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CinePaint and Film Gimp

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CinePaint and Film Gimp tbaldridge@alertacademy.com 12 Sep 15:59
CinePaint and Film Gimp Carol Spears 17 Sep 13:34
CinePaint and Film Gimp Robin Rowe 24 Sep 19:00
rower@MovieEditor.com 07 Oct 20:15
  CinePaint and Film Gimp Timothy E. Jedlicka - wrk 12 Sep 18:56
20030912191911.3B44910486@l... 07 Oct 20:15
  CinePaint and Film Gimp Michael J. Hammel 12 Sep 22:09
   CinePaint and Film Gimp Daniel Rogers 12 Sep 22:40
    CinePaint and Film Gimp Marc) (A.) (Lehmann 16 Sep 04:01
     CinePaint and Film Gimp Daniel Rogers 16 Sep 04:27
   CinePaint and Film Gimp Marc) (A.) (Lehmann 16 Sep 03:58
    CinePaint and Film Gimp Michael J. Hammel 16 Sep 17:33
     CinePaint and Film Gimp Marc) (A.) (Lehmann 17 Sep 04:14
      CinePaint and Film Gimp Daniel Rogers 17 Sep 06:05
      CinePaint and Film Gimp David Neary 17 Sep 10:17
tbaldridge@alertacademy.com
2003-09-12 15:59:49 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

What turned be off about CinePaint was how unstable it was. Maybe this is just a factor in the windows version. But I have never had any problems with stability win Gimp under Linux at least.

Timothy

-----Original Message----- From: Robin Rowe [mailto:rower@MovieEditor.com] Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 7:40 AM To: gimp-user@lists.xcf.berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [Gimp-user] CinePaint and Film Gimp

Sven,

All I can say is that this application (now called cine-paint) is based on film-gimp which was forked from GIMP around version 1.0. GIMP-1.0 is a piece of code from the stone age.

CinePaint. It branched from GIMP 1.0.4 in 1998.

In my opinion
it is a shame that some good hackers are wasting their time on this codebase.

Although none of our developers are hackers, nice to hear you think highly of some of us.

What bothered you and other GIMP developers so much about Film Gimp that in 2000 you unexpectedly discarded three man-years of your own work funded at substantial expense by the motion picture industry?

In 1998 Film Gimp was an official development branch of GIMP CVS, much like GEGL is today. Some expected Film Gimp to become GIMP 2.0 in 2000. Three man-years of funded development (that was not incorporated into GIMP) went into Film Gimp before GIMP ceased work on it in 2000. Programmers who helped build and then kill Film Gimp are leading GIMP/GEGL today. I didn't become involved in Film Gimp until 2002.

There's no discussion in the GIMP mailing list archives regarding the reasons
leading up to that big decision in 2000, in fact, very little public discussion
of any kind regarding Film Gimp that I can find. Why is that?

Cheers,

Robin --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin.Rowe@MovieEditor.com Hollywood, California www.CinePaint.org Free motion picture and still image editing software

Timothy E. Jedlicka - wrk
2003-09-12 18:56:59 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, "Robin" == Robin Rowe wrote:

Robin> Although none of our developers are hackers

Perhaps therein lies the problem? "...hackers..." is a good thing. See: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=hacker%20definition

Also the Hacker Manager FAQ is a good read for anyone working with hackers. http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/faqs/manager.html

And for somewhat more on topic - I just tried Gimp 1.3.20 - I really really like the layout of the new "tools" window(?). Having everything in one frame/ window rather than popping up windows all over is a big user interface improvement IMHO. Thank you!
-----
Timothy Jedlicka, bonzo@lucent.com, 1-630-713-4436, AOL-IM=bonzowork Network Entomologist, Lucent Technologies, Testers For Hire

Michael J. Hammel
2003-09-12 22:09:32 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 14:19, Sven Neumann wrote:

Because this decision did never happen. At least I don't remember that at anytime anyone ever discussed this topic. The filmgimp code slowly diverged from the main GIMP source code, mainly because the GIMP source code kept improving. Noone ever brought up the question if the code should be merged or even outlined a way how this could be done. Don't ask me why this didn't happen, but please don't claim that there was a decision made to discard that code.

