Raw Therapee 3 Is Now Free Software

kantier writes "The only (as far as I know) usable and free (as in beer) program for processing RAW photos outside Windows or OS X is now also free as in freedom. From version 3 onwards, the code is licensed under the GPL v3. The main developer's reasons for opening up the program are a lack of time/resources for full dedication, and a lack of interest in some parts of the program (likes to fiddle with image-processing algorithms, not so much the GUI part) — so the F/OSS model seems to be a perfect fit for this project."

Comments

Developer in for a shock

[syousef]

License changes:

I decided to change the license to GPL and thus offer the source code to the open source community. This does not mean that I stop developing RawTherapee. I will invest as much time into the development as till now. I have three motivations for this decision: first, I love playing with image processing algorithms but I'm not keen on GUI development. Recently a huge amount of work had to be invested to develop a usable GUI and I had no time left to play with new algorithms. I hope to involve some new developers who help me to maintain and enhance the GUI. The second reason of licence change was that I am very frustrated by the huge amount of bug reports I can not reproduce (believe it or not, RT is stable on my PC). I hope that with the open source model some talented users can identify the problems and fix the bugs. The third (but maybe the most important) reason of switching to GPL is that our baby reached the age (10 month old) when he needs his father more and more. I dont want to disappoint him :). With more developers involved the development process will hopefully more smooth and wont stop when I am busy.

Such naivety!

1. Author is very lucky he's had so much time on his hands up to the 10 month mark with his son. I've had very little time to myself since mine was born (almost 18 months). I think he's about to learn how much time and effort raising a child takes.

2. I can't believe the author of such a mature and well known product has come up with the line "believe it or not, RT is stable on my PC". Or that he believes the first thing any other programmer is going to want to do is reproduce bugs they aren't experiencing themselves. Epic fail.