up with PyGUI!

[Alex Martelli]

Then I'd have to buy something like PyQT, and then I'd have to buy
something like ...

If you buy BlackAdder, it comes with PyQT and Qt licenses and is cheaper
than the Qt license for C++ development. A great bargain even if you
never use the IDE itself (unless you also want to do C++ dev't).

I like the widgets, and the visual, but I can't afford buying a whole
toolchain for using it. So, I use the tools that are free, that allow

I believe the "whole toolchain" (BlackAdder -- period) cost about $300
(==Euro 250) for a one-user license (commercial, with full right to
redistribute the apps you develop). I'm not sure how much you charge
for all of the apps you develop, but if 250 euros (fiscally deducible
from your fees, of course!) make a significant dent in your income, then
I agree that you can't afford Qt.

No doubt, eventually, wxPython (which has been growing by leaps and
bounds for quite a while now) will overtake Qt, and/or the cygwin guys
will manage to release a native GPL Qt for Windows, and/or PyGUI will
overtake both. For the last couple years, though, it seems to me that
anybody who claims he really wishes he could write (Python) non-GPL
commercial code with Qt and hasn't considered buying BlackAdder must
_definitely_ charge too little for the application he or she sells.

delivery (after all, he paid for that) or writing free software (free
software was their choice 75% of the time, this is another reason I
wouldn't invest on buying a license of Qt for commercial software...).

Unfortunately, GPL Qt doesn't (yet) run on Windows, which (for my
average customer) would be a blocking factor.

Indeed. Macs are cool, but expensive. Our salaries here in .br are not
like your in the US or Europe...

Somebody just posted to it.comp.macintosh about their astonishment
regarding Mac prices: they carefully configured Dell and Mac machines
that were roughly equivalent -- pretty big ones (2GB RAM, 20" LCD
screens, 250 GB disk, and in the case of the Mac a 64-bit CPU) and they
came out to very much the same price, 3000 Eur including VAT. Except
that on the Mac a superb professional development system is free for the
downloading (XCode 1.5) while for Windows they'd need to splurge another
thousand or so for Visual Studio Enterprise, not to mention the Mac's
"iLife" suite (mostly not relevant to most professional users). They
were astonished because they'd chosen the cheapest Dell desktop that
could be pushed that high (a 4600, I believe).

I'm at the other end of the spectrum, with an iBook 12" ultraportable
which cost me, 9 months ago, roughly 1000, about 1/2 as much as the
closest comparable machine in the Windows world (an IBM Thinkpad X40).
In this case, adding the $$$ for Visual Studio to the mix, vs the free
XCode I have here, would make the price comparison just ridiculous.
People lusting for upgrades (because of course today's Mac are better
than last year's) are typically trying to sell such machines for 700-800
or thereabouts, if they're perfect except for their age of about a year.
I wouldn't know where to find a good ultraportable 12" in the PC world
for this kind of prices -- and if I did, Linux wouldn't perfectly
support its "sleep" facilities, a key issue in ultraportable laptops.

Of course, the PC world has a MUCH wider range of offerings, including
low-performance, low-quality ultracheap 250-or-so boxes -- that's what I
typically throw in (with OpenBSD on them) when I propose some
configuration to cheapskate customers. But, as I needed a good laptop,
with the amount of travel I do, that option just wasn't around for me.


Alex

 

[Carlos Ribeiro]

I believe the "whole toolchain" (BlackAdder -- period) cost about $300
(==Euro 250) for a one-user license (commercial, with full right to
redistribute the apps you develop). I'm not sure how much you charge
for all of the apps you develop, but if 250 euros (fiscally deducible
from your fees, of course!) make a significant dent in your income, then
I agree that you can't afford Qt.

The biggest problem for we third-world money-impaired users that many
people don't realize is that we charge for our services in the local
currency, but have to buy stuff in strong currency (dollars or euros).
That's what kills us. *If* the conversion rate were lower (1:1, for
example, as it was a not so long time ago) it would be possible. I'll
tell you some figures.

An average programmer in Brazil makes betwen R$ 800,00 to R$
2000,00/month. The actual income, roughly converted, is in the US$ 270
-- US$ 650 range. Yes - is this low. Senior programmers or analyst can
make more, specially if they live in São Paulo, but then the actual
cost of living will make a much bigger dent on their income. In other
words - a US$ 300 tool is too expensive.

