Be sure to read the current Thread about Rapid RAW RapidRaw - A new FOSS raw processor - #10 by Nexis4Jersey .
A number of people recently felt the need to develop their own RAW processor. It appears to be reasonably easy to get a prototype with a nice UI and some basic functionallity working. But people vastly underestimate how much effort it is to get from this state to an actual useful application.
So it makes sense to pool resources. Everyone wants a “next generation” RAW development software, but a zoo of single-developer pet projects will get us nowhere.
The community should either focus on one single project or at least get the hard color science parts developed once, so different developers can attach different UIs to the same underlying base.
VKDT currently looks like the most promising candidate in both cases. It is not very usefull yet in its current state, but the technical foundation is solid and it is very fast. Also the logic/algorithms are separate from the UI, so it might be suitable as a backend on which other developers put their own UI.