With all due respect Sven (and I do highly respect what you've done organizing the GIMP project), this wasn't the perception of the people who paid for the work on FilmGIMP. It was expected, based on their discussions with Calvin and Manish (and possibly others) that the code would be merged into 2.0. I know this because I interviewed Ray Feeney and a few others for some articles I did on Linux in Hollywood. Keep in mind that they (the FX Industry) were searching for a way to work with the open source crowd. But without an absolute authority to determine the direction GIMP would take (and thus allow the code they paid for to be merged) they felt snubbed.

While it is possible that there was never an outright decision to discard the code developed via funding from the FX industry, it's also true that there was never any outright decision to include it either. Lack of a response can be treated as a negative one depending on your side of the argument. Ray mentioned that the code that was developed (primarily the 16 bit code) was rejected in favor of adopting GEGL because it was felt it would be a better long term solution. I think this choice (if not an outright decision) would have gone over better if, 3 years later, GEGL was now integrated with GIMP. It's not. The FX Industry has reason to feel they are not a target audience of GIMP. Having CinePaint, therefore, makes sense since that project can focus directly on the needs of that target audience. GIMP, in the meantime, can focus on more general, long term plans that are aimed at broader audiences.

Similarily there wasn't any discussion about a code merge when the code was picked up again by you last year. That would have been a good chance to finally merge the filmgimp improvements into GIMP proper. But for whatever reason this discussion also never took place.

The problem here is one that other open source projects have had to deal with as well - how to take a loosely organized group and work with outside, commercial groups who have more strict rules for interaction. XFree86, Apache, and others all formed boards and/or non-profits to help deal with the situation. I believe its time the GIMP community seriously considered this as well.

Daniel Rogers
2003-09-12 22:40:12 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

Michael J. Hammel wrote:

The problem here is one that other open source projects have had to deal

with as well - how to take a loosely organized group and work with outside, commercial groups who have more strict rules for interaction. XFree86, Apache, and others all formed boards and/or non-profits to help deal with the situation. I believe its time the GIMP community seriously considered this as well.

it is not mearly being considered. It is happening.

-- Daniel Rogers

Marc) (A.) (Lehmann
2003-09-16 03:58:19 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 03:09:32PM -0500, "Michael J. Hammel" wrote:

XFree86, Apache, and others all formed boards and/or non-profits to help deal with the situation. I believe its time the GIMP community seriously considered this as well.

We should also consider that xfree86 currently falls aparts exactly because of the board (and wrecks for quite some time already). And many other projects live fine without boards, too. GCC (one of the largest free software projects) did fine, too, for a very long time. Apache probably has less problems because they try very hard not do decide things over the heads of other people.

Boards are a concept alien to free software projects, since boards work like "we decide, you do the work", which might work in corporate structures, but doesn't work at all in free software environments.

Non-profit organizations are, on the other hand, often seperated from the project itself (esp. for the Gimp, as the developers feel afaics strongly against handing over the rights to the code to such an organization, which means it would have no rights at all to the gimp).

Recently I hear a lot about "target audience" and "have to work with the industry" and similar ideas.

In my opinion, this has exactly zero relevance. The question to ask is: how would a board/non-profit-org help the _developers_. One can create boards as much as one likes, this won't change nor create a single line of code or code-change.

And if it doesn't help the people who write the code (e.g. by getting specifications or the like), then I don't see why such a thing should be founded in the first place.

So what are the benefits of a board for the developers? How would that help them? How would such a board counter the frustration on the side of developers that a board exists that has power but no obilgations? Where does it get it's rights from? Who has to submit to it's decisions? How is it elected (if at all)?

Marc) (A.) (Lehmann
2003-09-16 04:01:16 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 01:40:12PM -0700, Daniel Rogers wrote:

with as well - how to take a loosely organized group and work with outside, commercial groups who have more strict rules for interaction. XFree86, Apache, and others all formed boards and/or non-profits to help deal with the situation. I believe its time the GIMP community seriously considered this as well.

it is not mearly being considered. It is happening.

I disagree, and think both of you are not talking about the same thing.

I know a not-for-profit organization (with no rights to the gimp) is being created, however, that is very far from "taking a loosely organized group and work with commercial groups". The planned organization does not take the gimp group to do anything, as far as I can see.

