[thelist] cheap software spam - how do they do it?

Shawn K. Quinn skquinn at speakeasy.net
Tue Mar 21 19:29:36 CST 2006


On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 09:58 -0800, Max Schwanekamp wrote:
> But AFAIK there is no OS equivalent of Illustrator (or Freehand),

If you're referring to a vector-/line-drawing tool (that's what I last
remember these two programs as), there's Inkscape (and also the original
program from which Inkscape was forked and rewritten, Sodipodi).

> Flash,

It's not legally possible to write free software to replace the Flash
plugin, due to the way Macromedia* has restrictively licensed the
supposedly "free and open" Flash specification. That said, someone
is/was doing it anyway with GPLFlash but I haven't looked at it yet.

> or even of Fireworks.

>From Macromedia's* blurb, GIMP probably does some of this already
(probably even more with third-party scripts/plugins). There is also
pngquant, pngcrush, ImageMagick, and the Independent JPEG Group's
reference software, plus various front-ends for those who suffer from
commandlineophobia.

* Flash and Fireworks were Macromedia products prior to the merger.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn <skquinn at speakeasy.net>




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