Fwd: Re: Creation of a community on Qt for art software : Creative Cuties

[Be]

Hi Kdenlive developers,

I am one of the developers of Mixxx, the free DJ software. We recently 
got this invitation to organize with developers of free artistic 
software using Qt. I thought I'd pass along the invitation:


On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 2:29 AM Jean-Michaël Celerier 
<jeanmichael.celerier at gmail.com <mailto:jeanmichael.celerier at gmail.com>> 
wrote:

    Dear all,
    it seems that the Discord link had an expiration date which I forgot
    to check.
    Here is an unlimited one : https://discord.gg/wJdQ6sS

    Apologies for the annoyance.

    I also created a #creativecuties channel on freenode, which will in time
    be linked with the discord channel unless we find a better way of
    communication.

    All the best,
    Jean-Michaël

    On Sat, Jul 18, 2020 at 7:28 PM Jean-Michaël Celerier
    <jeanmichael.celerier at gmail.com
    <mailto:jeanmichael.celerier at gmail.com>> wrote:

        Dear all,

        *TL;DR: *we'd like to organize a conference / meetup about the
        use of Qt in multimedia software and software for artists,
        create a community around that and weigh a bit in the Qt
        development process / exchange good practices / fix bugs
        together / etc.
        You are invited :-)

        *Long version:*
        You are receiving this mail as you are likely to be part or know
        persons who may be part of the development team of a software
        which fulfills the following criterions :
        - It is free software.
        - It is developed with the Qt framework.
        - It is a software mainly used by artists & creators - visual
        arts, music, lighting, stage control, creative coding, video...

        This mail is addressed mostly to individuals as it's easier to
        find out, but can (should) be discussed with the dev team of the
        organization you are affiliated with,
        and shared with any person or project that may be interested in
        the initiative.

        As you all know, developing with Qt is some days very nice, and
        some days very... not nice :-)
        In order to improve on this, I am trying to organize a
        conference / meetup / community which would be centered
        specifically around the use of Qt for software targeting artists
        as end users.

        The reason for that scope limitation being, that we often have
        fairly similar problems to solve across different software in
        that field, especially as OSS devs :
        - Introduce scripting through Javascript / Python / etc. to
        allow users to make extensions & plugins
        - Rendering nice graphics with the GPU
        - Handling real-time operation for audio
        - Communicating with various kind of hardware through various
        uncommon protocols / drivers
        - Creating custom widgets used in art contexts - color choosers
        of various kinds, knobs, vumeters, waveforms, etc etc
        - Interoperating with web through websockets, for instance for
        remote control apps & similar.
        - Creating timelines & similar kind of complex widgets with
        complex user interactions
        - Building & testing for platforms we don't own (e.g. most
        likely an overpriced intel and soon-to-be ARM CPU in a metal
        chassis with a half-eaten fruit on it)
        - Theming, skinning - art makers sure do love their dark themes
        & skeuomorphic UIs :-p

        The central idea for this meetup would be to create a space
        where we could share knowledge around these topics, and discuss
        which solution experimentally works best, what pitfalls are
        encountered, etc. as it's not unlikely that for any of these
        problems, someone else in that community would already have
        encountered it in some way.

        The second idea is to identify the Qt shortcomings, and work
        together either on fixing them in Qt (as it is often the most
        future-proof way) or provide potential alternative libraries /
        ways of doing things. (or just complain very loudly on the
        mailing lists or bugreports :-p).

        A first thing to do would be to create a kind of community space
        to discuss a few points - this can be this mail chain at first
        but I think that using a chat platform such as Mattermost,
        Slack, Discord, RocketChat, Zulip, or IRC channel of some kind
        would be better.
        These few points are for now :
        1/ What would be the meetup format ? In an ideal world we'd do a
        conference with a nice hackathon and lots of pizzas :-)
        but it's more likely that things would look like an online
        meetup soon. Any idea would be appreciated - other than that
        things could start as soon as mid-september for instance if we
        are to do something over a video conferencing service.

        2/ Should this only be about free software, or should we also
        invite proprietary software developers ?
        I am thinking of Blackmagic, Allegorithmic, Arobas, VIDVOX and a
        couple others.

        For now I've created the following Discord instance to discuss:
        https://discord.gg/n2TCrR - any other idea is appreciated, as
        long as everyone can get on board :-)

        The meetup would follow the Berlin code of conduct
        (https://berlincodeofconduct.org/) ; it is important to me to
        ensure that we encourage diversity among the attendants, and all
        have a nice time overall.

        To finish, here's a few words about me: Jean-Michaël Celerier.
        I've been working on a sequencer for live show control, ossia
        score (https://ossia.io) since 2014, using Qt5 & mostly C++.
        I've worked at KDAB (a company fairly involved in Qt
        development) from 2019 until now where I can afford to work
        full-time on my project.
        Also, I like organizing things and I love art and making
        artists' lives better, with free software :-)
        I live in France, and am affiliated with the Université de
        Bordeaux and the SCRIME (Research and Creation Studio for
        Computer Science and Experimental Music).
        I can easily have access to a conference space if we are to
        organize something in the physical world.

        Hoping to hear from you all soon.
        Kind regards,
        Jean-Michaël
        https://jcelerier.name

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