Interview With the Editors of Libre Graphics Magazine 51
TheSilentNumber writes "I recently had the pleasure of interviewing the editors of Libre Graphics, a magazine made entirely using free software (even using version control so you can see every change ever made) after they gave a talk at this year's Libre Graphics Meeting. This project is living proof of the printing abilities of Free Software, 'That really is a constant refrain even within our own community. People always still talk about the printing problem. So what printing problem?' Libre Graphics Magazine is doing a truly outstanding job showcasing free works made with free tools, creating a publication of record, and reaching out to designers with this project."
Re:Irrelevant... (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? If you have a high quality end product the tools used are very relevent, as that is what made it possible. "Ooh, how'd you do that?" is a great thing to hear. If you have a low quality end product, the tools used are irrelevant. Nobody cares what went into a piece of shit.
Re:Refinement (Score:2, Insightful)
But for me, and our club that I edit the magazine for, open source is brilliant, as it means that when I want to hand on the job, I can give the new editor everythin, the layout, editing tools, graphics manipulators, etc and it will all work with whatever OS they have. My wife edits the source material using open office and stores all edited documents as .dot. I use the GIMP mainly for co our correction, alpha transparency, and minor graphical edits, and the layout is done in scribus. We then output a high quality .PDF for email distribution and print master. I also then compile the edited material into an .ePub file using sigil, and publish the book to our calibre server for distribution and download for those that want our mag on ther ebook readers.
Now I'd have to say we are NOT a pro publisher, but all of this cost us nothing except the hardware to run on, but if I made any money from the gig I would definately pay for the software. Only the Mac version of Scribus gives me some grief now and then, much buggier than the Linux version, but all of the features work just fine, and has got better with every release. (I layout mainly on my Mac because it has the best screen, but I have a Linux vm that I can give anyone that has everything they need to view and edit the source material. A real open source publication 8)