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Lightworks Video Editor To Go Open Source
Art3x writes "EditShare will release its video editor as open source this summer. Lightworks handles high-definition media, DPX, and RED, shares projects with Final Cut Pro and Avid, and was recently used by Academy-award-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker on Shutter Island. Introduced in 1989 and bought by EditShare last year, it 'has come from over one million hours of software development,' says EditShare's James Richings. But he says releasing the source will 'generate concepts and capabilities never seen before. I expect that the Lightworks Open Source initiative will transform not only the technology, but also the opinions on what a professional editing tool can achieve.'" From the press release's description, it sounds like the "open source" phase will follow a period of free-as-in-beer downloading.
Finding fault with Blender is* easy, and for much the same reason people find fault with GIMP -- the UI is something you either love, or absolutely despise, with very little in between.
*Referring to Blender circa 2003, so this may need to be changed to "was". The UI was bad enough at the time to make me not look back.
It's high-end video editing software. The system requirements are always 'more'. If you have to ask whether your computer can run it the answer is no. Considering that the summery talks about HD and Red video I wouldn't consider anything less than quad core with 4Gb RAM. If you are serious you would be looking more like 16Gb RAM, two or three 23"+ widescreens and a couple Tb of RAID drives for storage.
If any of this is surprising then you are not working at the level where software like this is necessary.
Yet that doesn't excuse the fact that it is (or was, anyway -- as I said, it's been years since I've looked at Blender) valid criticism of it, either.
And yes, there IS something wrong with learning a clunky UI, IF there's a better solution available. In my case there was, and I would have been stupid to use the worse solution simply because it was open source. Then again, I try to use the best tool for the job, instead of being blinded by any ideology; if that best tool is open source, great. If not, that's fine with me too.
Ah, but in practice, most of the time, either A. the company keeps it open source anyway (e.g. Apple with most of the lower half of Mac OS X), B. the company builds a closed source version but regularly pushes fixes upstream, or C. the software is in a device where changing out parts of the software is well beyond the skills of a typical user (e.g. your microwave oven). Most of the exceptions to that statement never gained any real traction in the marketplace.
Sure, you can point out a few prominent exceptions, e.g. Microsoft using BSD's TCP/IP stack in Windows, but do you honestly expect anybody to believe that anyone would have been served by the original stack being under the GPL? Microsoft would never have made their kernel open source anyway, so they either would have rewritten it or worse, developed a competing network standard. Either of those would have resulted in further fragmentation of the market, more bugs that users have to suffer through, and in general a worse perception of computing by the public as a whole. The only way you could reasonably argue that anyone would have benefitted from this is if you honestly believe that Windows (already the dominant platform by this time) would have lost its dominance due to Linux having a better TCP/IP stack sooner. That's a pretty big stretch of the imagination, to say the least.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Clearly not oh trollish one. The GPL maximizes the freedom of the end users, and software exists solely to be used. It also will ensure lightworks continues to benefit from this open-sourcing. Without the GPL linux would be as unused in the enterprise as FreeBSD.
I don't know how I will modded but GPL is "NOT" for end users. It does not affect end users one bit. End users do not compile or care to compile code.
If you are contributing to the codebase then you are no longer wearing the "end user" hat but a "contributing developer" hat.
BSD and MIT license grant more rights to third party developers. Full stop. GPL places some restrictions on release of binaries from code modifications which require publishing of code changes if a binary is released to the general public. Full Stop. Let's stop trying redefine terms like "freedom" and just spell out the differences.
GPL takes the approach of enforcement of rules if you want to play while BSD relies on good will and a desire to co-operate. One requires coercion and the other is completely voluntary.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
buying them can run you over $150 per batch.
Depends on your ingredients and batch size. I just picked up a 50lb sack of 2-row malt for $40US, and have another on backorder. Also picked up a couple vials of White Labs yeast at half off (no, they aren't expired). I just bought 3lbs of hops (1 x Galena, 1 x Willamette, 1 x Cascade) for $40US including shipping. Propane tank fillup was $15. I'll be brewing 10 gallon batches (sorry, 38 liters for you non-imperial types, or a little over 4 cases for those bad at unit conversion and division) at a cost of ~$40 for ingredients & consumables, or about $0.50 per pint. Compare that to $4/pint at the local pub.
Unless you already own the equipment
Right. I gave up trying to cost-justify that stuff a long time ago. No one ever really owns enough equipment anyway. There's always something else you need. It's part of the fun, actually.
Then you have to count the time-consuming process of sanitizing the equipment
Ugh. The primary reason I don't brew more often.
actually brewing beer
That's the fun part! Well, one of the fun parts, anyway.
bottling it
Corny kegs, baby. Best brewing investment ever.
then drinking it before it expires
Sufficient alcohol content/hopping levels should keep infections away, if you've sanitized properly. Of course, if you're worried about consuming it before it passes peak flavor, invite friends over for a party. I promise you, they will show. However, I tend to find the old maxim true: The homebrew is ready when it's gone.
However, if you do decide to do it, it is a very rewarding experience.
Cheers to that. I take it you brew?
* Apologia pro vita sua: People homebrew for the same reasons that people use or develop FOSS. Some people are just out to save a buck. Others feel that the mass-produced and mass-marketed products are often lacking in quality, or perhaps they feel that the niche products are often pricey and have an artificially snobby following. Some do it because they realize they can produce something equal or superior (for their tastes and purposes, at least) to commercially available alternatives. Some do it just because they love doing it, they love the process of creation. Brewers usually share their creations freely with others and simply ask for a smile and tiny bit of gratitude in return. Many are content to buy basic equipment and a set of ingredients and combine them as instructed, like someone might download and use Ubuntu without ever peeking under the hood. Or, a brewer might create and refine their own recipes then share them with the world, like a developer might write applications or drivers to suit themselves before releasing it to others who might use it or improve it.
They often take pride in personally building or tweaking their hardware, whether it is a 2 x quad core server with 32 GB RAM repurposed into a badass desktop (the fans make it sound like a Cessna taking off, but who the hell cares), or a custom-welded brewstand with 3 x 170,000btu propane burners (sounds like a jet taking off - freakin' glorious).
Commercial brewers jealously guard their recipes and processes. Homebrewers love to share insights and techniques. As a matter of fact, once you get one talking you can barely shut them up (case and point). Homebrewers believe that knowledge is power, and should be shared freely. In fact, they not only personify the free as in beer / free as in speech metaphor, they improve on it, since they are generally happy to freely provide the recipe for the beer just poured you, making a hybrid case of free as in speech and beer.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.