(AFAIK, there are some companies that run special discounts for
customers in third world countries. That's fair for software, I think.
It's a shame no more companies do the same)

--
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: (e-mail address removed)
mail: (e-mail address removed)

 

[Jorge Godoy]

If you buy BlackAdder, it comes with PyQT and Qt licenses and is cheaper
than the Qt license for C++ development. A great bargain even if you
never use the IDE itself (unless you also want to do C++ dev't).

I saw that... It is the most interesting offer on the product that I've
seen. The difference is a good one. US$ 399.99... PyQT alone costs
250.00 pounds sterling. I don't know if I have to have a license of Qt
too or if it is included with PyQT, I'd have to read more carefully to
find it out or ask them that.

I believe the "whole toolchain" (BlackAdder -- period) cost about $300
(==Euro 250) for a one-user license (commercial, with full right to
redistribute the apps you develop). I'm not sure how much you charge
for all of the apps you develop, but if 250 euros (fiscally deducible
from your fees, of course!) make a significant dent in your income, then
I agree that you can't afford Qt.

This is not my reality, but 250 euros are more money than a lot of
people earn monthly here. Actually, it is the same amount a worker
should earn in 3 months if he is paid the minimum salary allowed by the
government (actually, there are people that receive as salary less than
1/3 of that minimum...).

So, even though *I* can buy, I still think it is an expensive product.
Another calculation one should do is the ROI of such an investment. So
far, as I said in my previous message, the demand for it has not
convinced me to buy it. Yet. And yes, I point it out as an option in
some projects.

No doubt, eventually, wxPython (which has been growing by leaps and
bounds for quite a while now) will overtake Qt, and/or the cygwin guys
will manage to release a native GPL Qt for Windows, and/or PyGUI will
overtake both. For the last couple years, though, it seems to me that
anybody who claims he really wishes he could write (Python) non-GPL
commercial code with Qt and hasn't considered buying BlackAdder must
_definitely_ charge too little for the application he or she sells.

If PyGUI will have native widgets for Windows as it does for Mac, I hope
it becomes standard. Its API seemed cleaner than wxPython's (and with
one less emulation layer than wax, as pointed out on this thread...).

With regards to charging, one must take into account the economic
reality of the place where such a person lives. If you see the above
you'll see that the cost is not the only problem, the value is (there's
a difference in being expensive and having a high price... at least in
Portuguese there's an important difference).

Unfortunately, GPL Qt doesn't (yet) run on Windows, which (for my
average customer) would be a blocking factor.

This is what led me to use wxPython on one project of mine... Even it
being free software, I need to keep a Windows version of it for another
year or so.

Somebody just posted to it.comp.macintosh about their astonishment
regarding Mac prices: they carefully configured Dell and Mac machines
that were roughly equivalent -- pretty big ones (2GB RAM, 20" LCD
screens, 250 GB disk, and in the case of the Mac a 64-bit CPU) and they
came out to very much the same price, 3000 Eur including VAT. Except
that on the Mac a superb professional development system is free for the
downloading (XCode 1.5) while for Windows they'd need to splurge another
thousand or so for Visual Studio Enterprise, not to mention the Mac's
"iLife" suite (mostly not relevant to most professional users). They
were astonished because they'd chosen the cheapest Dell desktop that
could be pushed that high (a 4600, I believe).

Dell is with low prices here, compared to what we see on the market. I
was looking at one receipt two days ago, with another consultant, and we
saw that a 1600 with nice hardware cost near US$ 1300.00 here. Buying
the same machine -- P4 2.80 GHz with HT, 80 GB SCSI disks capable of 80
MB/s at 160 MHz, 256 MiB of RAM, CD, Gigabit Ethernet adapter,
etc. etc. etc. -- anywhere else would be more expensive than that.

I remember iBooks starting at something like US$ 2100.00... That's more
than half of the Dell

I'm at the other end of the spectrum, with an iBook 12" ultraportable
which cost me, 9 months ago, roughly 1000, about 1/2 as much as the
closest comparable machine in the Windows world (an IBM Thinkpad X40).

I wish we had those prices here...

In this case, adding the $$$ for Visual Studio to the mix, vs the free
XCode I have here, would make the price comparison just ridiculous.

Indeed. But then, if you bought the other computer without Windows and
added a free operating system -- you said you use Linux... --, with its
development tools, then things would start being more comparable.

