Oggtella.
It will be Gnutella (the network that you use if you’re using Limewire) sans the proprietary file formats (.mov, .wma, .ra, and the ubiquitous .mp3 and .avi).
Thus, you can freely obtain music and video without the whole “royalties”/”codec-propriety” thing to worry about (often a concern for developers of FOSS-based operating systems and media players).
I’ll be listing this as one of my “top ten” reasons to move back to Ubuntu or Gobolinux if it’s ever created.
And Steve Vaughn elaborates on this, mentioning this memorable little paragraph:
“GIMP? It’s good, and it’s getting better, but unless Adobe takes a wrong step, I don’t see it playing a major role on professional desktops.
Some would argue, of course, that since GIMP is free software, it will eventually play a larger role. I still don’t see it.
As Rizzo said, and I’ve seen and heard now, Photoshop really is a platform, not just an application. When you’re buying into an entire system, as the graphics business clearly has, the upfront cost of a single application doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the buying decision.”
So here’s what I say to that:
Photoshop is a platform, not just your run-of-the-mill POCS. In fact, *anything* from Adobe/Macromedia is a frickin’ platform.
The reason why Adobe is stuffing its ears full of cotton, acting like its in its own little world when walking on Linux territory, is because GIMP/any-only-for-Linux-apps are only made for Linux users, and won’t be allowed any breathing room for serious development and usage as a result. Meanwhile, almost everything that is made by Adobe and Macromedia will be natively ported to Windows and Mac OS X (with a trifling few bits thrown to Linux like scraps from a table).
So why can’t you all, the GIMP developers, simply allow for the porting of GIMP to Mac OS X and Windows? Not only will it pose an FOSS challenge to the dominance of Photoshop, but it will also allow for a far wider range of users to participate in the improvement of the GIMP platform, just like any other cross-platform venture such as Mozilla, Limewire, Azureus, etc. This will benefit Linux users in the long run with a more accepted, higher-powered platform that will be *better* than Photoshop.
Of course, such may be seen as giving a further advantage to the “enemy/ies”, but open source is all about building a serious, non-proprietary platform for any piece of software.
Plus, I’m certain that more folks will hear about Linux via GIMP as a result.
MAJOR EDIT: Just Googled the website. They actually DO have ports to Mac and Windows!
So, um…why isn’t the GIMP platform popular on Windows and Mac?!
