Libre Graphics Meeting Summary

Better late than never. This was my first time in Libre Graphics Meeting where I met Máirín Duffy in the first day of conference and Andy Fitzsimon on the third and final day. The whole experience was great for the following reasons:

• Exchange of ideas among developers and users.
• Presentations in two languages: English and French
  
• Meeting new people.

For this 2007 of Libre Graphics Meeting, here is the summary for each applications:

• Blender 3D: the next version 2.44 will come with full support of 64bit architectures. It is the transition for the incoming 2.5 release at the end of 2007. Also display is the first open-source movie Elephant Dreams.
• Inkscape: the main attraction given the fact it has the most presentation. The ability to provide a photorealistic art was one of impressive features.
• Scribus: Announcement of 1.3.4 that provide new features like improved text layout. One of example of the use of Scribus is Le Tigre, a French ad-free newspaper.
  
• Gimp: preview release of Gimp 2.4 and a demonstration of the GEGL engine. A reminder that Gimp is not a Photoshop clone.
  
• Krita: new features like watercoloor painting effects and the use of OpenEXR library as seen on some movies like Gangs of New York.
• Open Font License: gertium is one of free fonts. Demonstration of a new vectoriel font renderer.
• Others listed presentation are SVG and Open ClipArt.

During the last day of meeting, I helped Máirín to find the way back to the airport as most of the guides only speak French. Later, Andy Fitz I watched a new Cairo API demonstration doing a 3D effects similar to Mac OS X 10.4. The only description I can give is the future of Open Source of using more interesting desktop effects is looking bright. To conclude, I would like to thank Max Spevack for informing about Libre Graphics Meeting and I will look forward get in again in a near future.