Daniel Rogers
2003-09-16 04:27:40 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

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pcg@goof.com ( Marc) (A.) (Lehmann ) wrote: | On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 01:40:12PM -0700, Daniel Rogers wrote:
|
|>>with as well - how to take a loosely organized group and work with |>>outside, commercial groups who have more strict rules for interaction. |>>XFree86, Apache, and others all formed boards and/or non-profits to help |>>deal with the situation. I believe its time the GIMP community |>>seriously considered this as well. |>>
|>>
|>
|>it is not mearly being considered. It is happening. |
|
| I disagree, and think both of you are not talking about the same thing.

hmm, I agree with you, if your intrepretation of Mr. Hammel's words are correct.

| I know a not-for-profit organization (with no rights to the gimp) is being | created, however, that is very far from "taking a loosely organized group | and work with commercial groups". The planned organization does not take | the gimp group to do anything, as far as I can see.

Yes, you are right.

- -- Dan
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Michael J. Hammel
2003-09-16 17:33:39 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

Interesting comments Marc. Unfortunately, I couldn't disagree with you more.

On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 20:58, pcg@goof.com wrote:

We should also consider that xfree86 currently falls aparts exactly because of the board (and wrecks for quite some time already).

Interesting, if clouded, view of this situation. The board (which is actually made up of the core developers) has been closed minded about its development efforts in the past. The recent turmoil was a way of letting fresh air into the process. The board remains. XFree86 remains. Advances continue. Exactly where has XFree86 fallen apart?

Did you discuss your opinion with any of the core developers or are you just stating the opinion without gathering any facts on the situation first?

And many
other projects live fine without boards, too.

And some live fine with them. KDE, GNOME and Debian come to mind. They don't appear to be falling apart either having established definitive goals, target audiences, rules for interaction with outside vendors or even *gasp* establishing release schedules.

GCC (one of the largest free
software projects) did fine, too, for a very long time.

Indeed it has. Of course, it does have the Free Software Foundation (and no less than Stallman himself) as a guiding force behind it. But I guess that doesn't count as a "board" in your opinion.

Apache probably
has less problems because they try very hard not do decide things over the heads of other people.

If by this you mean the board doesn't try to snatch control away from the developers then that's probably true. In fact, that's what a guiding board should do - offer guidance on direction. If the developers remain open minded, they'll consider that guidance seriously. In Apache's case, it appears to work.

Boards are a concept alien to free software projects, since boards work like "we decide, you do the work", which might work in corporate structures, but doesn't work at all in free software environments.

You see the world as black and white, Marc. Not all boards are so manipulative. But there are many projects who could use an authoritative voice to keep the project moving. Miguel was such a force for GNOME, and that project (even without a board, but with an authoritative figure at its helm) has done quite well.

"doesn't work at all in free software environments" isn't even close to the truth here. You sound like you speak more from hate of anything that smells of authority than from research of the facts.

As for boards being "alien" to free software, well, I've given a number of examples to the contrary. There are many more.

Non-profit organizations are, on the other hand, often seperated from the project itself (esp. for the Gimp, as the developers feel afaics strongly against handing over the rights to the code to such an organization, which means it would have no rights at all to the gimp).

No one is going to get the "rights" to the code if its under the GPL. This sounds like FUD. But developers may feel disinclined to handing over the direction and control of the *project* (not the code itself) to another group or individual. That's a fair feeling considering the efforts the developers have given to this point. Because of this, any authoritative leadership must have the support of the developers group or it wouldn't be of any use. If the GIMP developers are happy without such leadership, then there really isn't any point in trying to establish one. It is my assertion that such leadership is missing and would help extend GIMP's value to both the developers and the user community.

Please note that when I say "leadership is missing" I say that with Sven's acknowledgment that he is not the central authority and that such central authority does not exist. I do not mean to imply that the work Sven and the others have done to this point was without value. To the contrary: The GIMP developers have done very well without central authority. I feel they can do even better with it.

Recently I hear a lot about "target audience" and "have to work with the industry" and similar ideas.

You'll hear a lot more as open source catches on in the real world.

In my opinion, this has exactly zero relevance.

And you are entitled to your opinion, no matter how far removed from reality it might be.

The question to ask is:
how would a board/non-profit-org help the _developers_.

By lighting the fire of interest in the non-technical community that often sparks motivation and interest in the project itself. Getting the word out about the GIMP and it's plans and direction (and having helped establish both) may help bring in new developers, which in turn *could* (but is not guaranteed, of course) help to speed the process of development. It could also generate funding for hardware. Perhaps even small scholarships for students participating in the project. Most importantly (in my opinion, which is worth as much as your own), it can help keep the project focused.