People lusting for upgrades (because of course today's Mac are better
than last year's) are typically trying to sell such machines for 700-800
or thereabouts, if they're perfect except for their age of about a year.
*sigh*

I wouldn't know where to find a good ultraportable 12" in the PC world
for this kind of prices -- and if I did, Linux wouldn't perfectly
support its "sleep" facilities, a key issue in ultraportable laptops.

I've read somewhere about enhancements to this function in the most
recent kernel. I can't say anything about it, though, since I don't own
a notebook.

Of course, the PC world has a MUCH wider range of offerings, including
low-performance, low-quality ultracheap 250-or-so boxes -- that's what
I typically throw in (with OpenBSD on them) when I propose some
configuration to cheapskate customers. But, as I needed a good
laptop, with the amount of travel I do, that option just wasn't around
for me.

Heh. I do something on the same line you do: cheap boxes with a good
OpenSource OS where they fit. And I also need a good box with a good
OpenSource OS to me. ;-)


My machines here are 100% free and in the country where 60+% of the
software is illegal, I'm very proud of saying that there's nothing
without a proper license here


Maybe I'm just talking about BlackAdder's/Qt's price because of this
culture here or because I'm used to use free (as in free speech and in
free beer ;-)) software... But I really think that if it was cheaper it
would be more used. I have bought several software for my PDAs, some
for my old mobile too...

If I had to pay something like 5 dollars for each copy of the software
or something more expensive for a customized software (e.g. US$ 50.00,
if I sell the product for less than US$ 10,000.00 and more than US$
1,000.00, US$ 500.00 if US$ 10,000.00 < my software price < US$
100,000.00, etc.) it would be more interesting from a commercial point
of view and would also be easier to include such a cost at the product
price.

Of course, I'm looking at my side, they found that their business model
is different and I must either accept it or not use it. For now, not
using it -- even liking more the appearance of the widgets -- has been
my choice.



I guess I deviated a lot from the original intention of the post, and
I'm sorry for that. It wasn't my intention. I just wanted to see the
toolkit on the OSs it supports



Be seeing you,

 

[Jorge Godoy]

The biggest problem for we third-world money-impaired users that many
people don't realize is that we charge for our services in the local
currency, but have to buy stuff in strong currency (dollars or euros).
That's what kills us. *If* the conversion rate were lower (1:1, for
example, as it was a not so long time ago) it would be possible. I'll
tell you some figures.

It was a good time that one. But then, it was an artificial and
unsustainable situation for the economics of Brasil. If it had been
more recently, then I believe it would last longer.

An average programmer in Brazil makes betwen R$ 800,00 to R$
2000,00/month. The actual income, roughly converted, is in the US$ 270
-- US$ 650 range. Yes - is this low. Senior programmers or analyst can
make more, specially if they live in São Paulo, but then the actual
cost of living will make a much bigger dent on their income. In other
words - a US$ 300 tool is too expensive.

And you are taking a good income (R$ 2000,00). I explained about the
minimum wage here... US$ 80.00 against the (I believe) US$ 1100.00 in
the US and probably something like that in the EU countries.

(AFAIK, there are some companies that run special discounts for
customers in third world countries. That's fair for software, I think.
It's a shame no more companies do the same)

Specially with the distribution model where you download everything from
the Internet... No storage costs, no S&H costs...

 

[Hans Nowak]

If PyGUI will have native widgets for Windows as it does for Mac, I hope
it becomes standard. Its API seemed cleaner than wxPython's (and with
one less emulation layer than wax, as pointed out on this thread...).

I didn't see the post that pointed this out... Anyway, this is really only a
problem in theory. I haven't done any benchmarks, but Wax doesn't feel slower
than "pure" wxPython, and (if I may say so myself) is a lot easier to program
in. (Developer time vs program execution time and all that...

 

[Jorge Godoy]

I didn't see the post that pointed this out... Anyway, this is really only a

I may be mixing threads. Today is being a tiresome day... and it seems
that it won't end by midnight. :-(

problem in theory. I haven't done any benchmarks, but Wax doesn't feel slower
than "pure" wxPython, and (if I may say so myself) is a lot easier to program
in. (Developer time vs program execution time and all that...

I should really find some time to give it a try...

