Re: [Fsfe-uk] Content creation

[rob]

Quoting Matt Lee <address@hidden>:

> Aren't there issues with free implementations of CMYK that require some
> kind of fee to be paid?

Nope. CMYK is way over a hundred years old. Any patents are long gone.

The problem in implementing CMYK is (as Alex mentions) technical, not  
legal. CMYK is the opposite to RGB, mathematically speaking, so you  
need two paths for colour in your application. Even Adobe took some  
time to get this right in Illustrator, and you can't mix the two  
colour models in Adobe product documents.

If Inkscape or Gimp were really serious about professional mass  
adoption, they would drop everything else and work on colour spaces  
until they have at least CMYK, Hi Fi (e.g. Hexachrome) and spot (e.g.  
Pantone) colour support atively.

This is the *single biggest thing by far* that prevents Free Software  
tools being taken seriously for professional design use. I cannot  
overstate its importance. But of course SVG doesn't support CMYK,  
which is insane, so Inkscape can't really support CMYK without  
extending the standard (which is very tempting). Gimp should though.

It's as if graphic designers were trying to write an operating system  
and telling programmers "we're not adding mass storage support because  
you don't need to use disk drives, you can just keep your computers  
always turned on and store stuff in memory".

It is that frustrating.

> Maybe that's just Pantone(R).

Mmmm, Pantone... Yes they are very proprietary, don't try to add their  
colour definitions to your software. Lovely hues though. ;-)

- Rob.