Trying to understand the scope of kdenlive

[Paul Brown]

On Tuesday, 26 April 2022 13:46:42 CEST Zeke Williams wrote:
> I'm thinking if I ever struck rich (wishful thinking) I would heavily
> fund KDE. If I was in a hypothetical scenario able to provide more
> funding to kdenlive and KDE in general, would the possibility of
> making natron an official KDE program be up for consideration?

Given sufficient resources, I guess everything is possible.

> Because
> natron really needs more devs, it's starting to fall behind a bit.

Natron started to fall behind as soon as the funding from Inria (https://
www.inria.fr/en) dried up and the devs that were working on the project had to 
find jobs doing other stuff. So, yeah, funding is the problem for Natron.

If new funding came through KDE, it would be reasonable to assume that Natron 
should become a KDE project.

However, a long term KDE project, like Kdenlive, would logically be before it 
in the line for funding. Ironically, Kdenlive never had funding, but Kdenlive 
is now complex enough that it requires people dedicated to it on a job-like 
basis. Hobbyism isn't going to cut it for much longer.

There are plans in the works to help ensure funding to KDE projects, including 
Kdenlive, and the hypothetical order of events before Natron can get funded 
via KDE would be:

1. Start funding KDenlive as a pilot funding project
2. Iron out kinks in the system
3. Extend funding program to other KDE projects 
4. Invite Natron to KDE
5. Fund Natron

I guess it would be possible to skip a few steps if Natron became part of 
Kdenlive (via a fork? 😬 -- scary!), but the idea that a project coming from 
outside would get funded before an already existing KDE project is unlikely.

That said, the more money KDE gets, the quicker it would reach a project like 
Natron, if it were to become a KDE project, of course.

Cheers

Paul

> 
> On Sat, Apr 9, 2022 at 5:28 AM Paul Brown <paul.brown at kde.org> wrote:
> > On Saturday, 9 April 2022 09:05:44 CEST Narcis Garcia wrote:
> > > I think it's not necessary TO BE if it can TO USE.
> > > Kdenlive projects could dialog with other projects to compatibilize
> > > formats, exports and APIs; and this to allow software be called each
> > > other.
> > > 
> > > Not always is needed to reinvent the wheel but to improve each
> > > specialized wheel to run vehicle as a team.
> > 
> > Although not a developer, I am an avid user and talk often to the devs in
> > my role of "Walking-Talking Advertising Agency" of KDE projects.
> > 
> > We once discussed incorporating Natron as a KDE project to assist with its
> > development:
> > 
> > https://phabricator.kde.org/T12801
> > 
> > Natron is already made with Qt, and suffers from an acute lack of
> > resources and development is slow. We also discussed the possibility that
> > Kdenlive took over the maintenance of Natron. Not integrating it, but
> > developing a tighter compatibility  between both applications, like you
> > see in Adobe products.
> > 
> > This was part of a larger vision of developing a "Kreative Suite", which
> > would broach Krita and Kdenlive (both already part of KDE), along with
> > Enve (animation software), Scribus and Natron, all of which would have to
> > be incorporated.
> > 
> > Devs at the time pointed out they were already stretched to the limit with
> > Kdenlive, which was a good reason not to do that. And, of course, they
> > were
> > right.
> > 
> > But if Kdenlive were to add more devs and acquire more resources from KDE
> > (which is something that seems to be on the cards), the circumstances
> > would be different.
> > 
> > How about we bring this project back to life?
> > 
> > (Don't hate me Farid!)
> > 
> > Cheers
> > 
> > Paul
> > --
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> > 
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-- 
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