 

[Alex Martelli]

The biggest problem for we third-world money-impaired users that many
people don't realize is that we charge for our services in the local
currency, but have to buy stuff in strong currency (dollars or euros).

Very good point, thanks. So, comparative advantage suggests that you
guys should be the ones developing and selling general-purpose tools
through the internet to developers in the relatively richer countries,
while said developers in those countries should rather be doing custom
applications for their local customers. Developing a tool such as, say,
BlackAdder or WingIDE, should cost MUCH less over there, yet if sales
are all done through the net it should not matter at all whether a tool
is written in Brazil or Norway.

Clearly it's not happening. Even third-world countries with HUGE
presence in the IT industry, such as India, are totally concentrating on
developing custom applications, not tools for resale via the net. As
far as I know all commercial IDE's and other tools of that ilk come from
Canada, the US, and the rich parts of Europe. It's a puzzlement!


Alex

 

[Alex Martelli]

I saw that... It is the most interesting offer on the product that I've
seen. The difference is a good one. US$ 399.99... PyQT alone costs
250.00 pounds sterling. I don't know if I have to have a license of Qt
too or if it is included with PyQT, I'd have to read more carefully to
find it out or ask them that.

If you want to develop in C++ as well, you need a Qt license. What you
get with BlackAdder comes with a license to redistribute only apps you
write in Python, not those you write in C++.

Another calculation one should do is the ROI of such an investment. So

That's the key one, of course.

far, as I said in my previous message, the demand for it has not
convinced me to buy it. Yet. And yes, I point it out as an option in
some projects.

But if the customer buys it, rather than you, the ROI is going to be
lower. They get a license to redistrib apps they won't ever write, and
you're back to the same issue on the next proj for another customer. If
you buy the license, you can then redistrib to any or all of the many
customers you write apps for.

If PyGUI will have native widgets for Windows as it does for Mac, I hope
it becomes standard. Its API seemed cleaner than wxPython's (and with
one less emulation layer than wax, as pointed out on this thread...).

Yes. It all depends on somebody wanting to scratch that particular
itch, as usual for opensource projects.

I remember iBooks starting at something like US$ 2100.00... That's more
than half of the Dell

iBooks start at about HALF what you remember.

I wish we had those prices here...

I wish we had those prices here, too. We don't, so I buy in the US: any
AppleStore there is happy to sell me an iBook, and Apple's warranty on
portable products is worldwide. (And I far _prefer_ the US-layout
keyboard I get that way to an Italian-layout one -- US and Spanish are
the only layouts you can buy in the US).

Why Apple chooses to price stuff cheap in richer countries, US foremost,
and dearer the poorer the country, I dunno.

Indeed. But then, if you bought the other computer without Windows and
added a free operating system -- you said you use Linux... --, with its
development tools, then things would start being more comparable.

Indeed, Linux is what I run on desktops, and I go back with it to 0.92.
But on laptops all of my attempts haven't yet produced one that can deal
with 'sleep' properly, while on the iBook _it just works_, no hassles.

I've read somewhere about enhancements to this function in the most
recent kernel. I can't say anything about it, though, since I don't own
a notebook.

I'll check it out eventually, since I do have a couple of old
intel-based notebooks. But I've heard about such enhancements about
every release on the last few years so I'm not holding my breath.

My machines here are 100% free and in the country where 60+% of the
software is illegal, I'm very proud of saying that there's nothing
without a proper license here

That's very important -- piracy is pretty widespread in Southern Europe,
too, and from my POV what it does is first and foremost present unfair
competition to free software.

Maybe I'm just talking about BlackAdder's/Qt's price because of this
culture here or because I'm used to use free (as in free speech and in
free beer ;-)) software... But I really think that if it was cheaper it

Hmmm, but it seems that the main issue you have with Qt is that it's
free only if you DO use it on and for free software -- that's what the
GPL is all about. If a free-software culture it's OK; in a
software=for=money culture it's OK; it seems to grate only on developers
who want not to pay for the software they use but still charge for the
software they sell.

would be more used. I have bought several software for my PDAs, some
for my old mobile too...

If I had to pay something like 5 dollars for each copy of the software
or something more expensive for a customized software (e.g. US$ 50.00,
if I sell the product for less than US$ 10,000.00 and more than US$
1,000.00, US$ 500.00 if US$ 10,000.00 < my software price < US$
100,000.00, etc.) it would be more interesting from a commercial point
of view and would also be easier to include such a cost at the product
price.