One can create
boards as much as one likes, this won't change nor create a single line of code or code-change.

You couldn't be more blind here, Marc. The board members, as a requirement for participation on the board, could be required to take coding responsibility for a certain part of the application - perhaps filters or maybe (if they're qualified) something internal. You see the board as "suits". You miss the point of their purpose or their possible makeup and duties.

But, like I said, you are entitled to your opinion. And I encourage you to share it. It's how things get changed.

And if it doesn't help the people who write the code (e.g. by getting specifications or the like), then I don't see why such a thing should be founded in the first place.

Any authority granted to such a group would have to be to the benefit of both the developers and the user community the developers serve. If this group fails either, it fails in its mission.

So what are the benefits of a board for the developers? How would that help them? How would such a board counter the frustration on the side of developers that a board exists that has power but no obilgations? Where does it get it's rights from? Who has to submit to it's decisions? How is it elected (if at all)?

The only two questions I haven't answered here are the last two. The board gets its authority from the developers (any group of governors gets its authority from the governed or they cannot lead) who must be willing to abide by the boards decisions for the general good of the project. The board would be elected either by the developers directly (which is probably not the best solution but might be an interim solution till all parties are comfortable with the workings of the board) or by open elections, with the developers votes being weighted slightly more than an end users vote. The actual mechanism for voting is a detail which can be built later, based on existing mechanisms (Debian's or GNOME's, for example).

Marc) (A.) (Lehmann
2003-09-17 04:14:22 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

On Tue, Sep 16, 2003 at 10:33:39AM -0500, "Michael J. Hammel" wrote:

On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 20:58, pcg@goof.com wrote:

We should also consider that xfree86 currently falls aparts exactly because of the board (and wrecks for quite some time already).

Interesting, if clouded, view of this situation.

I think I have a very clear view of the innards of xfree86.

The board (which is actually made up of the core developers)

Was. Just ask them. The president abused his unlimited power to silence everybody and expell most core developers from the board.

letting fresh air into the process. The board remains. XFree86 remains. Advances continue. Exactly where has XFree86 fallen apart?

Well, I can't argue with you, sicne you are supposing something about the future, on which I disagree. xfree86 is falling apart because developers leave it and no fresh blood is joining.

Did you discuss your opinion with any of the core developers or are you just stating the opinion without gathering any facts on the situation first?

As a matter of fact I discussed it with quite a few current and previous board members and core developers. I think it's pretty representative. XFree86 might be somewhat exceptional, as a single person holds all the power, but if you look around, that is how boards work usually.

And some live fine with them. KDE, GNOME and Debian come to mind. They don't appear to be falling apart either having established definitive goals, target audiences, rules for interaction with outside vendors or even *gasp* establishing release schedules.

However, there is a distinctive difference there: There is no need to negotiate with the industry. And since this is your original idea behind a board, these boards are pretty irrelevant.

Even worse, you could at least have made your homework and look wether these projects even have a board. That's not the case, so I guess your agrument is (again) not backed up by facts. It doesn't help you to accuse me of not basing my opinions on fact, and I think that's pretty low of you.

GCC (one of the largest free
software projects) did fine, too, for a very long time.

Indeed it has. Of course, it does have the Free Software Foundation (and no less than Stallman himself) as a guiding force behind it. But I

That's just plain bullshit (sorry, but what are you trying to achieve with spreading such misinformation??). It's you who is making claims that are badly researched and shed a bad light on what you say. The "guiding force" behind gcc is purely the developer community. Even if you take the steering committee (which has "power" and says it "guides"), it only does so when the community can't make a decision. Neither of these is the FSF.

The FSF has absolute power over gcc (the name), but as history has shown, it doesn't have power over gcc (the project). The current state of gcc is *exactly* the result of a board (of the FSF in this case) trying to force decisions.

guess that doesn't count as a "board" in your opinion.

Of course not, because it isn't a board. That is independend of my opinion, but a fact.

Why do you get this personal?

[apache]

If by this you mean the board doesn't try to snatch control away from the developers then that's probably true.

That's what I meant, yes.

Boards are a concept alien to free software projects, since boards work like "we decide, you do the work", which might work in corporate structures, but doesn't work at all in free software environments.

You see the world as black and white, Marc. Not all boards are so manipulative.

Well, if a board doesn't have any power, there is no need to create one in the first place. It serves no purpose if it cannot do anything.

