[HN Gopher] LibreSprite is an open source program for creating a...
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       LibreSprite is an open source program for creating and animating
       your sprites
        
       Author : pabs3
       Score  : 90 points
       Date   : 2021-02-08 10:28 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (libresprite.github.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (libresprite.github.io)
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | As mentioned, this is an unmaintained fork of Aseprite which went
       | "shared source" in 2016. If you want an actual open source,
       | actually maintained, pixel art program I recommend GrafX2:
       | http://grafx2.chez.com The major drawback is UI may not be
       | "modern" enough for zoomer tastes, as it's based on old PC/Amiga
       | painting programs, most notably Deluxe Paint. But I liked it so
       | much I contributed code to it (a bugfix to get it working on
       | NetBSD).
        
       | freeduck wrote:
       | How does it compare to synfig?
        
       | RpFLCL wrote:
       | Cool to see this posted. I've been using it for the past few
       | weeks while making some simple 2d games Godot (my winter hobby).
       | 
       | Overall it's been pretty good. Sometimes it slows down during
       | tasks (a lot more than Photoshop or Clip Studio do while doing
       | things like transforming a selection) but most of it works well.
       | The animation features have been handy and were just simple
       | enough to be useful.
        
         | zeta0134 wrote:
         | If you're having performance issues on non-Windows, you might
         | try twiddling around with the UI options. In particular,
         | setting "Screen Scaling" to 100% and "UI Scaling" up to 200% to
         | compensate seems to _vastly_ improve performance on both my
         | Pinebook, and even my gaming rig with a reasonably beefy AMD
         | graphics card. I 'm not sure why it makes such a big
         | difference, but it's night and day for me in terms of jank and
         | overall smoothness.
        
         | pkaye wrote:
         | There is also Spriter. Its not open source but there is a free
         | version and the paid version was a kick starter and they had it
         | for sale at a low price on Humble bundle at times.
         | 
         | https://brashmonkey.com/spriter-pro/
        
       | ddtaylor wrote:
       | Screenshots?
        
       | iFire wrote:
       | Aseprite isn't opensource so, LibreSprite is the last commit that
       | was open source.
        
         | Deukhoofd wrote:
         | Aseprite is open source: https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite/
         | 
         | It's just under a proprietary license.
        
           | danShumway wrote:
           | Usually when people use the term "open source", they'll be
           | referring to an OSI-approved definition. I do distinguish
           | between open source (lowercase) and Open Source (uppercase)
           | but I'm in a minority on that point, most of your readers
           | won't.
           | 
           | In general, "source available" or "shared source" are terms
           | that will lead to less confusion in situations like this.
           | 
           | In terms of proprietary licenses, Aseprite is very good. It's
           | one of the very, very few proprietary software products that
           | I allow myself to use while developing games. But calling it
           | open source is at best going to spark some
           | disagreement/confusion, and at worst going to spark some
           | needless debate from people (like me) who believe that the
           | FOSS community needs to more closely guard how those terms
           | are used and abused online.
           | 
           | Note that the main Aseprite dev also doesn't use the words
           | "open source" when describing its changed license:
           | https://dev.aseprite.org/2016/09/01/new-source-code-license/
        
             | chrisseaton wrote:
             | I don't know why OSI should get to define what 'Open
             | Source' is.
        
               | cycloptic wrote:
               | Because they had a criteria and they conducted a review
               | of lots of licenses. It's not any less "gatekeepery" if
               | some random person or company takes their random license
               | and says "here, we say this one license is open source
               | based on our own criteria that we invented for ourselves,
               | accept it."
        
               | xyzzy_plugh wrote:
               | You're confused. A person or company claiming some term
               | indeed applies to something is not gate keeping. It's
               | when the opposite happens, when a person or company
               | denies you use of that term, for arbitrary reasons.
               | 
               | So, I'd say OSI is, _by definition_ , designed to be the
               | gatekeepers of "Open Source".
        
               | cycloptic wrote:
               | I would agree with you if anyone was saying "hey the term
               | open source doesn't mean anything and you can use it for
               | whatever you want" but that's not what I've ever seen
               | happening, and I doubt anyone wants that because it would
               | make the term useless. What we actually do see is other
               | groups trying to promote their own alternate definition
               | of the term and trying to deny the OSI's usage, for
               | equally arbitrary reasons. It's the same form of
               | gatekeeping. Please just come up with another phrase,
               | that's what the OSI did after all when they found the
               | term "free software" to be inadequate.
        
               | chrisseaton wrote:
               | > Please just come up with another phrase, that's what
               | the OSI did
               | 
               | I think a bit of a myth. There's documented existing use
               | of the term in the same context before the OSI say they
               | came up with it, and they were denied the trademark by
               | the USPTO because it was an existing simply descriptive
               | term.
        
               | cycloptic wrote:
               | I'm not saying they came up with the term before anyone
               | in the world. While the term was used previously, it
               | didn't have the concrete definition it does now. That's
               | why they were able to do what they did.
        
               | chrisseaton wrote:
               | You said 'just come up with another phrase' and that's
               | what they _didn 't_ do - they took an existing phrase
               | with a similar meaning, and started to tell everyone they
               | were going to advocate a different meaning. And then
               | tried to trademark it to steal it from the community!!
        
