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Why Drawing Tablet Brands Won't Collaborate on Linux Floss Drivers

davidrevoy.com

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Re: Why Drawing Tablet Brands Won't Collaborate on Linux Floss Drivers

#81

Post by jrm4 »

joeld42 wrote: post #49
jrm4 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preach. And it's a disease . Signed, the guy who will forever believe GIMP could have been a contender with a name change decades ago.

Yep. I was an intern at Disney Feature Animation when GIMP first came out. It was really exciting, an alternative to Photoshop (which used to run on linux!) and our in-house painting tools. I pushed for artists to use it, but was told by management to stop mentioning it as "Disney could never use a tool called GIMP". Also that reaction from several artists (who were already tech-savvy, linux using folks in the exact…

BRO THANK YOU.

This was something I knew to be true in my much more limited circle, but I very much appreciate the real life bigger example.

Re: Why Drawing Tablet Brands Won't Collaborate on Linux Floss Drivers

#82

Post by vachina »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #25

Feel free to reply to that email and let them know that your readers just discovered that instead of considering Wacom alternatives, they now believe that Wacom is the only brand they can use on Linux. It seems like the only valid response to that is to give money to the people who make their hardware usable on my software.

The venn diagram for Linux user and an artist is so small they probably wouldn’t bother.

You can continue to use Wacom (only)

Re: Why Drawing Tablet Brands Won't Collaborate on Linux Floss Drivers

#83

Post by LocalH »

ndiddy wrote: post #2

> Well, because it's true: many of the repositories are named after "Wacom". It's a historical legacy on GNU/Linux. It's also a decade-long debate that these repos should be renamed differently. If the project being named after Wacom is actively causing other companies to not contribute because they believe it’s a Wacom lead project and they’d be helping a competitor, I don’t understand why this is even a debate vs.…

Devil's advocate: why should the project have to rename because some companies want them to? That just shifts the window slightly closer to corporate control, something that millions of people worldwide bemoan.

Re: Why Drawing Tablet Brands Won't Collaborate on Linux Floss Drivers

#86

Post by exe34 »

LocalH wrote: post #83
ndiddy wrote: post #2

> Well, because it's true: many of the repositories are named after "Wacom". It's a historical legacy on GNU/Linux. It's also a decade-long debate that these repos should be renamed differently. If the project being named after Wacom is actively causing other companies to not contribute because they believe it’s a Wacom lead project and they’d be helping a competitor, I don’t understand why this is even a debate vs.…

Devil's advocate: why should the project have to rename because some companies want them to? That just shifts the window slightly closer to corporate control, something that millions of people worldwide bemoan.

More importantly, why would other companies offer free support for something that will garner free advertising for a competitor?

Re: Why Drawing Tablet Brands Won't Collaborate on Linux Floss Drivers

#88

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

nine_k wrote: post #72
ffaccount2 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"It's hard!" So? "It's complicated" So? So there's no point in wasting time on this, if perceived problems are low or nonexistent. Current maintainers probably look at it from a technical pov "it's just a name, who cares"

> it's just a name, who cares This cannot be, naming things is one of the two canonical hard problems.

You've forgotten the 3rd canonical hard problem: off by one errors.

Re: Why Drawing Tablet Brands Won't Collaborate on Linux Floss Drivers

#90

Post by palmotea »

burnte wrote: post #33
myrmidon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. The technical people managing the repos might just be opposed to name changing in general (seeing how a boatload of links, references, documentation would require updating, some of which you don't even control), and meanwhile those people might feel the "misbranding" drawbacks much less (if at all).

I would categorize all those as emotional reasons not to change, not logical reasons. "It's hard!" So? "It's complicated" So? "Some of it other people control." This will always be the case, you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough. If the status quo means a worse project, then you're not changing because you don't WANT to, not because it's a good idea. And that's an emotional, not logical ,decision.

>> The technical people managing the repos might just be opposed to name changing in general (seeing how a boatload of links, references, documentation would require updating, some of which you don't even control), and meanwhile those people might feel the "misbranding" drawbacks much less (if at all).

> I would categorize all those as emotional reasons not to change, not logical reasons.

Ignoring for a moment the annoying software engineer tropes of "emotional=bad, logical=good" labeling and its unawareness of the fact that logic and emotions are hopelessly enmeshed; deciding what work to prioritize how you spend your limited time does not seem particularly "emotional."

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