But there are many projects who could use an authoritative voice to keep the project moving.

That is exactly the problem: an authoritative voice. Gimp already has authoritative voices.

If your assumption is that authoritative voices and boards are the same thing, then you are mistaken. And if you think that boards and auth. voices are not the same thing, then it has nothing to do with this discussion.

In other words: boards are not necessarily autoritative voices, and you don't need boards to have that. What _are_ your arguments for such an institution?

for GNOME, and that project (even without a board, but with an authoritative figure at its helm) has done quite well.

So that proves that boards aren't necessary, right? Boards are not even necessarily productive for a project.

"doesn't work at all in free software environments" isn't even close to the truth here.

Well, I disagree. The only counterexamples are boards without any power or voice. I wouldn't oppose those and agree they work fine with free software projects.

You sound like you speak more from hate of anything that smells of authority than from research of the facts.

Obviously I did my homework better than you for example. No, I don't hate boards. I hate people who argue unfarily (like you, this is not the first ad hominem argument). Can't you just keep to non-personal arguments?

As for boards being "alien" to free software, well, I've given a number of examples to the contrary. There are many more.

Well, giving wrong examples is not backing up your claim :(

project itself (esp. for the Gimp, as the developers feel afaics strongly against handing over the rights to the code to such an organization, which means it would have no rights at all to the gimp).

No one is going to get the "rights" to the code if its under the GPL.

It's called "copyright", and the GPL is based on it. Please do a little research on that topic and you'll see that you are wrong.

This sounds like FUD.

Yes, because you don't understand the GPL and how it works, it seems. Also, it's not me who is constantly spreading FUD here, but you :(

But developers may feel disinclined to handing over the direction and control of the *project* (not the code itself) to another group or individual.

I think developers feel disinclined to hand over control AND/OR the code itself, not just the control.

establish one. It is my assertion that such leadership is missing and would help extend GIMP's value to both the developers and the user community.

Well, you can assert that, of course, and it's worth disucssing it. However, I have corrected the misinformation you are spreading in this mail, and am not interested in further communications with you about this topic, as long as you can only resort to ad hominem arguments or untruth.

Please note that when I say "leadership is missing" I say that with Sven's acknowledgment that he is not the central authority and that such central authority does not exist.

Sven _is_ a central authority. That is not something that Sven can decide. Sven can say he doesn't want to be the central authority, or that he doesn't want to manage various aspects of the gimp development.

As far as authoritative goes, sven is one of the persons who, without doubt, are.

I mean, one doesn't _chose_ to be authoritative. One either is because people respect you, or one isn't.

I do not mean to imply that the work Sven and the others have done to this point was without value.

At least (to assure you) I did not understand it that way at all.

contrary: The GIMP developers have done very well without central authority. I feel they can do even better with it.

Well, you are mixing up "board", "foundation", "central authority" all the time. It's difficult to argue with somebody who constantly changes his propositions. "central authority" is quite a different concept as "board" is, for example.

Recently I hear a lot about "target audience" and "have to work with the industry" and similar ideas.

You'll hear a lot more as open source catches on in the real world.

Ehrm... pardon you? Free Software hit the real world decades ago. I think it's rather insultive of you to hint that free software didn't "catch on" in the real world before.

Even as industry-close projects as xfree86 explicitly make commercial viability (the industry) a non-goal.

In my opinion, this has exactly zero relevance.

And you are entitled to your opinion, no matter how far removed from reality it might be.

Well, at least I make sure I know of what I am talking before claiming things.

Again, attacking me personally (again) is a very unfair way of "arguing" (and is not logically succinct).

The question to ask is:
how would a board/non-profit-org help the _developers_.

Finally, some non-personal arguments:

By lighting the fire of interest in the non-technical community that often sparks motivation and interest in the project itself.

Well, at least in the case of the gimp, interest is extremely high in the non-technical community, in case you missed that. And again: how does that help the developers?

Getting the word out about the GIMP and it's plans and direction (and having helped establish both) may help bring in new developers, which in turn *could* (but is not guaranteed, of course) help to speed the process of development.

Well, that works fine. Remember the big discussion about the 2.0 version number exactly because directions and plans on development _have_ been known outside the dveeloper community?

This sounds like you assume that weren't the case.

It could also generate funding for hardware.

That could be, although, I guess funding for developer conventions would be much better even.

small scholarships for students participating in the project.

