146
Creator of free Adobe clones unveils open-source Microsoft Office Excel, PowerPoint, and Word replications — Autodesk tools and other subscription-based services may come next (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/opensource@programming.dev
73 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Brandon Thomas, developer of ArtCraft, a suite of open-source creative tools meant to replicate Adobe applications for free, has now announced apps to replace Microsoft Office tools such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, respectively, named GridCraft, DeckCraft, and WordCraft, that are created with Claude. Thomas has shared his new clones to ArtCraft GitHub, making them free for all to download.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[+] -11 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Downvotes won't change that this works.

Sneering at people using the tool won't make the tool go away. It produces running code, to spec, real quick.

I have a few original projects I haven't been arsed to finish (or in some cases, start) and now I could have them finished by close of business Friday, for the cost of a night out. And y'all would make excuses for how it somehow doesn't count. It's not my idea, it's not my intent, it's not my design, it's not my insight... whatever. It would make something real which doesn't exist yet. I would be the only human to blame for it. Once it is demonstrably made, either I made it, or the robot did. If your philosophy can't handle that then your philosophy is wrong.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    If this project still exists in a year, I'll eat my words

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
    •
  • [+] -16 points 1 day ago (5 children)

    It's already in a functional state. Eat now, braggart. If they achieve their goals within the month, clap the dust from their hands, and walk away with the job done, how is that less impressive than bumbling along for an entire year, to accomplish the same thing?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
    •
  • [–] 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

    Cause it was scraped from those original projects and doesn't exist without them

    You can flex it "only" took the entire dev time of libre office, all open source software, and every book that has been scraped + the time it took the dev to make, but to argue they made this solo is laughable.

    If you want to sit with the big kids you gotta be able to handle the heat, Microsoft changes their document format more than their taskbar - I strongly doubt this dev even understands how their files are read.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [+] -10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Do you think there's a Libre Modern Warfare 2? Because the same tool did the same shit to Modern Warfare 2. Show me the open-source repositories that simply copied from.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

    I do believe there are more shooters than just MW2, is it at all binary compatible? That would impress me (cause its impossible for an ai without scraping the source lmao)

    Its like how they 'revived' the dire wolf by getting a white husky. Like imitation isnt equivalence, even if you slap the same title on it.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] -5 points 1 day ago

    Goalposts moved from 'it's only copying this exact project' to 'any conceptually similar project can be reworked until it's identical and that doesn't count either.'

    The MW2 decomps are from the binary - but there's obviously none of its source code in the training data. Not that you seem to care, suddenly. You've made your position unfalsifiable and therefore meaningless.

    New clone of a whole-ass software suite? They must be copy-pasting a specific libre project, doesn't count. Oh it's from spec documents, and structured completely differently? Well the other libre implementation is in the training data, doesn't count. Oh it also cloned cloud applications with no binaries or alternatives? I do believe there are more video effects packages, does! not! count!

    Meanwhile.

    These schmucks have a one-to-one copy of the latest Photoshop, permissively licensed, ready to use. It did not exist last month.

    Whining about how it got made won't change a goddamn thing.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 1 day ago

    Apparently you don't understand what "maintenance" is.

    This slop project is going to fall apart within a year due to being utterly unmaintainable. Will it take Adobe and Microsoft down with them? One could hope, but that doesn't make their codebase good.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent