This is Martin Owens. He is a leading developer of Inkscape, a free open-source vector graphics editor. Adobe has lost millions of dollars because of him. Thank you Martin 🫡

I'm not a pro but do some shit from time to time. Between Inkscape and Gimp I never needed anything else for images. Of onlh Gimp had better tools for animated gifs... still serviceable tho haven't tried the new Gimp yet.

He has a Samson Meteor microphone. Same as mine. He is cool in my book :D

Nice. Anyone who takes money from Adobe is a hero to me.

Thank you, Mr. Owens. From the bottom of my heart. InkScape is my favourite graphics tool.

I've designed banners and flags in Inkscape, convention signage, even electoral campaign materials like business cards, handcards, campaign signs. A great tool

those dollars were not adobe's to lose but users' to save

The only time I used Adobe Illustrator was when it was brand new, in 1987. I may have used early versions of Photoshop, but never as my "daily driver." So I might not be the most knowledgeable about Adobe software.

But the thing I MOST resent Adobe for was buying and killing Macromedia... I really really liked Macromedia Fireworks (raster, vector, and object graphics editor). Fireworks could do a lot of the things Adobe software could for a fraction of the price AND without having to use multiple applications to get the job done.

Inkscape is remarkable, and maybe someday someone will merge some raster image object tools into it, and then it might begin to resemble the Fireworks of 20 years ago when Adobe killed it.

Is Mr Owens British perchance?

Kudos to Mr. Owens and all Inkscape developers. Inkscape is a masterpiece.

Hitchhikers Guide on the bookshelf, nice.

I disagree with that framing, someone not buying your shit is not the same as you losing money. Inkscape saved millions for graphic designers, which is very different. Adobe was not entitled to that money, you can't lose something that was never yours.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I appreciate him very much, OSS maintainers and devs dont get enough praise. Also I dont get the intense entitlement some people have towards unpaid OSS devs and mainatiners, they think that they somehow deserve a product equal to that of a corporate offering while not offering any money or code.

I don't use Inkscape, but that is a good hat.

Inkscape is goated and so is Martin, respect 🫡

I urge you to watch his update videos, he's such a neat guy, and he rocks a ska/dandy style

I am a Corel kind of bird myself, having used it both professionally (which is how I got started with it) and at home for a couple of decades now. I will say two things about that:

In its current version Inkscape is roughly on par with were CorelDraw was in its 4.0 state or thereabouts (which I still have a copy of, on like seventeen 3.5" floppy disks!) which sounds like damning with faint praise but it really isn't considering that Inkscape costs nothing to use.

However, one factor that I think most people don't think about is that Inkscape is currently the best software I've ever used, bar none, for ripping apart .pdf documents made by other software, for the purposes of monkeying with their contents. And that's a ten story tall flaming middle finger to Adobe, and completely obviates the need for 99.9999999% of all users to ever have to pay for the "pro" version of Adobe Acrobat or whatever they're calling it this week just to be able to made minor adjustments to a .pdf.

Open source software does not cause a loss of $ it causes everyone else gain.

Inkscape user here. Thanks Martin!

Inkscape is a pleasure to use; as powerful as you need, and you can use it with almost no learning curve and add power features as you need them. It's a wonderfully designed program with a well-thought out UX.

Gimp really could learn a lot about UX design from Inkscape. As much as I like Gimp, while uncommon things are possible but hard, simple things are also possible but hard.

Inkscape is one of my favorite applications out there. I use it almost daily, both for my day job and hobbies. Thanks Martin!

Hadn’t heard of it. Will download later.

1. Inkscape is awesome
2. Much like Gimp, Inkscape is not at all a competitor to the adobe suite if you are a professional
3. A hobbyist using hobbyist software is not loss of money for The most feature rich professional oriented software out there

Looks like a great guy. I use inkscape when I need nice looking graphics at home for all sorts of things. I've never paid a lot of attention at the names on the about page. Meeting him like this on a photo is pretty cool!

Nice to meet you unilaterally Mr Martin. Thank you!

I've been using Inkscape for over 10 years now. I had no idea the man behind it wore a bowler hat and now I will never use another vector program again.

How many of those millions went to his bank account? I'm guessing not many.

inkscape is great, I use it all the time

I made nearly all the 2D assets in my game with Inkscape. It wouldn't have been possible without it.

Seriously fuck adobe. We use them at work and they have the shittiest management portal in the universe and also make it so hard to cancel subscriptions.

I like his hat.

Inkscape is still notably worse to use than Affinity Designer, despite having been started more than ten years earlier. Why?

OMS! He looks awesome. Totally someone I could see hanging at a con with.

Thank you!

Remember to support your heroes!

HMS represent. Fuck the republican traitor filth.

And top of the morning to ye!