Hi guys,
What do you think about adding another page to pixls.us, which could have a series of links to members webpages for public viewing?
It might be a way to not only showcase to the greater population what results OS photography software can achieve, but also add further exposure for photographers themselves?
Ofcourse the caveat would be that only websites that use FOSS for imaging could be showcased, otherwise there would be no point IMO.
What do you all think?
I think thatās a great idea.
I donāt think I could claim 100% FOSS though. 85% Maybe? 
Yeah, thatās what I was thinking (around 70%), but your 85% suggestion is much better!
I guess itād have to be a trust thing, or you could require websites with only images with exif data included, which shows what software was used for editing? Or is that too much to expect?
Do we just take peopleās word for it that they use free software? Does it have to be 100% free software for your whole workflow? What if you use a non-free operating system? How do you prove such a thing?
@paperdigits Requirement for exif data on the websiteās images? This would show what software was used.
Or you could restrict it to pixls members. I mean if your a member here, thereās a very high chance your work has a majority of free software edits.
Exif is editable.
Not trying to say the page is a bad idea, but that the requirement will be impossible to enforce.
Probably the most sensible way would be showcase gallery pages that are 100% libre made? That way nobody would need their entire site to have to make that claim. I think people would be less likely to cheat because itās just one specific gallery page on their site, dedicated to open/libre art. Or instead of links, maybe we could start a member gallery, here on the forum? Just one or two pieces per member?
Exif data can be stripped or faked too easily I think.
In any case, you are definitely on to something. I know a lot of professional photographer out there who think that their clients would somehow disapprove of using open source tools. Itās important to change that perception, both with other photographers, and with our clients as well.
So if the whole site is libre/free, then it can all be included? Because, FOSS is all I use these days.
It is a cracking idea
My Flickr photostream in 2012/2013 was Windows / GIMP (prior to that PSE)
I switched to Linux Ubuntu in August 2014 and started using a combination of Rawtherapee / Darktable / GIM / GāMIC
Flickr 2011 early 2012 Windows / PSE
Flickr 2012 / 2013 was open source editors (GIMP) and windows
Flickr from August 2014 every image is totally FOSS (well apart from one image that a friend edited using PSE / Nik)
I wonder if this wouldnāt turn off newcomers along the lines that āthis site is only for very good photographersā.
I think that we can take a friendly attitude and trust what people say hereā¦ anyhow, I guess the moderators will have full control over which galleries are included, and the list of galleries is not supposed to grow anarchically.
Of course, my recently created gallery on github is 100% floss in terms of tools being used. Part of the editing was done under OSX thoughā¦
@Ofnuts Good point. But I guess most of us are still amateur, so it provides a starting point and something to aim for scenario.
I know for me, Iāve felt FOSS couldnāt possibly deliver the results that the likes of LR/PS do. There was no websites showing pictorially how wrong I was. The idea might also be to dispel this myth completely.
In my view, this should only encourage the public to see what free software can actually do, and with a bit of practice they can achieve the same results.
I think the key here is free/libre software, OS independent. If we made it free/libre OS, that would be Linux only, and whilst Iām a Linux fan-boy, I think (in this case) what OS the edits are done on is irrelevant.
I agree that worry shouldnāt be expended on checking on extent of use of free software. If someone says their photos are (mainly?) created/processed with free software, I think that should be good enough for a simple list of galleries curated in good faith.
Perhaps someone could start a wiki post here at the forum containing a list to see how it goes before itās considered for the main site.
I think this is a great idea!
The issue of where to draw the line is a sticky one, however. In some ways, F/OSS software on a non-free OS is a big issue, but in other ways it doesnāt matter. The problem is that we can always go down this slippery slope. What about the firmware on my camera? Itās not FOSS (there is no FOSS firmware for Olympus cameras). What about pictures I took on my Android phone? I didnāt root it and flash pure AOSP onto it, so itās not purely FOSS. I have been using a paid manual camera app called āProShotā so I can capture RAW images on that phone (now, the great Open Camera provides a FOSS option for that). I sometimes use Snapseed (gratis, but not FOSS) to edit on Android, as there are no full-fledged FOSS Android photo editors. Even when I port images to my Linux (Xubuntu) computers, and use FOSS software to edit them (Darktable/GIMP/GāMIC/RawTherapee, etc.), I then upload them to Flickr (free, not open) to host them for my github sites, Jekyll powered gallery (FOSS). And even if I did host directly on Github, my ISP is certainly using non-free software to manage and direct the webtraffic to my computer when I view them.
In short, letās just take peoples word that they used a mostly libre workflow, and that they want to show off what they were able to do within that (totally awesome) workflow. We want to inspire people to join our community, not turn them away with arbitrary definitions and thresholds.
I totally agree with you.
The embedded software is a slightly different story anyway. Software is linked to the camera, and changing a camera entails the corresponding software change. And as a DSLR owner what keeps me with Canon is not the software license but the price of all my lenses 
(*)
Using libre software on non-libre platforms should be encouraged, since this helps people make the jump to libre platforms later. People are not particularly enamored with Windows, they are tied to it by Office and, in our case, Photoshop/Lightroom.
(*) and of course the vast superiority of the red straps over the yellow ones
It has always been my intention at some point to find a way to highlights the photographers in the community in some way. Either through a page of some sort, like a showcase of works, or at the very least through links.
I personally love the idea.
So, perhaps we can come up with a nice format for creating a list of user portfolios/websites? What type of information would be relevant to include, does everyone think? Off the top of my head maybe something likeā¦
Personally I think itād be neat to have a page available for each member that wanted one where they could link works + relevant contact information. Ideally this would be helpful for a push later on to help raise awareness within the F/OSS community that there are not only photographers who use Free Software, but that may also license liberally, and even better are available to hire for work (or to license/purchase their works for various uses).
For me the whole discussion goes into the wrong direction. IMO a pure link page should only be bound to being part of the pixls.us. community, not on the software used or something else (of course pages could still be excluded for legal or moral reason). Another, additional approach would be a regular series of posts (e.g. monthly) introducing photographers from the community and their pictures, including a brief workflow description etc. This should be limited to FOSS only, at least for the pictures/topics of the post.