True to his word…slimmed down… 11 less modules in the new fork 
Interesting I guess the option for a tone curve will have to be the tone eq??
I’d miss the use of the Colorize module. I’m not sure how I’d use any of the retained modules to produce that effect.
I use that one at times too…… I guess you just load an old edit that has it and save the stack as a style and then you can use it …unless he starts to strip the code for those modules as well and not just depreciate them
To see what went on, I’ve now read many of the discussions in Github:
Improve star rating filter · Issue #11757 · darktable-org/darktable · GitHub](Improve star rating filter · Issue #11757 · darktable-org/darktable · GitHub)
https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/pull/11801
https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/2078
Is there really a will to change the paradigm of dt? I don’t think this is about design nor functions but about being afraid to be too much like LR or any industry product. You’re all very proud of the fact that the learning curve is steep as hell and for the select few.
I believe the dev team missed the opportunity of truly renewing dt UI wise and that APs fork is not just a fork but a crossroad. Of course dt will continue but just down the usual track. Really saddened by the loss of talent and potential.
Having that said, thank you for forcing me to learn color theory whilst I tried to dig into the dt maze but now I’ll move elsewhere 
I don’t think you read carefully enough or thoroughly enough.
Because of the collect filters widget? I don’t think so.
The learning curve is only steep if you’re overwhelmed by the number of options and have read any of the docs or watched some videos.
Again, you didn’t read enough. Commits for the pixelpipe are still being pushed/pulled from AP’s fork.
Your attempt at an incendiary post is a complete failure.
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Well if it works for those with the time skill and effort to develop it then I guess it serves its purpose. I don’t think collectively people working on DT would go out of their way to make it more difficult for themselves or create road blocks for others.
There is no commercial target here or number of users or user likes its just a bunch of openly available code to use as it is or to modify by those with the knowledge and inspiration to do so. People if motivated will pitch in and make contributions or they will move on to another project or take this one in their own direction… AP has taken initial steps but I have not seen that he has done much with his fork …he may yet or it may stall if he has lost interest or motivation for that project… maybe he will surface or is working on vkdt I am not sure.
I think in any project a unified vision is often hard to achieve and when it is not driven by profit or a mission statement with organized teams then this is how it will evolve.
Lots of people have complained about the UI but no one has stepped away and made a massive improvement.
I guess I am less bothered by UI and the like as I have suffered 35 years of custom technical software to run instruments and analyze data. So for me this is just one more tool to figure out what happens when you push the buttons
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hmm, are you actually proving my point here 
But fair enough, I’m only a regular user and have not been in the dev process but then again that might be to my advantage.
I’m not sure what point you’re talking about since you didn’t really make a point but rather a bunch of vague statements of opinion.
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… I would just add an old maxim:
“Alone, I go faster; together, we go further”
Greetings from Brussels.
Christian
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I guess you describe current affairs pretty well, a laissez faire strategy, which really is also quite alright. Many have contributed to dt which is beyond my understanding. Respect.
In every culture/organisation/gathering of people there are subtle entrenched beliefs, i.e. ways of doing things, which only by the art of double loop learning can be changed and improved.
In many FOSS arrangements the founder is around giving direction but as I understand, the dt founder has left the building (?) and started vkdt. (From a interrelationship perspective this story might also have been about leadership.) The result of no vision is a “cauliflower”.
But Todd, thanks for your personal and frank perspective. I, on the other hand, can’t wait for a new Mac built or not even being able to ask, ‘what there’s a button for that?’ So that means I have to pay which hopefully saves me time for more photographing…
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OK, I do not see how you tried to make that point in your original post. You asked, “is there appetite for DT to change?” And the answer is yes, as evident by the collections widget and the scene ref’d pipeline.
Not sure why you’re generalizing about Foss projects here.
The original author of dt does not provide a lot of direction, but he is still around and contributes his knowledge regularly. He also started vkdt.
