The Fedora Community & encouragement…

Even though I have only been an active member of the fedora community for about a month now, something happened about an hour ago just to reinforce how awesome the community is. I was reading the fedora-art mailing list this morning, and was pleased to read a short and sweet message from Jon Roberts that contained encouraging words about the art-team’s echo icons project. So thanks Jon!

I would also like to jump on the encouragement bandwagon and give a shout out to the fedora-docs team and thank them for the awesome Desktop User Guide, which has been a valuable source of information for myself in making the switch to Linux and Fedora.

Fedora 9 animated banner - take 2

Okies, here is the v.2 of the fedora 9 banner that i originally posted yesterday…

And here is v.1 from yesterday for comparison:

Despite what I said yesterday, i am pretty happy with both designs, so i will post the sources up on the fedora wiki

Fedora 9 animated banner

Here is a quick banner that i threw together in Inkscape + the GIMP for the upcoming Fedora 9 release. I dont think this is the one that ill submit officially to fedora-art, but i wanted to throw it up so people can see it.

I’m not fully happy with the positioning of the text that appears at the end, but ill fix that up later…
Shoot me a message if you are on the fedora-art team and want the source files (.xcf, .svg and all the frames in .png)

Issue 1 of ‘Code:Free’ - an Art Magazine for FOSS artists

chrisdesign has launched a new PDF magazine entitled ‘Code:Free’ and it is loaded to the brim with awesome examples of artwork created using Free Software. As can be expected, the majority of the art was created with Inkscape and the GIMP, but there are also some nice Open Clip Art remixes thrown in to mix it up a bit. Chrisdesign also writes some tutorials (some of which i have featured on the inkscape tutorials weblog) so be sure to browse his blog.

Be sure to check it out and support the growing number of artists using FOSS to create stunning works!

Jon Roberts gives us 5 Reasons You’ll Love Fedora 9

Jon gives a very nice blog post about the things to look forward to if F9…
Personally I Can’t Wait…
Jon Said:
“The first distro to include KDE 4 by default, PackageKit, NetworkManager working CDMA and GSM cards out of the box, support for installing to encrypted partitions, persistent, custom live USB sticks…”

read more | digg story

LGM

LGM

Originally uploaded by AndyFitz

andy has already got a start on the art for LGM4, and it is awesome. I can’t make it for LGM3 in wroclaw, so im already hyped for Singapore LGM4!

inkscape wallpapers / desktop backgrounds

here are some inkscape wallpapers that i have put together from the sticker designs that i did a few months ago for the inkscape sticker contest. The SVG’s are available from my deviantart site that the thumbs below are linked to.

Red Hat Asks Federal Court To Limit Patents On Software

Red Hat has asked the federal court in the US to limit software patents due to the negative effect on open source development and innovation:

Quote from the Red Hat news page:

Today, Red Hat took a public stand challenging the standards for patenting software. In the Biliski case that is now before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, this patent issue is ripe for consideration. In a friend of the court brief submitted to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in the Bilski case today, Red Hat describes the special problems that patents pose for open source and seeks modification of the standards for patentable subject matter that take open source into account.

read more | digg story

Support the Libre Graphics Meeting 2008

The Libre Graphics Meeting brings together developers and users of free software graphics applications, such as the GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, Blender, Krita, the Open Clip Art Library and more. This year the conference is in Wroclaw, Poland and we need to raise money to support travel for all these (often unpaid) Open Source developers to attend.

read more | digg story

Inkscape 0.46 Fully released.

Even though the Linux versions of the newest version of Inkscape have been out for a few weeks now, the release of the OSX and Windows packages means that everyone can now enjoy the feature packed 0.46 version of Inkscape.

Make sure you digg the release of inkscape 0.46 

Following is a blurb from the inkscape release announcement:

The Inkscape community today is announcing the release of the newest version of its open source vector graphics editor. Inkscape 0.46 is a major update that introduces native PDF support. The implementation of PDF support in Inkscape provides an easy, open source solution to editing PDF documents.

Tons of new features and performance improvements are included in this release. Dialogs now have the ability to be docked to the editing window. Gradients can be edited completely on-canvas. The new Paint Bucket Tool fills bounded areas with color. A new 3D Box tool helps create perspective-correct drawings. A new Tweak tool provides an intuitive method for editing paths and painting objects. The new Live Path Effects feature can create “brushes” and various organic effects on paths. Improvements to color management include support for color spaces other than sRGB. Most SVG filters are now implemented, and a new powerful UI is provided for editing filter stacks.

Inkscape can be downloaded for free from the inkscape website:

http://inkscape.org/