| Tux Paint - an exercise in Open Source for kids |
by Bill Kendrick
Version 0.9.9 of "Tux Paint" was just released. Tux Paint is a drawing program for young children, released as Open Source software, under the GNU General Public License. (Think "The Gimp," but scaled down and 'cartooned up' to suit kids of all ages and levels of computer competency.)
Since Tux Paint is becoming so close to being 'feature complete' (and so near that arbitrary milestone of "version 1.0"), I thought now would be a good time to share how far it's gotten since it was first announced in July 2002.
Since the first few releases, Tux Paint has received contributions from over 30 other people from all corners of the globe. It has grown to nearly 12,000 lines of C code, and has been translated into two dozen languages (with more on the way). Ports and packages of Tux Paint are available for Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, NetBSD, and Debian-, Slackware-, and RPM-based Linux distributions.
Over the past few months, I've had the pleasure of personally demonstrating Tux Paint to a number of Linux, Windows and Macintosh user groups in my area. One question that always comes up is "how do you make money?" My answer, "I have a full-time job," usually gets some laughs.
Unfortunately, I think most 'average' computer users out there are constantly fighting with viruses, upgrade costs, and bad technical support. To them, Open Source and Free Software must seem pretty bizarre.
What I've tried to explain to them is that along with the 'good karma' I get from releasing Tux Paint as Free Software -- knowing it's being used and enjoyed by all kinds of people out in the real world -- I also benefit as a programmer from the help and experience of dozens of other developers.
These gracious developers would have not only been unable, but probably unwilling (unless I paid them), to help if I had released Tux Paint as proprietary software.
Thanks to the Free Software and Open Source movements, though, not only am I blessed with a powerful and stable desktop with excellent development tools, amazingly configurable web hosting software, and free communication applications that help me connect with others, but I also benefit from taking part in it all, by meeting and sharing ideas and knowledge with countless others.
So go out there and help encourage us! Download Tux Paint and install it for your children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews... Send copies to your friends and local schools to try out... Try it yourself, and tell us what you like and don't like!
Tux Paint is part of the Tux4Kids project, whose goal is to produce and promote quality educational Open Source software.
About the author: Bill Kendrick lives in Davis, California with his wife Melissa and two cats. He works for Worldcom in Sacramento, and is currently chair of the Linux Users' Group of Davis. He writes Open Source software in his copious spare time.
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