Loud ramblings of a Software Artisan

I discovered today pyexiv2, which is a Python interface to the infamous Exiv2, a GPL library to read and write Exif and IPTC/IIM metadata from JPEG and various camera RAW file. Too bad I can't reuse the exiv2 code in libopenraw as it is GPL and not LGPL.^[1]

pyexiv2 is actually an exemple on how easy it is to write Python module in C++ using Boost.Python

Thank you Adobe for releasing your XMP SDK 4.1.1 under the BSD license. Now we can use it with GPL software. My main motivation beyond Exempi was GPL compatibility.

I promise I'll put it into good use. I don't know yet but I might end up abandoning Exempi in it current if that turns out well.

Update: the announcement

I'm just back from LGM, at least not yet, I'm waiting for my train.

This conference has been extremely interesting. Scribus, Inkscape, The Gimp, hugin (and friends), Krita where amongst these tools that users really like. I'm still impressed seeing jimmac demoing how to use Inkscape. I tried to do the same I completely got lost ; and I'm passing on Gimping too. At least I got a book "Gimp 2 Efficace" (in French) to learn more. Thanks to the conference sponsor.

On the developer side, GEGL looks yummy. For now, I'm actually thinking letting it demosaic the Bayer CFA extracted from RAW file to concentrate on the other features. After all most applications are likely to be willing to provide their own (which is already part of the spec), so why bothering.

Krita looks very interesting, and to the question "Will it provide Corel Painter features?" the answer is "yes". See Boud's post.

Also amazing is how John Bintz and MenTaLguY show us their work flow to draw comics using Free Software on Linux. This involve Sane, Inkscape and some programming language for the automation to generate the final work.