Desktopcon 2006

LGM2005 Overview and the Create Project: Ambiently Sharing Creativity
This presentation begins with an overview of the extremely successful Libre Graphics Meeting 2005 (www.libregraphicsmeeting.org), organized by Dave Neary. This conference brought developers of Free and Open Source graphics software like GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), Inkscape, Scribus, Open Clip Art Library and Xara LX together to catalyze discussion and development. This first part of the presentation is to inspire further participation by presenting the successes of the conference, relationship to the Create Project and plans for next year in Montreal..

The next part of this talk is about the Create Project (http://create.freedesktop.org) whose goal is to develop and consolidate shared resources amongst the various Free and Open Source creative software applications while building relationships between these communities. This part outlines the rationale for the project, its current state, who is participating, and future plans. Already Create is bearing fruit such as the Shared Resources Specification which consolidates brushes, gradients, color swatches, patterns, and clip art into standard locations on different operating systems for simple packaging and implementation. Scribus, Krita, and Inkscape support this spec with others planning support.

Desktopcon 2006 is an important place to present these topics in order to raise awareness while also sparking discussion. This project also is strong with relationship to OSDL's Portland Project and other Freedesktop.org desktop specifications.

Abstract
This is an abstract for desktopcon 2006

LGM2005 Overview and the Create Project: Ambiently Sharing Creativity
This presentation begins with an overview of the extremely successful Libre Graphics Meeting 2005 (LGM2005), organized by Dave Neary (GIMP). This conference brought developers of Free and Open Source graphics software like the GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, Open Clip Art Library and Xara LX together to present and intermingle in order to catalyze development. This first part of the presentation discusses the successes of the conference and plans for next year (2007) in Montreal with a hope to incite further participation. In support of the next Libre Graphics Meeting in Montreal, the communications and planning are happening on the Create Project's communication channels.

Both LGM and the Create Project are interested in the following problematic: Creative Free and Open Source projects such as Blender, GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, Audacity, Open Clip Art Library and others are highly successful projects which produce much media &mdash; video, audio, illustrations, photos, and other content. However, much code, media, and infrastructure are produced by each project somewhat independently which could be shared. For example, several of the aforementioned applications have their own brush types, color preferences, preferred media storage locations, keyboard shortcuts and file format converters. Sharing these resources saves a developer time, increases productivity, and contributes to an overall improved user experience. Because of this overlap and the similarity of creative media, there is need to work together on standards, promotions, and inter-community plans.

This second part of the presentation is about the Create Project (http://create.freedesktop.org) whose goal is to develop and consolidate shared resources amongst the various Free and Open Source creative software applications while building relationships between these communities. This part outlines the rationale for the project, its current state, who is participating, and future plans.

Already Create is bearing fruit such as the Shared Resources Specification, a swatches file format, and an Open Color standard. The Shared Resources Specification consolidates brushes, gradients, color swatches, patterns, and clip art into standard locations on different operating systems for simple packaging and implementation by applications. Already, Scribus, Krita, and Inkscape support this spec with Open Clip Art Library, GIMP and others planning on supporting it in upcoming versions.

The Create Project also builds relationships through "ambient sharing." This is typified by combining developers’ blogs from the different development communities into a planet-type [2] blog aggregation, available at Create’s project space at Freedesktop.org [3]. In the commercial world, affiliations and alliances are brokered through contracts and funding. In Free and Open Source Software alternate approaches for encouraging collaboration and sharing are necessary which do not rely upon forced meetings, ultimatums, and explicit timetables that decrease the fun in development. Rather, the emphasis on ambient sharing is about providing a service for sharing, lowering social barriers for participation, and making collaboration casual.

[1] This list is not exhaustive but used as an example of the type of project that is considered a Creative Software. See http://www.blender.org, http://www.gimp.org, http://www.inkscape.org, http://www.scribus.net, and http://audacity.sourceforge.net, and http://www.openclipart.org.

[2] See http://www.planetplanet.org/

[3] See http://create.freedesktop.org/