Over the past several years I have been using darktable for my post processing. I would like to thank the dev teams involved, you all have created an amazing tool, one that is actually 2 steps ahead of the commercial counterparts. THANK YOU!
Recently I purchased a new Hasselblad X2D and the dev teams have made code changes and helped me compile the right code bases to start using darktable to process raw files straight away.
This project is more responsive and more professional than most any other open source project I have interfaced with.
I feel its time to put my money where my mouth is, and I want to support you all on an ongoing basis, my question is:
What most/some/this developer would appreciate even more than money, if you can “afford” it, is time. We lack enough non-developers (i.e. “normal users”) who test the development version (the next release version) or even proposed changes (PRs) and give feedback whenever anything causes breakage (either crashes, incorrect output, or simply confusion due to being unintuitive or incompatible with existing workflow). Providing comprehensive reports and being available for further testing (especially if you are on a less usual platform) can make a big difference in the quality of our releases and therefore in the kind of response we receive afterwards (either rewarding and stimulating or not so much). Developers are the worst testers (because they don’t test what they don’t envision happening, and therefore may not be handling correctly, and they know how every feature is supposed to be used). Also, they don’t have every kind of hardware. Donating money will do little to change that (for most developers; unless they can make a living of it, but we’ve got mixed experiences with such attempts).
Not to say we don’t appreciate the gesture of monetary gifts (and some are indeed funding costs out of their own pocket and could use support); but mostly for the gesture and appreciation it signifies. Balancing out complaints / bug reports with positive feedback is a really worthwhile thing to do, so thank you!
And if you don’t have time to give, don’t feel bad; it is completely understood and this message is only meant as a suggestion.
Thanks for the feedback. I do have time, I run darktable on Linux (Currently running Fedora Linux), I am comfortable with git and compiling locally. I would love to help. Please let me know what I can do to get started
And a next step after that, look at new PRs, especially those marked RFC (Pull requests · darktable-org/darktable · GitHub) and, if they are not too technical/internal, provide feedback/suggestions/ideas/encouragement (or discouragement where needed ). Or read through the issue list; try to help submitters where you can or distill more information out of them that can lead to bugs (or ui issues) being fixed.
And as @elstoc will attest, it is not just the code that could use help; the documentation is a massive effort as well, so if you have skills as a writer/translater (or reader!) you could get involved there as well.
A community is not “a bunch of coders”; it is everyone who gets involved in whatever way they feel they can have fun and add value, so welcome!
I’ll get going on testing… I do have some documentation skills but I dont have any translation skills, let me know where I can jump in and help with documentation
). Or read through the issue list; try to help submitters where you can or distill more information out of them that can lead to bugs (or ui issues) being fixed.