40 EDT


>>I'd like to know how exactly "both Windows and Linux are way behind in
professional publishing apps"

Ok, let me clarify: "Way Behind" in market share and use at large
publishing houses. All the magazines I wrote for were Mac Users.

I'm a PhotoShop User, was using Quark Xpress, and recently switched to
InDesign... All on a PC. I started with PageMaker 1.0 back in the day when
Postscript lasers took 30 minutes to get a page out and cost $8,000 for 300
dpi. I agree with you that things are pretty level with PhotoShop. But
most of the plug-ins I needed for Quark were Mac-only.... Grrrrr... And for
some stupid reason, Windows doesn't support ligatures, which seems silly to
me. InDesign has support for Ligature built-in. But magazines, newspapers,
etc are big users of Quark plug-ins, for connecting to databases (classified
ads, etc), content management, billing, and so on. It's very rare to find
any of those guys using anything but Macs on the publishing side. Chicken
and egg, as you say.

Since a lot of my work involves CAD, and Adobe Illustrator reads CAD formats
better than most, it seems to be a better fit for my needs than Quark
Xpress. I'm a big-time EPS user, and Adobe has fewer problems in that area.

There is an area where the Mac has better technology - the common imaging
model. The PC has a common imaging model - GDI - for both viewing and
printing. So does Mac OS X, but it's based on Postscript, so it's a more
accurate representation of a typesetter's output, especially when using
detailed EPS files from CAD systems. This is a real problem on Linux, since
I understand that it does not have a common imaging model. You draw
graphics to the screen via X, but send them to the printer via
Postscript/Ghost script. I wish we had a new GUI based on Postscript with a
Mac-like API. I believe that would attract Mac developers to Linux, if
porting was easy.

I'm no Mac fan, but I have to admit the are ahead in this area. But Adobe
is leading the way to level the field, it seems to me.

Ken Elliott

=====================
-----Original Message-----
From: slug@nks.net [mailto:slug@nks.net] On Behalf Of Chad Perrin
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 1:28 AM
To: slug@nks.net
Subject: Re: [SLUG] I told them . . .

Ken Elliott wrote:

>>>Too bad it was like having a really secure lead balloon. It was
>
> interesting to look at, when it worked, but otherwise less than
> stellar. OS X is a major leap forward, in terms of utility,
> scalability, applicability, competitiveness, and stability. I really
> wouldn't know about older MacOS security, because I never had any
> reason to pay attention to it. The most secure vault in the world is
useless if all it contains is costume jewelry.
>
>
> Well....
> It ran PhotoShop and Quark Xpress rather well. I'd hardly call it
useless.
> It's very rare to see any publisher use anything else. Both Windows
> and Linux are way behind in professional publishing apps than even
> really old Macs. I agree OS X is far better on most things, but it is
> not without it's drawbacks.
>
> But my point is that closed source isn't _always_ insecure, and open
> source is not _automatically_ more secure. It's the review/fix
> process and a good architecture that brings about stability. If MS
> opened their source, but didn't accept fixed code from users, I doubt
> much would change. Even if they did, could we really workaround some of
the flaws in the architecture.
>
> Ken Elliott
>

I think this was in response to me. I've been out of town for a while, so I
didn't see this until now.

Yes, MacOS ran certain applications quite well. Unfortunately for MacOS,
they ran just as well on other OSes as well.

I'd like to know how exactly "both Windows and Linux are way behind in
professional publishing apps", considering I have been running both
Photoshop and Quark XPress for years on Windows machines and they work every
bit as well as, if not better than, they do on a pre-X Mac.

It's true, however, that there's far more to security and stability than
simply opening source. In fact, opening source is actually a security
failing, until input from the open source community starts to have positive
effects (which can take time, or may in fact never happen, depending on the
interest the specific project might generate). Linux is more secure than
Windows (when used properly) because of the absurd number of man-hours put
into testing its failings and working out solutions to them, not because
it's OSS. The fact that it's OSS, however, is the reason so many man-hours
have been put into it. Chicken and egg, as 'twere.

--
Chad Perrin (apotheon .com .net .org)
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/sig-block.html
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