I can already edit EPS pretty well in inkscape and scribus but many developer still won't do it. To collaborate in graphics isn't easy.

No, even if Illustrator was open sources I would prefer to see real source code for icons. IMO Illustrator is over kill for something so (relatively) simple. Image a project on github that contains a very descriptive syntax, a hierarchy of re-usable shapes and which can be plugged together to generate custom icons. Then everybody can contribute to it with a pull request and we have true collaborative open sourced icon fonts.

I'll bite.

I make resources like this regularly. You need illustrator, no half baked open source project even comes close to the features offered by Adobe's awful software. I don't use it because it's what everyone else uses, but because it's the best thing out there.If you forced me to use GIMP and an open source vector editor, I simply wouldn't have the tools.

Contributing non-code resources is hard enough without putting arbitrary limits like this in place.

Give inkscape a try. You might be surprised.

Or he might have already and found it entirely insufficient. I know I did.

Okay, it feels like you're not really referring to the premise of open source, but more that there isn't a suitable portable "source" format for simple graphics like icons.

What about SVG, is that a possible candidate? By proposing a new format, the real challenge is to have the graphical editors to use them. Expecting users to contribute graphics by markup isn't going to be much more productive in my opinion.

Yes that's exactly what I meant. Though, I think I wasn't clear and many people misunderstood me. SVG is to describe graphics and not to create graphics. We need a DSL that has loops, objects, methods, overlaoding etc so we can actually create a framework that allows creating EPS/PDF/SVG etc..

Some exist, there is very simple gnuplot. There is python matplotlib but it's a general purpose programming language and no DSL specific one. I think the closest is asymptote (which is very little known). Then is is processing but it's geared toward animations and also does mostly raster graphics. There is R which is mostly for statistics. Then there is TikZ which is awful since TeX was never meant to be a programming language so it'f far from a DSL.

I want to be able to describe shapes and extend them easily. I think Scala would be wonderful and somebody fluent in it could create a DSL and still allow extreme extensibility. We need a language which has multiple layers of API. One very low which can easily do lines, bezier curves and the usual. And then some higher APIs that allow _easy_ composition and intuitive transformations.

SVG is like PDF, a format to display but nobody wants to write PDF or SVG. It's no fun.

I beg to differ. Why should we describe a visual artifact using tools that are suited to describe logic and algorithms? Now, if you are wanting a DSL to describe HOW to make the visual artifact, that's one thing. However, the way art is created is not algorithmic, but rather a try something, visually inspect, and repeat process. Describing how the icon was created is not the main goal. Instead, the goal is simply a visual artifact.

I note that postscript has loops and methods, if I recall correctly.

Designers don't care if you think Asymptote is fun. They care that they can use Illustrator to get shit done. I do not understand why you are having trouble with this.