[Digikam-users] You're awesome

[Gilles Caulier]

2010/3/4 Peter Shute <pshute at nuw.org.au>:
>> From: Linuxguy123 [mailto:linuxguy123 at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, 3 March 2010 2:42 PM
>> To: digiKam - Home Manage your photographs as a professional
>> with the power of open source
>> Subject: Re: [Digikam-users] You're awesome
>>
>> On Tue, 2010-03-02 at 17:33 -0600, Paul Hartman wrote:
>> > On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 12:16 AM, Guillaume Paumier
>> > <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > > Hi,
>> > >
>> > > I've been using digiKam more intensively recently, and I
>> just wanted
>> > > to say to you guys: You're fantastic. Really.
>> > >
>> > > I mean, I knew digiKam was a powerful tool, but the more
>> I use it,
>> > > the more I discover hidden gems and awesome features I
>> would never
>> > > have imagined would ever be available in a libre software.
>> > >
>> > > So, Thank you. Thank you for your work, your time and
>> your dedication.
>> > > You just rock.
>> >
>> > I agree with everything you said. Thanks to digiKam & KDE devs!
>>
>> +1 !
>
> I agree too, and the website is also unusually helpful for an open source program, outstandingly so. I was at the end of my trial period for Lightroom when I started looking around for alternatives, and was very surprised to find free software that could do so much that Lightroom could do, and so well, better in some cases.  I can see that one day it will be able to also do the few things Lightroom can do that it currently can't.
>
> But I have some reservations.
>
> My reservations are mainly about the distribution process.  It seems like there are periods when the versions included with the various distributions are way out of date, and sometimes quite buggy.  Getting a more recent version involves many hours and gigabytes of dowloading and compiling if you know how to do it, and many more days tracking down help with compilation errors if you don't.  There are various extremely detailed lists of instructions around for compiling, but they're out of date and make little sense to the uninitiated.  I worked my way through it, and got a new set of compilation instructions together.  Next time I tried to update, I ran into different problems.
>
> I'm experienced enough with open source to not expect an easy run, but it just shouldn't be that hard.  I used the relatively new KDE on Windows version, so I knew to expect a few extra troubles, but I see from various list postings that Linux users are having similar difficulties.
>
> I realise that the distribution problems, and even some of the bugs, are out of the control of the >developers.  They have little influence over what versions get included in distributions, and newer KDE >releases in the distributions are sometimes incompatible.  But until something is done about it, I consider >digiKam to be an excellent but unstable program.  If you happen to first install it when a good version is in >the distribution, you're ok, if it isn't, you're in for trouble.

I'm agree. this due of huge dependencies of digiKam with a lots of
shared libs, the most coming from KDE4 core.

Recently, after updating KDElibs with KDE 4.4.0, a lots of users
crying about digiKam which crash in a lots of context. All have been
due of bugs in KDirWatch API from KDElibs core. digiKam use KDirWatch
to follow changes of folder contents from your HDD. Can you imagine
the long list of bugs reports duplicated in bugzilla about this
problem. Finally all have been fixed in KDE 4.4.1, just published few
days ago.

In general, and it's not only a feature of open source soft, i
recommend to never use the first release of a major serie, as KDE
4.4.0, especially in production. Software need time to be stabilized.
There is no other way. If you want to be more productive in software
development, you need QA dept to run a lots of control, restrictions,
procedures, and mechanisms to filtering all works before to release a
huge software as KDE4. It's the same problem in industry where it's
easy to apply QA, but this is a lead problem in open source where you
cannot restrict as well all developers which have not payed to work !

As i'm working in computer science since a very long time, in industry
and now in research, i know very well the problem. I'm trying to apply
some QA mechanism in digiKam project, especially with bugzilla where
we can follow development and progress, but it's not easy. Andy,
Marcel, and Johannes as started to implement regression test programs
to check digiKam core API, but it only work very well, in general, for
non-gui code. GUI code need user interractions...

Also, can you imagine that we rarely see developers in real life to
talk about digiKam project. Open source is not industry. digiKam
project is not LightRoom, and it's a big challenge for me. Since 2
years, we trying to organize a coding sprint in Europe between us.
last one have been done by Marcel in Germany, and i will try to do the
next one in France this year. To do that, we need money and
sponsorship of course. It's not simple.

My best

Gilles Caulier