XnView must go Opensource!

Discussions on XnView for PocketPC

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janneman22
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XnView must go Opensource!

Post by janneman22 »

I've a good idea:

XnView pocket must go opensource!

that's better for all

benefits:

- everyone works together towards the same, so problems can be better resolved
- The main developer has more time, because he has less to do
- New features can be quickly introduced


What do you think? Say it!
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huhuhu
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by huhuhu »

Agreed! Not only the pocket version but the regular version of xnview! Would love to contribute to that one
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jaqian
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by jaqian »

I agree too. Its far better than Kphotoalbum, F-Spot, Digikam etc But I think a lot of the Linux-heads won't use it because its proprietary. Just need to improve the photo import tool or inLinux allow to interface with Rapid Photo Downloader.
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obelisk
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by obelisk »

disagree
OS software has no responsibility. There are hundreds of firefox bugs that are too 'boring' to fix or have been abandoned over the years.
a responsive owner of xnview gives us much better software than OSS's "someone else will fix it" mentality.
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budz45
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by budz45 »

obelisk wrote:disagree
OS software has no responsibility. There are hundreds of firefox bugs that are too 'boring' to fix or have been abandoned over the years.
a responsive owner of xnview gives us much better software than OSS's "someone else will fix it" mentality.
I have to agree there :)
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janneman22
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by janneman22 »

It will give the development a boost :)
Look at my website http://www.gereviewd.nl
alleyoopster
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by alleyoopster »

obelisk wrote:disagree
OS software has no responsibility. There are hundreds of firefox bugs that are too 'boring' to fix or have been abandoned over the years.
a responsive owner of xnview gives us much better software than OSS's "someone else will fix it" mentality.
I think this is a weak argument. There are plenty of examples of well managed open source software projects and some fine examples of really good OSS. 99% of my work is using OSS. Some good projects off the top of my head: OpenOffice, GIMP, Amarok, K3b, Xfce, thousands of KDE and Gnome apps. Also photo management such as digikam, kphotoalbum, geeqie and f-spot. Some of these have been going for years and going strong. Managed well OSS works.
MaxSt
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by MaxSt »

obelisk wrote:disagree
OS software has no responsibility. There are hundreds of firefox bugs that are too 'boring' to fix or have been abandoned over the years.
a responsive owner of xnview gives us much better software than OSS's "someone else will fix it" mentality.
Both approaches have problems.

1. I posted apng bugfix for Firefox a month ago, but Mozilla guys still ignore it.

2. I complained about apng bug that appeared in XnView 1.97.1 , but it was not fixed in 1.97.2 and still not fixed 1.97.3

I found the experience equally frustrating, in both cases.
obelisk
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by obelisk »

there are plenty of bugs in Mozilla and now Firefox that have never been fixed, after 5yrs. There was an image loading bug from around 2002 that was ignored probably because while most people were on dialup the 'cool kids' were on early ADSL / ISDN and it didn't affec them.

Pierre along with other mods listen and respond to every single bug report. He finds time to fix it, and discusses with you the fix and reviews it without making you sign up to bugzilla and going thru lines of red tape. Xnview is nowhere near as complex as firefox, and doesn't need to be OS. You may think OSS is magic in some way, but in the end either someone (ONE) person has to review and approve each fix, or we can have a free for all and maybe end up with a bloated viewer like ACD's.
MaxSt
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by MaxSt »

OK, let's take a look at this bug:

http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=19477

It's the same bug in both Firefox and XnView.

We have now 3 versions of XnView with this bug, with almost to response. All it takes is to go back to the older code, because it worked fine before.

In Firefox it somewhat easier, because I could just explain libpng people how to fix it, and they did. But it took a lot of time, literally months of nagging, for Mozilla people to even review the fix. And when they finally accepted it months later, they said "it's too late for 3.6", it will go into 3.7 instead. That means more waiting.

Now I looked at another annoying 2-year old Firefox bug, but since it's open source, I simply fixed it myself. But then again, I asked for review 1 month ago, but so far Mozilla have not responded. I suspect they'll respond just before 3.7 launch and say "it's too late for 3.7"...

So as you can see I don't think "OSS is magic", it can be slow and frustrating, but at least my fix will make into Firefox eventually. Even if it means waiting for 4.0 release in 2011.

But will XnView ever support "grayscale+alpha" PNG files? I'm not so sure I'll ever see that. Pierre clearly said that full PNG support is a low priority thing.
obelisk
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by obelisk »

exactly. it'll benefit you, who can look at code, fix it and use it yourself.
it won't benefit me, because I can't use your code, and maintainers take months to include it

now is it worth the ongoing cost of Pierre maintaining the maintainers and stuff? for software of this size, I'd say the number of users like you who can suggest good code fixes is 1000 times less than FF. Thus the cost of maintaining it as OSS would outweigh any benefits to most users.

for me, every bug I've found had been fixed within 2 releases. I am willing to wait 2-3mths when I've been recognized. For FF, you submit a bug and it's untouched for 2mths, then changes to 'wontfix' or sth useless w/o dialog at all.

for your apng bug, I've never heard of apng before. Guess that's why it's low priority. Pierre has fixed many 'boring' but mainstream bugs here. FF often leaves 'boring' but mainstream bugs floundering, because simply it's boring and nobody's paid (in $, pride, name) to fix it.

Pierre can be proud of XnView. 99% of FF contributors can't be proud of FF as their work, cuz millions worked on it. If you can't take pride in your work, you also don't take responsibility for it. After all, another million contributors could fix it, why should I?
MaxSt
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Re: XnView must go Opensource!

Post by MaxSt »

While we were busy arguing, Pierre fixed it in 1.97.4. :D

But what I mentioned as "low priority" is regular PNG files. I posted this one year ago:

http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17474

Even Windows internal viewer and IE render both images correctly.
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