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Pitivi Video Editor Surpasses 50% Crowdfunding Goal, Releases Version 0.94
kxra writes With the latest developments, Pitivi is proving to truly be a promising libre video editor for GNU distributions as well as a serious contender for bringing libre video production up to par with its proprietary counterparts. Since launching a beautifully well-organized crowdfunding campaign (as covered here previously), the team has raised over half of their 35,000 € goal to pay for full-time development and has entered "beta" status for version 1.0. They've released two versions, 0.94 (release notes) being the most recent, which have brought full MPEG-TS/AVCHD support, porting to Python 3, lots of UX improvements, and—of course—lots and lots of bug fixes. The next release (0.95) will run on top of Non Linear Engine, a refined and incredibly more robust backend Pitivi developers have produced to replace GNonLin and bring Pitivi closer to the rock-solid stability needed for the final 1.0 release.
Bah, humbug! My money is on Pitiemacs.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
So would this mean that any plugins would not have to be GPL?
I think the broader the base, the quicker the funding, so I would recommend pushing for porting to OSX, Windows and perhaps even Android
So that the people making it can continue to make it. So that they can continue to improve it. So that they can do so more than they already have.
It takes time to make software. Time is worth money.
You want someone to make it? They have to invest their time. That costs [opportunity cost] them money. They either do it out of the goodness of their heart, or someone gives them money to do it.
Just in case you were wondering.. (Handled by the Gnome Foundation)
And they let you allocate the money to specific sub-projects..
And slashdot posted a crowdfunding campaign before it was over!
No, because I still would have gotten what I paid for. A more mature, more stable code base, from which a good and fully useful product can be built.
Closed source software already exists. Why not spend money on that?
Because closed source software disappears when the company goes out of business. Ever heard of Caligari Truespace?
Exactly.
But open source software can effectively disappear too. If the devs want to change it to something you don't like, you have no say in the matter. If no one forks it and you can't do it yourself, it's gone.
Agreed with AC.
In addition, they're goal was 35,000 €. In comparison to commercial development, that's damn near free.
You can continue to:
* pay zero and use nothing
* use any of the existing free-ish editors that don't have the features this has
* pay zero and pirate some commercial software
* pay your monthly subscription for creative cloud etc
* pay ~$1k for a license to something like Final Cut Pro or Premier Pro
* pay nothing and still end up using this after others put their time and money into it and still complain because they asked for money
Why *wouldn't* you donate money to an open source project?
But if its something useful and popular, historically usually someone will fork it, or replace it with something else. Its no guarantee of everlasting life, but making it closed-source-only is an almost certain eventual doom.
you don't know what your getting, often no bug tracker, or companies hostile to the concept of fixing bugs, expensive, often bloated, often limited in features, and unable to make your own in many cases.
There are lots of reasons to get involved in FOSS programs. The notion that an established project is going to pick up shop after you donate is simply ludacris.
Also, if a program is GPL or copyleft, more or less all work put into it, will be done publicly and will be available in some form.
Oh, and what happens if a closed program just goes away, the maintainers split, company goes under? No more bug fixes, doesn't get ported to new platforms.
I just saw your page, not convinced your not a troll.
* pay zero and use Fusion 7 - https://www.blackmagicdesign.c... - now free-as-in-fantasy-beer
* pay zero and use LightWorks - http://www.lwks.com/
There's probably others that are closed source and commercially developed, yet available in free form one way or another, with extensive featuresets.
Of course on the open source side, there's further software as well. So I don't think it's unjust to ask why one would donate to Pitivi; it's just that the reason in this case is bunk. The real question should have been "Why donate funds to Pitivi, and not to [alternative]?"
Also, you're forgetting that the simple fact of there being existing open-source code for a project, means that someone, even you, given the effort and time, can learn to fork it, or rewrite something like it from scratch. With closed-source code this is not possible either.
why is this necessary? i mean, blender has nonlinear video editing capabilities. what will this offer that blender doesnt?
C'mon, admit it. You just want free stuff.
Correction: Final Cut Pro costs $300 these days. For someone who is serious about their video, that is not too bad. It is good enough for the Coen Brothers after all. But for non professional use, something like Premiere Elements or iMovie may be more than good enough, except of course if you use Linux. Does Pitivi offer more features?
