[Digikam-users] Greetings

[Photonoxx]

Le Mon, 02 Sep 2013 10:38:32 +0200, <cgw993 at aol.com> a écrit:

> Greetings,
>
>
> I just installed Digikam. My review of the software so far -
>
>
> 1. Digikam opened at least 3 separate connections the internet. Why?!  I  
> had
> to shut these connections down with my firewall.   The program certainty
> does not make this obvious to any typical user.   I think there may have
> been more than 3 but its late and I will search more tomorrow before I
> uninstall it.    There can be no legitimate reason for this and this was  
> not disclosed explicitly on installation.

No comment, see Gilles answer

> 2. Digikam does not make it easy to navigate drives/folders on the  
> computer
> to find photos.  This is the entire  point of photo management software  
> to
> begin with! It seems more designed to get the user to relinquish control  
> of
> their current photo organization to digikam.

Digikam doesn't offer the possibility to browse directly your drive, you  
have to define folder as collection to tell where photos are located and  
consequently which photos do want to manage with digikam.

It's a strange behavior for a spying program to permit you tell it which  
photos it can watch, no ?

Apart if you spread your photos everywhere in your drive, or your not  
enough patient to set digikam properly, I don't see a matter with digikam  
way of managing datas, and even in this case, you probably can set your  
entire drive as a collection, it's probably not the cleverest thing to do  
but it should be possible.

Think about other program which doesn't let you at all where you want to  
stock your pictures.

> 3.  To newer users of "open source".   Free software does not mean the
> software will not spy on you, or do things you would resent, or anything
> else the developer(s) maybe have wanted it to do.   It does mean though  
> that
> the software can be changed because the source is available.   A good
> example of free software that spies on its users is Ubunto.  Users did  
> not
> like this, so a modified version was made that did not spy on the users.
> Free software makes this possible. Please see Richard Stallman's youtube
> video on Ubunto.

It's something slightly different I thing, Ubuntu (not Ubunto) use some  
closed source elements, so, we can't know exactly what these elements  
does. Personally I use Ubuntu and don't really mind about this, I'm not  
sure Windows or MacOSX users are more protected in this case, and except  
if you use strongly secured internet connection and network (as using  
tor), each time you go on internet many server spy on you.

The fact Digikam is free software / open source doesn't just mean you can  
change it, it means too you can see what it does by reading the source,  
and since many years digikam exists, if it spy its users, I think it would  
be well known now ? Don't you think ?

If as suggest Gilles, the internet connection is initiated by geo-location  
online map feature, you may build your own digikam without these features  
or stop waste our time and use another software.


> Profiting by spying on and data mining users data is fine I guess, as  
> long
> as the user has given EXPLICIT permission to do this every time, not via
> some vague end user license agreement that nobody reads.   Digikam has  
> not
> made adequate disclosure to it's users.

You give your permission by choosing it and installing it, but anyway I  
don't thing Digikam spy your datas. Does Firefox spying you because it  
opens internet connections ?


> My Digikam review Grade - F
>
>
> Requested Modifications  - Do not spy on or data mine users photos or any
> other data, or do anything else without the users explicit and clear
> consent!   Allow users to easily navigate their own photos.  If spying on
> the users must be a feature, THEN DISLCOSE IT CLEARLY!

My review Grade : A since it's a wonderful "Free software" and should be  
encouraged as it merits !

-- 
Nicolas Boulesteix
Photographe chasseur de lueurs
http://www.photonoxx.fr