Personally, I'm extremely happy that the culture of commercial software
is moving away from such complicated pricing schemes that were the norm
some years ago. The attempt to reflect "what is this sw actually worth
to YOU" doesn't work, anyway. I can have a 1000-$ program where, say,
Qt's functionality is actually 80% of what I'm doing -- a program that's
mostly-GUI... -- and I can have a 10000-$ one where the GUI matters very
marginally, say the program is mostly about clever heuristic engines
scavenging through DBs and networks and all I want is a little sysadm
GUI console on the side for a customer's sysadm to keep an eye on
things.

Of course, I'm looking at my side, they found that their business model
is different and I must either accept it or not use it. For now, not
using it -- even liking more the appearance of the widgets -- has been
my choice.

It's definitely your choice. I do hope you get some opportunity to do
GPL development and try it out, because I think it's really good.

I guess I deviated a lot from the original intention of the post, and
I'm sorry for that. It wasn't my intention. I just wanted to see the
toolkit on the OSs it supports

If you're looking for a native appearance on Windows, as I understand
things, you won't get it with PyGUI until somebody makes a back-end...


Alex

 

[Cameron Laird]

IMNSHO, nope -- I'm quite a fan of KDE, but I discovered Macs 9 months
ago and immediately fell in love with MacOSX's "Aqua" user interface
look and feel. These days I use a Mac for everything I can possibly use
one for, even though I mostly program for Linux (and a little Windows).


It's perfectly possible: Trolltech, the authors of Qt, will be extremely
happy to sell you a commercial license of Qt so you can develop and sell
your code as closed-source or whatever.



Me too (well, not Photoshop, actually -- if I had to process images I
think I'd use GIMP instead), so I use them on my Mac iBook 12" laptop
(whose operating system's guts aren't all that far from FreeBSD --
there's some Mach microkernel involved, but it's very unlikely that
could possibly be a problem -- those guts are all opensource, too, under
the name of 'Darwin').

.
.
.
Me, too, Alex; that is, while I'm sitting in a room with, um, four
x86-based hosts, and my follow-up edit image is on a Linux host a
thousand kilometers away, I'm typing on a MacOS portable. I can't
imagine ever again buying a Windows machine, although that's where
most of my deliveries are.

Something certainly is frustrating, though, at least, in regard to
Apple prices in Brazil and elsewhere. I've threatened a few times
to start a business importing used boxes to precisely that country.
MacOS is so valuable now, and the prices for it there, specifically,
so aberrant, that *something* is wrong. It sure would be a pleasure
to be able to help make useful computing more affordable.

I utterly agree with your comment elsewhere that a simple-minded
comparative-advantage calculation calls into question the current
habit that third-world body shops aspire to write custom software
for the first-world rich. "One step at a time" is all I can think
to say.

Incidentally, my expert sources emphasize to me that GIMP still
has a long way to go before it effectively rivals Photoshop.

 

[Neil Hodgson]

Alex Martelli:

Developing a tool such as, say,
BlackAdder or WingIDE, should cost MUCH less over there, yet if sales
are all done through the net it should not matter at all whether a tool
is written in Brazil or Norway.

Clearly it's not happening. Even third-world countries with HUGE
presence in the IT industry, such as India, are totally concentrating on
developing custom applications, not tools for resale via the net. As
far as I know all commercial IDE's and other tools of that ilk come from
Canada, the US, and the rich parts of Europe. It's a puzzlement!

Much of development staff at theKompany are located in Romania and
Ukraine. I've worked on development tool projects where most of the software
was developed in Egypt and India although the brand on the products appeared
USAn.

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-10-15-012-20-PS-BZ-KE

Neil

 

[Alex Martelli]

...
Much of development staff at theKompany are located in Romania and
Ukraine. I've worked on development tool projects where most of the software
was developed in Egypt and India although the brand on the products appeared
USAn.

So I was wrong -- it's happening all right, but tends to be disguised
(perhaps for marketing reasons). Thanks for the info!


Alex

 

[Joe Laughlin]

I'm a fan of Greg Ewing's PyGUI [1]. I used it to code a
simple game for my son [2], and enjoyed it. Programming
with wxPython feels like programming with a C++ tool that
has been wrapped in Python. Programming with PyGUI feels
like programming with a real Python tool.