Practise in other projects (e.g. GCC, Linux) has shown that this kind of scholarship does not usually result in anything usable. (Why is a difficult question, most probbaly because just dumping some code is not the same as having some code that works in a real-world environment).

importantly (in my opinion, which is worth as much as your own), it can

I slightly disagree, as long as I can back up my opinions with facts, and you spread verifiably wrong information to back up your opinion. You might define "worth" differently, of course.

BTW, I also have some background in working with existing boards and project structures.

One can create
boards as much as one likes, this won't change nor create a single line of code or code-change.

You couldn't be more blind here, Marc.

I really don't know why you ar always resorting to this very low style of arguing. Wether I am blind or not has nothing to do with the arguments.

It's not productive to claim that I am blind, far from reality, lacking knowledge etc.

The board members, as a requirement for participation on the board, could be required to take coding responsibility for a certain part of the application - perhaps filters or maybe (if they're qualified) something internal. You see the board as "suits". You miss the point of their purpose or their possible makeup and duties.

I miss it because this is not how it does work in practise. Yes, one could require them to take responsibility, but what are you trying to achieve with that? Just taking a few developers, calling the "responsible" and putting them into a board is not an achievement in itself, and certainly not something that we would need a board for...

Again, why would that help the developers? Your only arguments so afr is that it wouldn't necessarily hurt, but that's not enough.

But, like I said, you are entitled to your opinion. And I encourage you to share it. It's how things get changed.

Yupp. And I encourage you to keep personal offenses out of such discussions. You might not like my opinions, but that doesn't entitle you to resort to ad homimen arguments and spreading untruth.

Any authority granted to such a group would have to be to the benefit of both the developers and the user community the developers serve. If this group fails either, it fails in its mission.

Unfortunately, you don't know how to achieve that, it seems. That is exactly my point: I am severly missing reasons and arguments in favour of why such a board would help the developers. So far, it's extremely scarce.

So what are the benefits of a board for the developers? How would that help them? How would such a board counter the frustration on the side of developers that a board exists that has power but no obilgations? Where does it get it's rights from? Who has to submit to it's decisions? How is it elected (if at all)?

The only two questions I haven't answered here are the last two.

Three, if you care to count.

board gets its authority from the developers (any group of governors gets its authority from the governed or they cannot lead) who must be willing to abide by the boards decisions for the general good of the project. The board would be elected either by the developers directly (which is probably not the best solution but might be an interim solution till all parties are comfortable with the workings of the board) or by open elections, with the developers votes being weighted slightly more than an end users vote. The actual mechanism for voting is a detail which can be built later, based on existing mechanisms (Debian's or GNOME's, for example).

(btw, "open elections" is a horrible idea, really. Weighing votes different is much, much worse).

But most of all, the above paragraph is rather contradicting itself, and very fuzzy on who the goverened are and who hold the power. If users vote, they hold the power (depending on weight and/or other factors). And if the board doesn't hold any powre (because it has no rights to the code) then it has nothing to govern.

The precise point why I am arguing against such an institution is that everybody always resorts to the board as beign an institution that governs the developers, the code, the development.

This is exactly what is wrong about the idea. A foundation (like the one that is planned), as a mere instrument to collect money, maybe do publicity or similar tasks, is quite fine.

It's when people want to take the power away from the developers where I say no.

Daniel Rogers
2003-09-17 06:05:02 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

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Please,

This topic getting a little off topic and a little flamy. Could you please move the discussion off the list or more on topic?

- -- Daniel Rogers
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David Neary
2003-09-17 10:17:52 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

Hi Marc, Michael,

Calm it down a bit.

Marc A. Lehmann wrote:

On Tue, Sep 16, 2003 at 10:33:39AM -0500, "Michael J. Hammel" wrote: Obviously I did my homework better than you for example. No, I don't hate boards. I hate people who argue unfarily (like you, this is not the first ad hominem argument). Can't you just keep to non-personal arguments?

I think that you're probably more guilty of going ad hominem in here Marc. That said, both of ye are going to wake the children.

No one is going to get the "rights" to the code if its under the GPL.

It's called "copyright", and the GPL is based on it. Please do a little research on that topic and you'll see that you are wrong.

It was made clear at camp that many coders weren't prepared to hand over copyright, no-one can force them to, I wouldn't ask them to. And having a steering committee or a board or whatever you want to call it wouldn't change that.

This sounds like FUD.

