Hi,

I tried discussing it on IRC couple of days ago, but, as usual for IRC, it quickly went to absurd, so let's try it again.

There is a good chance of having a real investment into development of GIMP starting next year and up to 2011. Right now I'm not in position to say in a public list where it would be coming from. I do know your general attitude to bounties, but somehow you have managed to successfully participate at GSoC twice, so I think it's still worth discussing it.

What I want is a list of two to four projects that would make GIMP stand out significantly further. I could name a couple of such projects, but you definitely know better what you want and can do in the end. Of course, this work should go upstream and thus be part of a development/release cycle, mentored by usability team etc. etc.

So please think of several really important tasks and let me know what they are within next 2-3 weeks.

It doesn't have to be just one person. It could be a small team too. But everybody who participates should be someone who knows Wilber's guts well enough to start a surgery without much procrastination :-)

Alexandre

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 5:42 PM, Martin Nordholts wrote:

I'm not sure what level of detail you are after

Generic, with further elaboration :)

* Introduce so called Adjustment Layers

This is more or less what I was somewhat afraid of when I wrote the previous letter :-) There are potential features that are probably not thoroughly investigated by usability team yet; at least there are no specs for them at gui.gimp.org.

Adjustments layers are something that comes from PS/PSP world where GEGL is an alien. So probably usability team should participate at this discussion to help fleshing out the list.

Or maybe I'm just worrying too much and you can make a generic description of functionality that will be actual even in one-two years when all specs are written.

Alexandre

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 6:34 PM, Martin Nordholts wrote:

This is more or less what I was somewhat afraid of when I wrote the previous letter :-) There are potential features that are probably not thoroughly investigated by usability team yet; at least there are no specs for them at gui.gimp.org.

So what you are asking for are well-specified and thoroughly investigated features where basically the only thing missing is people writing the code?

No quite so :)

See, having a ready spec helps writing a 101% precise proposal. But having basic understanding how things will work will be good as well right at this moment. I just wasn't sure the team had that understanding. That's all :) I'm not asking anyone to leave everything else and start doing serious researches.

Alexandre

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 7:58 PM, weskaggs wrote:

I think it would be impossible to give any sort of full answer to this without
more information. Are you talking about a level of support that would:

1) allow somebody like Sven or Mitch to work full-time on a project if they wanted to

Probably no, but I will have a clearer picture by the end of the month.

or 2) allow somebody like Sven or Mitch to work on it part-time

Yes, that's what we have in mind

or 3) bring in an inexperienced person to work full time for a while

Possible, but not really great (just in case, I do think of successful past GSoC students as of experienced persons).

or 4) support multiple people working nearly-full-time for an extended perior

Yes, depends on their skills

or 5) support a student over a few months, like GSOC?

This is possible too, except I'm talking about several *ambitious* projects, which probably are not something in the lines of usual GSoC level tasks.

Quite obviously the sort of project that would be feasible depends on which of these scenarios you have in mind.

I don't see a reason why there couldn't be a combination of 2 and 4 (and 5) cases, if that would fit development cycle and usability team's schedule.

Alexandre

2008/11/4 Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 7:58 PM, weskaggs wrote:

I think it would be impossible to give any sort of full answer to this without
more information. Are you talking about a level of support that would:

1) allow somebody like Sven or Mitch to work full-time on a project if they wanted to

Probably no, but I will have a clearer picture by the end of the month.

or 2) allow somebody like Sven or Mitch to work on it part-time

Yes, that's what we have in mind

or 3) bring in an inexperienced person to work full time for a while

Possible, but not really great (just in case, I do think of successful past GSoC students as of experienced persons).

or 4) support multiple people working nearly-full-time for an extended perior

Yes, depends on their skills

or 5) support a student over a few months, like GSOC?

This is possible too, except I'm talking about several *ambitious* projects, which probably are not something in the lines of usual GSoC level tasks.

Quite obviously the sort of project that would be feasible depends on which of these scenarios you have in mind.

I don't see a reason why there couldn't be a combination of 2 and 4 (and 5) cases, if that would fit development cycle and usability team's schedule.

Now it's time to start submitting proposals :)

Alexandre