On Saturday 30 August 2003 22:01, RTaylor wrote: > Flash runs in Wine but... why not go with something a little > more standardized? SVG. Because file format standards are no good to an artist unless your audience can handle the format and the format can handle your art? I know what I'd be using today if I were a cartoonist or animator and it ain't SVG... not even sure it can handle some of the stuff I've seen people do with SWF. (Kind of like how the GIF patent expired in the US before PNG ever got support for animation....) How much of the stuff at, say, homestarrunner.com is SVG ready to handle right now without making the end user jump through hoops? And are the creation tools anywhere near as useful or would they be writing XML in emacs when they should be drawing funny, TV-quality cartoons? Ultimately, when you're confronted with a choice between a well-supported and complete proprietary "standard" and a nascent, not entirely ready for end users open "standard", you end up having to decide which is more important to you: your own artistic (or commercial) statement or the free vs. proprietary debate. Most artists have enough invested in their work for it to take precedence over software philosophy. Even Stallman's hilarious "gather round and share the software" song ended up in mp3 format at some point before Ogg was ready... and I can't see myself putting music out there in anything but mp3, even now. I gotta think it'll be an even longer wait before you can have the expectation that the mainstream user will be able to see your visual work if it's in SVG format. Rob