Just be aware that we are often talking about 100k+ lines of code projects these days. For fixing minor bugs it is okay, but adding new features means a lot of real work. Have you tried downloading the source code of some application and making even just small modifications to it?
But adding new features isn't necessary just to keep it in play. Often all that is required is minor updates to keep it working on newer kernels.
So back to the point - the purpose of funding open source instead of closed source is to ensure future production. Closed source has a product in mind, and you pay for what you were delivered, with fixes to major bugs.
In that sense, Caligari Truespace did exactly what it was supposed to do for whatever money people gave it. Sure it disappeared, but people didn't pay for a continuing company. They paid for a product that worked.
Open source means that the people who care and want to develop it will. If they think it's important, they don't have to answer to a green-eyed bean counter. The features that the developers think are important will get developed. Not necessarily finished, but at least started.
The future of the project is not related to funding. The open nature of the code may be. The production of the code is the reason for funding. Don't confuse closed source, where the production of the binary is important. It may be abandoned, because no one cares to develop it, but that's not the point of funding.
More OSS video editors is great. I backed openshot a while ago, not because I have any interest in video editing (or watching videos - would much prefer to read) but because I think it'd be great to wrest some of the power away from the commercial options.
Open source software disappears too. Ever hear of AmaroK?
Gnome2, AmaroK, Songbird...
Yea, OSS just isnt the miracle elixir people like to pretend it is, and "Just fork it" isnt an effective incantation.
Ludicrous is the word you want. What you used was this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
You still can compile AmaroK if you want to. The source code is available.
If you are skilled enough you can even make improvements.
Try that with closed source...
I was looking for something free and tried Lightworks. I had a free-hand 720p recording from a Nikon D3100 and wanted to de-shake it, do some noise reduction (temporal, recoring was quite low-light at night), cut it in a few places and store it properly compressed. Nothing special, typical household stuff.
Lightworks free couldn't read the camera's video files (MPEG4/H.264 in MOV containier), had no image stabilization and couldn't export H.264. I also could not find proper noise reduction or a way to use available IS/NR plug-ins from e.g. virtualdub. Also I still don't get the LightworksUI and controls completely.
I ended up using vdubmod to import the camera's video files, doing IS+NR, writing uncompressed video that Lightworks could read. Then do the cutting in Lightworks, again writing uncompressed video, and doing the final H.264 encode with MediaCoder. Performance was disappointing due to huge files sizes.
Gnome2, AmaroK, Songbird... Yea, OSS just isnt the miracle elixir people like to pretend it is, and "Just fork it" isnt an effective incantation.
But the Mate Desktop, a Gnome 2 fork, exists, so GP seems to be right: If it's popular enough, it will live on.
Yep, that should be doable by one man.
You would donate if you believe in the direction that they are taking, and want to help them get there / sustain it.
Just like you buy commercial / closed source software, because you want what it does.
Nothing is ever guaranteed, but you have more of a chance of getting what you want if you are prepared to put your money (or time) where your mouth is.
Nobody claimed that free software means someone will fulfill one's every wish. In the end, with free software you're allowed to create the fork; proprietary software, you're not (generally). That's it, no miracles involved.
You seem to be forgetting the fact that if the source code isn't available then its not doable AT ALL. PERIOD. You also seem to be assuming that there only will ever be "one man."
No, no, no. As an example, download Firefox source code and find where the code for linear interpolation of zoomed images is located. Before even modifying it, just locate it and try to roughly understand how it works. When you have done this, come back to the coffee table.
My main point is that it is hard also when the source is available. At least I have found fixing even a small bug to take a few days. In the end, the fix can be trivial but it takes ages to get familiar with the codebase.
Is Cinelerra still around? Looks like there was an actual update back in September, which is the first movement I've seen on the project in about 5 years. I've never come across anybody else that uses it though.
NB. I'm not sure if the Coen brothers ever made the transition to Final Cut Pro X. Most professionals haven't. After X came out most feature crews I know either have been keeping their FCP 7 installations going or transitioned back to Avid. A lot of the people on the very low end have mostly transitioned to Premiere Pro.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Avid has been in development and in release for about 25 years now; I think Adobe Premiere is been available since at least 1992. I think both have been available for longer than the Linux operating system, let alone any OSS video editing package.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
GUIs are overrated.
Well then, just imagine how much longer it must have taken to write in the first place. Don't think of that time you spent learning the codebase as a waste; think of it as an investment.
That is true.