If you're developing a commercial application in Python,
wxPython is currently the only option that offers native
widgets on w32. It would be a boost for Python if PyGUI
got a native w32 backend.

Therefore, I offer the following suggestions:

Python programmers: use PyGUI! It's nice. Contribute
bug reports and so forth.

Python developers: Is it too early to include PyGUI in
the standard library? It seems stable to me.

PSF: If anyone applies for a grant [3] to put a proper
w32 backend into PyGUI, please give them money. I would
offer to do that job myself, but (a) I'm not w32 expert
and (b) I'm busy trying to make one of those
aforementioned commercial apps.

Thanks,

Zooko, Journeyman Hacker

[1] http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python_gui/
[2] http://zooko.com/log-2004.html#d2004-06-23
[3] http://python.org/psf/call-2004.html

I tried to build PyGui and I got..

% python setup.py build
<snip>
copying GUI/Gtk/Geometry.py -> build/lib/GUI/Gtk
copying GUI/Gtk/ScrollBars.py -> build/lib/GUI/Gtk
package init file 'GUI/Generic/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular
file)
package init file 'GUI/Mac/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular file)
package init file 'GUI/Gtk/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular file)

And sure enough, those files don't exist. Ideas?

 

[Terry Reedy]

So I was wrong -- it's happening all right, but tends to be disguised
(perhaps for marketing reasons). Thanks for the info!

Also for political reasons. The US has reactionaries, left and right, who
reject the idea that all people have a right to participate in the global
information economy.

Terry J.Reedy

 

[Leif K-Brooks]

Too bad these aren't tools available on Linux or FreeBSD... I really
liked the way they look

OpenOffice.org can make diagrams like those pretty easily.

 

[Jorge Godoy]

iBooks start at about HALF what you remember.

Not here. As I said, I wish we had the prices you do in Europe and
in the US.

Why Apple chooses to price stuff cheap in richer countries, US foremost,
and dearer the poorer the country, I dunno.

I think their logistics cost is lower in the US than in the rest of the
world. Their market is bigger there too.

That's very important -- piracy is pretty widespread in Southern Europe,
too, and from my POV what it does is first and foremost present unfair
competition to free software.

I am tired of showing clients that they have to be very careful not to
buy a cat instead of a rabbit... ;-)

Hmmm, but it seems that the main issue you have with Qt is that it's
free only if you DO use it on and for free software -- that's what the
GPL is all about. If a free-software culture it's OK; in a
software=for=money culture it's OK; it seems to grate only on developers
who want not to pay for the software they use but still charge for the
software they sell.

I would pay for it if the price was fair to me. It isn't, so I have to
avoid using it. It's that simple...

Fortunately, we're starting to do more free software than closed
software.

Things are getting better.

Personally, I'm extremely happy that the culture of commercial software
is moving away from such complicated pricing schemes that were the norm
some years ago. The attempt to reflect "what is this sw actually worth

There are some market niche where it still happens... And for software
licensed per CPU, how is it billed on HT enabled CPUs? ;-) The hardware
starts adding more complications to such commercial licensing world.

to YOU" doesn't work, anyway. I can have a 1000-$ program where, say,
Qt's functionality is actually 80% of what I'm doing -- a program that's
mostly-GUI... -- and I can have a 10000-$ one where the GUI matters very
marginally, say the program is mostly about clever heuristic engines
scavenging through DBs and networks and all I want is a little sysadm
GUI console on the side for a customer's sysadm to keep an eye on
things.

Then, this is your choice to use such a GUI or not. It's the same thing
I do with the free / not free (free beer) stuff now. If the software I
write is free (free speech and possibly free beer), I don't mind that
much in making it GPL or BSDL or anothr free license (I personally like
the GPL idea, so this is the one I use).

It's definitely your choice. I do hope you get some opportunity to do
GPL development and try it out, because I think it's really good.

I do it. And I like it too. But I have to pay the bills and even
though everything is transferred to the customer, some of them don't
like the idea of a free license to their software.

If you're looking for a native appearance on Windows, as I understand
things, you won't get it with PyGUI until somebody makes a back-end...

I am not looking for it. I use wxPython and it does give me that. And
the native look on Mac too. I was just saying that a GUI toolkit with
no pictures of how it looks like on its website is bad marketing. I
hope it all doesn't start again

 

[Jorge Godoy]

Incidentally, my expert sources emphasize to me that GIMP still
has a long way to go before it effectively rivals Photoshop.

