Talk:List of image viewers

Untitled
Should we really separate this catalog into "Proprietary" and "Free"?

I suggest changing it to "Commercial", "Free" and "Open Source". The word "proprietary" is too tough and can be used to scare non-technical users from freeware programs in favour of open source software - while essentially there is no difference between two for non-technical end user. --Futurix 28 June 2005 11:36 (UTC)


 * But there are open source products that are commercial. The meaning of the word "free" is not clear. It can mean "free of charge" or "free as in beer" (free/open source). The current classification is much less ambiguous. --minghong 2 July 2005 05:54 (UTC)


 * The current classification is quite unfair - only "open source" is called "free", and close source free software is marked as "proprietary" which is technically corrent but quite scary to casual reader. I suggest just two categories: "Commercial" and "Free" with both closed source and open source software (and specifically mark open source software as such).
 * Also "System default" should be completely removed: it is useless and seems to be added only for the link to external web-site - in fact there is not such software as "Windows Image Viewer" at all - versions before XP have "Imaging" (developed by Kodak, but not branded as Kodak) and XP/2003 has "Windows Picture and Fax Viewer". All are basic and do not deserve mention. And iPhoto should be moved to other 2 categories (to "Free"?).
 * And I think we should mark non-Windows software as such - to avoid user confusion.--Futurix 15:43, 15 July 2005 (UTC)


 * O.K., I've merged my changes, also added some URLs (why there were no links for IrfanView and Picasa), added one more viewer (which is quite popular these days), marked open source as such, removed "System default", moved iPhoto to commercial (it is commercial and sold for money actually). So, tell me, what d'ya think.


 * There were no external links for them since I want to reduce/avoid link spam. For article that is already created (not red link ones), there should be no external links for them. --minghong 08:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

The current list is probably too much. We should leave comparison in its comparison page (which is not yet created), and keep the list simple (just a list of software). --minghong 08:49, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

System default
I presume this means "whatever is loaded by default in operating system x when you double-click on a jpeg file"? If so, should we list the operating system for each one?

Do we also differentiate between "system's image viewer" and "default file association" (e.g. if an OS loads its bitmap-editor by default for images instead of its viewer application, which should be listed?)

By those definitions, Internet Explorer or Paintbrush would be the image viewer for most versions of Microsoft Windows, Preview would be for Mac OS X, and we'd have a massive list of *nix defaults for every distro/desktop combination. Ojw 10:55, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Comparison and list
I guess we can probably revert List of image viewers back to a simple bulleted list, now that the OS/price/platform information is all available on Comparison of image viewers... Ojw 13:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)