               | cycloptic wrote:
               | Sorry I didn't clarify -- They came up with a phrase
               | that, while it existed, didn't have a concrete
               | definition. To give an example, if someone right now
               | wants to create "Source Available Initiative" or
               | something like that I think that would conceptually be
               | fine, even though the term is already in use, there is no
               | organization that is clearly defining what it means. Does
               | that explain it better? (Although I think creating more
               | organizations like this is a terrible idea for other
               | reasons, mostly having to do with license proliferation)
        
               | chrisseaton wrote:
               | > "Source Available Initiative" or something like that I
               | think that would conceptually be fine
               | 
               | I can understand that position but... they tried to
               | trademark just 'open source' - without the 'initiative'
               | part. They were told to rod off by the USPTO because
               | you're not allowed to do that, so it's not ok by the law,
               | whatever you think of it.
        
               | chrisseaton wrote:
               | Unfortunately they don't own the term and can't tell
               | anyone what to do with it.
        
               | cycloptic wrote:
               | You're right, but that misses the point, they put in the
               | work to define and promote the term over a span of more
               | than 20 years. If your plan is to undo that 20 years
               | worth of work, you had better be prepared to take on the
               | same amount of work over the same time span, and I hope
               | the only reason it's done is because we can verifiably
               | prove the results will be better for everyone.
        
           | boogies wrote:
           | That's often called "source available". It does not meet the
           | Open Source Definition
           | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition) or
           | the guidelines that was based on (https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
           | ki/Debian_Free_Software_Guideline...) or the original Free
           | Software Definition
           | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition).
        
             | blondin wrote:
             | so, what's the big difference between source available and
             | open source?
        
               | zeta0134 wrote:
               | The biggest difference in Aesprite's case is a limit on
               | distribution. From their own blog post on the subject:
               | 
               | > [The new EULA] still gives you the possibility to
               | compile and modify the program for your own purposes, but
               | it doesn't allow you to redistribute Aseprite.
               | 
               | Fully open source licenses do not restrict the end user's
               | freedoms in this way; rather, they generally _encourage_
               | (and sometimes require) sharing source code modifications
               | so the larger community can benefit from your work. This
               | tends to be at odds with some commercial models
               | (especially the  "sell copies of software" model) so
               | there's much debate about when each type of license is
               | most appropriate.
        
       | fenomas wrote:
       | Am I missing something, or is this basically an unmaintained
       | snapshot of Aseprite from 2016 (when it was last released under
       | GPL)?
       | 
       | Since Aseprite has come a long way since then, interested parties
       | might want to check there instead. It's free to compile from
       | source, or binaries are $20 on steam. (But it's not libre free -
       | IIRC the only restriction is that you're not allowed to
       | redistribute the source.)
       | 
       | https://www.aseprite.org/
        
         | whateveracct wrote:
         | a derivation for the unfree version is even available in
         | nixpkgs:
         | https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/applicatio...
         | 
         | Just add                   (aseprite.override { unfree = true;
         | })
         | 
         | to your configuration.nix or shell.nix or whatever. If you want
         | an ever newer version, you can of course override and bump the
         | src past what nixpkgs is at.
        
         | app4soft wrote:
         | > _an unmaintained snapshot of Aseprite from 2016 (when it was
         | last released under GPL)?_
         | 
         | It is _maintained_ [0] fork derived from the latest GPL-
         | licensed Aseprite.
         | 
         | [0]
         | https://github.com/LibreSprite/libresprite.github.io/commits...
        
       | riidom wrote:
       | Is it too early to show some screenshots? I find that important
       | when I look at a project. Just my 2 cents! :)
        
         | app4soft wrote:
         | > _Is it too early to show some screenshots?_
         | 
         |  _LibreSprite_ already ready[0] to use! ;)
         | 
         | [0] https://twitter.com/app4soft/status/1333738121364709376
        
         | soulofmischief wrote:
         | > LibreSprite originated as a fork of Aseprite, developed by
         | David Capello.
         | 
         | Right there in on the page. The implication being that until
         | the fork is mature, glancing at Aseprite screenshots should
         | satisfy you. Cut the dev a little slack, this wasn't a show HN.
        
         | rob74 wrote:
         | Yeah... I'll try to write down my thoughts while using this
         | website:
         | 
         | "Ah, an app for designing sprites? Cool, where are the
         | screenshots? Maybe I can try the navigation? Ah, it's a single-
         | page site, do I really need a navigation bar to jump to the
         | individual paragraphs of text on this very short page? BTW,
         | it's called "libre", so where's the source code? Ah, must be
         | the GitHub icon under "social networks", riiiiight..."
         | 
         | Don't get me wrong, I'm a developer myself, and this looks
         | exactly like the info page I might build for a project - it's a
         | nice page, but it has some UX issues which you only notice if
         | you look at it from a user's perspective.
        
         | genezeta wrote:
         | Since it is a fork of aseprite [0], maybe that can give you an
         | approximate idea of what it looks like. I mean some screenshots
         | would be nice, sure, but maybe this helps you.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.aseprite.org/ (also linked from the LibreSprite
         | site)
        
           | pixxel wrote:
           | Just dropping a note that it was forked in 2016.
        
             | Deukhoofd wrote:
             | And that there haven't been many commits since, as opposed
             | to Aseprite, which is still actively being worked on.
        
       | ryanschneider wrote:
       | FYI the "checkout our guide to contributing" link is a 404 to
       | non-existent CONTRIBUTING.md.
        
         | app4soft wrote:
         | Do not hesitate to ask devs to fix it.[0]
         | 
         | [0] https://github.com/libresprite/libresprite/issues
        
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       (page generated 2021-02-09 23:01 UTC)