I've been told that too. Maybe because I'm not into the graphics area I
think it works pretty well There are other tools such as SodiPodi,
too...

In fact, we might already have tools to do everything Photoshop does.
The difference is that we try to keep it simple (KISS) and bundle
several specialized tools, while Photoshop tries to be a swiss army
knife, bundling everything together.

I'm hearing more the FUD of "I want to use Linux but then I have to use
one thousand commands and programs to get the same results I get with
<proprietary program> on <proprietary OS>".

 

[Greg Ewing]

I'm not familiar with the looks on Macs...

In that case, seeing a screen shot wouldn't
help you decide whether it looked Mac-like.

Too bad these aren't tools available on Linux or FreeBSD... I really
liked the way they look

Yep, once again, Apple is way ahead of everyone else with
their integration of PDF imaging into the core graphics
stuff. That's what gives those images their nice anti-
aliased look...

 

[Greg Ewing]

I tried to build PyGui and I got..

package init file 'GUI/Generic/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular
file)
package init file 'GUI/Mac/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular file)
package init file 'GUI/Gtk/__init__.py' not found (or not a regular file)

Ignore those messages! It has been installed. Trust me.

(I really will have to do something about that... it
seems to be scaring a lot of people.)

 

[Ville Vainio]

Terry> Also for political reasons. The US has reactionaries, left
Terry> and right, who reject the idea that all people have a right
Terry> to participate in the global information economy.

I don't think that's exclusively an US concern - all industrialized
countries have people who are concerned about outsourcing,
globalization and generally losing their jobs.

 

[Alex Martelli]

Not here. As I said, I wish we had the prices you do in Europe and
in the US.

They're higher here (at today's exchange rates, 1467 vs 1099 for an
entry-level iBook). My solution, as I mentioned, is buying in the US.
Apple of course tries to stop any attempt to go around their market
segmentation, but for portable products that's not easy for them.

I think their logistics cost is lower in the US than in the rest of the
world. Their market is bigger there too.

Convenient excuses for Apple's market-fragmentation strategy,
unfortunately (for them) easily shown as such. All iBooks are shipped
from Taiwan, for example -- getting them to US, Brazil or the
Netherlands is basically the same. The quarrel 'du jour' against Apple,
to give another example, is about the fact that iTunes song downloads
cost 20% more in the UK than Germany or France, and the latter two
countries won't even let you buy unless you can give a French/German
address and credit card (in Italy you can't buy from any of these
stores... unless you're lucky enough to have an address and credit card
in the appropriate country...). This is arguably against Europe's
single-market laws, and since we're talking about downloads over the net
the "logistics" argument is laid bare for the feeble excuse it is.
Indeed Apple's response that I've seen is not about trying to argue that
it costs more to push bits to London than to Paris, but rather that
iTunes song prices should be compared, not with the prices of the same
song in different countries, but rather with the prices of other songs
from competitors in the same country. In other words, Apple is charging
all the market will bear, segmenting markets ruthlessly to do so, even
when they have to break laws in order to scrounge extra profits that
way. I think it's quite a myopic attitude, eroding any goodwill from
people who LIKE their products and turning it into rage and loathing.

If and when the costs of delivery are higher it's quite reasonable to
charge "X+postage and handling" for a fixed X. For example, delivering
to an address just next door to an AppleStore may well be cheaper than
delivering to some rural address in the heartlands. But does Apple
charge the rural customers more? No way -- _in the US_ they're quite
careful to avoid the horrid PR that would result from THAT. Elsewhere,
apparently, they don't really care -- if Apple believes that Britons can
be gouged for 20% more than Frenchmen, they pounce on it. I find that
sad when I'm not foaming at the mouth against it;-).

I do with the free / not free (free beer) stuff now. If the software I
write is free (free speech and possibly free beer), I don't mind that
much in making it GPL or BSDL or anothr free license (I personally like
the GPL idea, so this is the one I use).

You like it and use it when you write software yourself, yet you
expressed the desire that Qt didn't, so you could use it when you write
software that's not free. "Do unto others as you would have others do
unto you" seems a fundamental, reasonable principle of fairness: aren't
you violating it here, by using a license you wish others didn't use?


Alex