darktable user survey

[anon41087856]

@Bbawt

I don’t think I’m alone when I say getting involved in FOSS-world is intimidating…its a whole new language, you don’t feel too welcome as a windows/mac user (its easy to creep away to the bigger crowds hanging over in Capture One or Adobe corners).

Having some experience in business, I also think that “cost-less = cheap” for many people. I have witnessed sales going up after increasing prices. People providing adult education will tell you the same : the same training program, when given “for free” (that is, paid by public subventions) or paid in full by a company or the trainees themselves, always gets a worse feedback when people don’t directly pay for it or are made aware of its full price.

The thing is, an intimidating and expensive software (Dassault Catia comes to mind) is an advanced work tool, while an intimidating and free software is an over-engineered piece of junk for amateur nerds. So if the perceived value is low, as a prejudice, then the whole UX might be just confirmation bias.

@Bbawt

Are there any lessons from the most successful FOSS programs (e.g. OpenOffice/LibreOffice; the Document Foundation etc) that need to be thought about to guide darktable into the future?

Not sure it that applies. Nobody uses OpenOffice as a hobby, it’s really not the same purpose as dt. I would rather look at Blender, for example.

@damonlynch

To be blunt: you will never be able to correctly understand from any existing or new survey data why darktable or any other program is or is not being used in places like India, or France, or Russia, or any specific industry or sector. Even worse, you run the very real risk of over-interpreting the data and drawing erroneous conclusions that could lead you in the wrong direction.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. But to be a good designer, I need to understand who I am designing for, and what their problems are, while also avoiding the survivor bias (only considering the people still using it and not the one who gave it up).

@damonlynch

If you’re interested, consider contacting Heather A. Horst for suggestions about how to take it further. Also, there is a woman who did her PhD research on some or other aspect of the FOSS community. She was (is?) active in Debian or Fedora or Gnome, I forget which. If you can track her down that might help too. I don’t recall her name but it’s very likely not Dr. Horst.

Now we are talking, thanks for the tips.

@elGordo

I agree that quality alone will not greatly enlarge the dt user base.

To be completely honest, I don’t want to enlarge dt’s user base. Actually, more users only means more trouble. Opening dt to Windows was, if you ask me, a mistake that has been long delayed (the reason being we are really under-staffed on the Win front, no developer in his right mind wants to touch that OS, so the bugs trackers are filled with Win-centric peculiar issues).

darktable is not meant for anyone, and that’s fine. I just want to be sure that we are not driving users away for wrong reasons (that would be any reason not related to image processing, like lack of computer skills).

[Bbawt (Brian)]

@anon41087856

To be completely honest, I don’t want to enlarge dt’s user base. Actually, more users only means more trouble. Opening dt to Windows was, if you ask me, a mistake that has been long delayed (the reason being we are really under-staffed on the Win front, no developer in his right mind wants to touch that OS, so the bugs trackers are filled with Win-centric peculiar issues).

This is one of the crucial points - both program developers, and program users, needs to know…who are the clients? I came to dt feeling the program was trying to expand quite rigorously, and since dt had just moved to 2.6 and there was a Win&mac version, I assumed the program/developers wanted Win/mac users. That attracted me to the program. If then getting developers is too difficult, then the options are to figure out how to attract developers for those OSs, or say “we’re sorry, we just can’t support Win/OS…come back if you move to linux” and just focus on linux development.

I think dt rivals and beats many commercial products, and I think its potential to be a major player as a viable alternative is huge. So I’m interested in the potential problem how how to attract more developers/coders for Win/Mac OS…and hence the question of how to the more successful FOSS programs with active and developed Win/Mac OS support do it.

[paperdigits (Mica)]

@Bbawt

who are the clients?

darktable is a raw processing application for photographers who appreciate the mechanics of their craft.

@Bbawt

dt had just moved to 2.6 and there was a Win&mac version, I assumed the program/developers wanted Win/mac users

It got ported because someone did the work. People have to keep doing the work.

[s7habo (Boris Hajdukovic)]

@paperdigits

darktable is a raw processing application for photographers who appreciate the mechanics of their craft.

That would be a nice motto for advertising darktable!

[chris]

@paperdigits

darktable is a raw processing application for photographers

I know that you know, but on this thread I want to make sure that this fact is not forgot: darktable is a digital asset management solution for images as well. There may be people for whom this part is more important than the editing. I personally am at the 50/50 edge.

[elGordo (Gord)]

@chris

There may be people for whom this part is more important than the editing

…and people who don’t want to use it as a DAM at all. Fortunately, it straddles that divide very well!

[Bbawt (Brian)]

@paperdigits

darktable is a raw processing application for photographers who appreciate the mechanics of their craft.

But my point being, as Aurelien stated, he may not want the user base to grow and may think porting to Win was a mistake…so should dt be a raw processing application for all photographers or for linux based photographers?

I’m just reading into this all that dt ported to Win was kind of based on luck, may or may not have been a good idea, creates all kinds of problems. I’m just raising this as I think its an important question to answer to help determine what dt should be in the future.

[paperdigits (Mica)]

@Bbawt

But my point being, as Aurelien stated, he may not want the user base

But his opinion is only his opinion. He’s doing a lot of great work, but there are other who are currently working on darktable currently, and many more who have worked on darktable in the past. Aurelien’s opinion alone doesn’t lead us in any particular direction. If there are more windows developers that wan to help, welcome aboard! Same go for macOS.

