Permit me to express my surprise at the level of acrimony towards the opinions and decisions of Aurelien Pierre. About 3 years ago, I started the difficult journey to become a photographer with an old digital Fuji camera which had one redeeming feature, it took images in Raw. I had not used the camera for at least 10 years, and it became a most frustrating hobby trying to find a freeware tool, cos I simply could not justify Adobe Photoshop for what was an occasional use activity.
It was Aurelien’s videos on Youtube, and his modules which elevated darktable from an unpredictable tool which relied on a difficult to use base table, with the introduction of filmic-rgb and the other workflow enhancements, that made this tool finally consistent, correcting fundamental processing issues, in a way that I have seen in any other tool.
A labour of love on his part, for which he became a full time contributor to darktable. Huge sacrifice on his part, to follow his passion for purity and exactness in the algorithms behind the darktable processing.
Just like me - he is entitled to his opinions, and unfortunately like human endeavour, our best intentions can be misunderstood. But it is not all bad, the situation has forced him to move on with his own fork of daktable - Ansel, so he can pursue his vision, with much less rancour.
This is a bold decision, on his part and I salute his courage, and wish him well. I have installed Ansel, and look forward to using it, the more, as it gets more stable. And as soon as I have some spare cash I will be contributing to him, in appreciation.
Sad that “Open” did not result in a more open acceptance of his priorities for image processing.
Nobody ever had any issues with his code contributions or his ideas, just how he expresses them. He has done great things for image processing in darktable, and I agree with many of the things he thinks need changing in the UI (as do many who have commented negatively on other threads). He is indeed entitled to have opinions and I wish him all the best with Ansel. I wish there could have been less rancour as well but I think perhaps you misunderstand where that rancour originated.
When someone constantly rants at you using expletives and derogatory statements its hard to be “Open” forever. Also I believe he packed up and left I don’t think there was any banishment. He is now free of all shackles to pursue the direction that suits him best and likely that is the best environment for him to operate in.
Your title to me is a bit ironic as I think despite frequent rants belittling those working on the project there was what appeared to be then and now an appreciation for his work and contributions, almost universally despite this (me included). So those belittled and not appreciated are still willing to appreciate his contributions and efforts to shape and elevate DT but not to be ridiculed at will and in public. Workplaces have codes of conduct for just these sorts of things and for sure at least where I worked those sorts of outbursts would have me fired or at the very least seriously disciplined…
Having said all this I think we are much better off sticking to talking about the tools that people create rather than the people that create the tools…that is for social media where people eat their own…
I don’t want to remove this thread, since expressing gratitude is nice, but some of the other sentiments expressed are, at best, extremely misguided and with much rose tint to the spectacles.
So I’m just going to lock it and say “be excellent to one another.”