Yes, because you don't understand the GPL and how it works, it seems. Also, it's not me who is constantly spreading FUD here, but you :(

Actually, it did sound like fud. The implication was "Board => you sign over copyright on your code". This is not the case.

You now seem to be saying "Board + GPL => you sign over your copyright", and that's incorrect too. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you though.

Well, you are mixing up "board", "foundation", "central authority" all the time. It's difficult to argue with somebody who constantly changes his propositions. "central authority" is quite a different concept as "board" is, for example.

Actually, Michale seems to be implying that a board/steering committee would be a central authority and a face on the project. I think this is correct. You are saying that this type of central authority might not be desirable. I think you're probably right too, certainly with respect to several of the current developers.

For me, foundation and board are the same thing - the foundation is the organisation, the board are its elected representatives. That board can have as much or as little responsibility as its members decide. It can also evolve to fill needs as they arise. That is why we decided to create the gimp foundation and elect a board (as a public face to the gimp), while at the same time having rules sufficiently wide that the board could eventually, if it were felt reasonable, be a steering committee for the project, or ake release schedules, etc. But that was not the intention when creating the foundation, and any such change would probably need to be debated at a conference. I'll bring the boxing gloves.

By lighting the fire of interest in the non-technical community that often sparks motivation and interest in the project itself.

Well, at least in the case of the gimp, interest is extremely high in the non-technical community, in case you missed that. And again: how does that help the developers?

As you said earlier, Marc, XFree is losing developers, and new ones aren't coming in. I think that a few of the ideas we had at camp which are now being put in place will help with that, but we also need more people involved in the project. More non-technical people means more time for the technical people to do other stuff. It also means more future technical people, as the non-techs start working and get a bit braver :)

Well, that works fine. Remember the big discussion about the 2.0 version number exactly because directions and plans on development _have_ been known outside the dveeloper community?

Actually, most of that discussion stayed inside the developer community. The fact that there was a fight was bigger news than the version change itself.

This is exactly what is wrong about the idea. A foundation (like the one that is planned), as a mere instrument to collect money, maybe do publicity or similar tasks, is quite fine.

It's when people want to take the power away from the developers where I say no.

A steering committee (which is what we all seem to be talking about, albeit with different names) is usually developer driven. It would not make sense to have it any other way, as you rightly say.

If we look at gnome, there are several committees - the foundation board, the release team, the web team, the i18n project, the bugsquad, all of whom have their own domain of knowledge and competency The foundation board benefits developers by keeping all the organisational crap out of their way, the release team by creating and sticking to a release schedule, and forcing all the sub-projects to do the same, and so on.

In each of these teams, people come and go, but the team goes on. That's the benefit of a team. Perhaps if the GIMP oriented itself a little more towards this idea of sub-teams with responsibility, we would not have so much reliance on one or two core individuals. And perhaps that would benefit the developers.

Cheers, Dave.

Carol Spears
2003-09-17 13:34:16 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

i was talking to one of the xfree developers about changing the name to something else so you didn't have to keep typing Xthis and Xthat. he took off to alaska.

who is on the xfree board? i would rather ask the developers this, myself.

i have this feeling that 20 years later, they are able to rethink this naming scheme somewhat, especially when they run out of vacation money.

carol

Robin Rowe
2003-09-24 19:00:45 UTC (over 20 years ago)

CinePaint and Film Gimp

Yosh,

Please stop making stuff up and rewriting history to suit your own story. You have no real idea what happened before you appeared.

You are right that I don't have the whole story and must rely upon what others say who were actually there.

Unlike Sven or me, you were one of the sponsored Film Gimp developers, correct? You were there. You can state what happened or didn't happen as someone who was personally involved. Whether the question is how could GIMP vote down Film Gimp with so much riding on it, or how could GIMP lose Film Gimp through inattention, I'm curious to know how it happened. Can you tell us?

You refused to actually help further GEGL by choosing to promote CinePaint instead. That's fine, it's your decision, but for someone who keeps on going on about not having discussions in public you never actually explained that one.

Well, I could discuss it if anyone asked me. ;-)

My main reason for not joining GIMP/GEGL is the very thing you are asking not be talked about. Nobody from Hollywood is joining GIMP's second attempt at implementing deep paint because GIMP wasted the effort last time.

Cheers,

Robin --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robin.Rowe@MovieEditor.com Hollywood, California www.CinePaint.org Free motion picture and still image editing software