[MStraeten (MartinSt)]

I’m not sure you understood Aureliens comment in the right way. It’s not the user base darktable should focus on, its the quality of the processing thats in the centre of development.
Unfortunately widening the user base results in users expecting a service like a commercial vendor but witout needing to pay for it. Also they often request a focus on their individual needs - mostly make darktable work like their former favorite tool works (mostly lightroom because they want to have lightroom without paying for it - mostly windows users because lightroom is not that common on linux ;).
And “then you would be attractive for more users” seems to be the main argument for them.
But thats not how FOSS works …

[PhotoPhysicsGuy (Bob)]

@MStraeten

Unfortunately widening the user base results in users expecting a service like a commercial vendor but witout needing to pay for it.

Managing expectations is at the core of commercial photography. Active communication can deal with all these expectations.

@MStraeten

Also they often request a focus on their individual needs

I see this as a problem too.

A feature list hierarchy of ‘what’s implemented next’ could help. Every Idea suggested by a user (feature request, usability, whatever) is put on the bottom of the list. The top of the list is populated by the things the devs are going to implement next. There could be an upvoting downvoting process…
At the moment it is not clear to me what is a coming feature and what is being prioritised, whether I am alone with my requests, or if many think alike.

This could help to manage expectations. And direct focus and energy to important tasks (whatever is deemed important by the system installed).

If you see a list of twenty features to be implemented before yours, you don’t feel unheard at least. Devs need to know ‘who’ they are developing ‘what’ for. This list could be a condensate of all the peoples whishes taking part in the process. Of course this will have survivor bias. Seeing an influx of windows users as a mistake also will have a survivor bias.

[agriggio (Alberto)]

Hi,

@MStraeten

mostly lightroom because they want to have lightroom without paying for it - mostly windows users because lightroom is not that common on linux

this is something I don’t get. Why don’t windows users wanting a gratis Lightroom just use Adobe Bridge? isn’t the raw developer the same? or are the DAM and other parts of Lightroom the more important ones for such users?

[chris]

@agriggio

or are the DAM and other parts of Lightroom the more important ones for such users?

That’s the case for many people I know that are using lightroom. Having a tagged library with > 100000 images makes switching hard I guess.

[chris]

Disclaimer: I never used the commercial software I am talking about, my judgement is based on talking to people and the internet.

@elGordo

Fortunately, it straddles that divide very well!

Hm, that’s something that adobe does very well. The separation of DAM and editor is good enough that the editor is used standalone or integrated in other products (e.g. Photoshop). I am not sure how the metadata framework works in that case, but I would guess it’s separate from the DAMs data base. That is not yet possible with darktable.

[Wayne_Sutton]

@agriggio

this is something I don’t get. Why don’t windows users wanting a gratis Lightroom just use Adobe Bridge? isn’t the raw developer the same?

I may be wrong but my understanding was that you can now only access the CR functionality in Bridge if you have a ‘qualifying product’ such as Lr or Ps installed on the same machine with a valid licence .

[agriggio (Alberto)]

are you sure? I have never had an Adobe subscription, but when I installed bridge (to test how it handled xmp sidecars and ratings) I also got camera raw, and I seem to be able to develop raw files without any restriction…

[MStraeten (MartinSt)]

there isn’t a product management or communication departmen at darktable So who could manage expectations?
If you want have an idea what is in the pipe, then you can bump around in the pull request section or read posts done by the most active developers. But usually they won’t have an elaborated roadmap, just an idea, what they think can be improved next.
Everybody who is interested in this r&d process can take part in the discussion here in the board or in github - but be aware: it’s the developer who defines the timeline and prioritization of his work

[xyzzy]

Well, the project manager handled communication, branding, diversity, hr etc etc. They were made redundant the other week because it turned out none of those roles were of any use in an open source software project…

[PhotoPhysicsGuy (Bob)]

@MStraeten

there isn’t a product management or communication departmen at darktable So who could manage expectations?

I know that there isn’t and the simple answer would be to get one then. I do not think that this will work in an open source project though.

But when you can’t have dedicated persons handling that, is there a way to implement a system which takes up those roles? If the project has grown to a size were additional users are seen as ‘problematic’ maybe it is time for that? Regular surveys on most-wanted features maybe? This whole fruitful discussion started with the question who uses dt in the first place. A survey was made which delivered some surprising answers.

@xyzzy

because it turned out none of those roles were of any use in an open source software project…

how is blender dealing with this? surely one of the biggest open source projects right now. focussing on pro’s and amateurs…they can deal with all this. Crossplattform on top of all.

[Wayne_Sutton]

That’s interesting. I tried about a year ago and couldn’t get it to work and so I checked on the Adobe support forum, which seemed to confirm that it used to work but had since been restricted. I think the trick was to install a trial version of Ps or lr, fire up bridge and then uninstall Ps or Lr. I may have missed something so I’ll try again when I get a chance.

[grsnovi (Gary Smith)]

I think the main reason you’re not attracting artistic professionals has more to do with these people spend less time geeking out on computers/message boards and gear and more time with their art.