Again, general statements don’t really do any good. I would not describe the project as having “no vision” and that is unfair to those who’ve spent copious amounts of time contributing and are nice enough to share the results with you.
No, that’s called single loop learning!
Exactly.
If you’re going to quote yourself, at least quote the whole thing. You can’t try and turn a back handed compliment into something positive by omitting your own words.
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There wouldn’t be such an industry if there wasn’t such a need. I think we all need the tools that work for us and as you say give you the most time to actually take photo’s which it is all about…
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since you’re directing this at me i think i should probably comment :). in general i think all of your observations here are mostly accurate. there was a strong vision about performance, modularity, language, and ui design in the beginning i would say. but also the dt project was always about building a community of people who enjoy working with the software. we always used to develop for our own needs. and i think this lively community is still strong and something to be proud about.
the downside of this concept is that pretty much all of the initial guidelines have been discarded over time (people have their own ideas about “direction”, they are grown-ups). but more than the occasional frustration that some features don’t quite work as i would have done it or are slower than i would wish (cf. community above, my opinion is also just one), what drove me to start vkdt is really that the times have changed. in 2009 i evaluated a pure gpu pipeline and concluded that the hardware/drivers weren’t ready. designing the very core for 2020 results in a few quite different decisions. same with the gui stack (xorg/cairo/gtk/8-bit/cpu). to a point that starting something else is easier.
(on a personal note i’m not so much into “strong” leaders, i will not agree that such a concept ever makes the world better)
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Most importantly, thank you very much for taking my thoughts constructively.
I whole heartedly understand your note on strong leaders. However, bad strong leaders are in for the power while good strong leaders/visionaries have earned their right by the community. E.g., Matt Mullenweg from WordPress is not a (traditional) strong leader but sets the path somewhat gently/firmly. See 2 latest posts (aug 1 and sep 19): WordPress.org Project – Just another make.wordpress.org site
A clean slate?
‘With times changing’ it would be interesting to revive your vision/initial guidelines in a written form for vkdt, maybe stretch out and join forces with R&Dt - respectively not knowing anything about the perhaps ongoing, technical or personal rationality (no pun intended) - and not the least, make progress and peace. I think you have the right to do so keeping in mind that you can’t win them all.
Fair winds.
“dt, the best light manipulator on this pale blue dot” 
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AP is still contributing to regular darktable, and although he has demonstrated interesting in porting his work to vkdt, it seems like there’s still some work ahead that will land in darktable(both regular and his fork).
Nobody is at war here, so there is no need to achieve peace. People disagreed in the general direction the UI was going and created a fork, it happens all the time. Work can and still is being ported to and from both forks (Like paperdigits said up there). A good example is RT and ART as both diverged a while ago but now they are both benefiting from each other’s new features. Progress is still being made.
Maybe contributors will eventually move on to vkdt, but that still seems like it’s a few years away, specially when it comes to reaching some sort of UI parity with darktable.
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His vision is concisely captured in the vkdt source code, both in what/how it implements and what it doesn’t. Mapping that to what end users will consider is down the road a bit, methinks…
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- If one developer doesn’t want to contribute any more, that up to him.
- Maybe a crossroad - Yes.
- If by “usual track” you mean: constantly trying to improve algorithms, adding features helping to develop raw images in the best way, fixing bugs, improve UI for interested people, try to support dt newbies, then I fully agree.
- Yes. But we all work in a team; every single dev needs to be interested / have a desire to work in a cooperative way…
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Hi! I’m reviving this thread just to get a feeling for the state of Aurelien’s fork which appears to be somewhat forgotten (last commit is from beginning of August). I did post in github’s discussion a short comment just as a way to short circuit AP’s comment but I had none.
Now, it is true that I am using R&Darktable as my only processing/organizational tool and don’t feel like anything’s missing but you know how it goes, you kind of feel left behind if there’s no one else around.