Love this idea. I think this is the best solution given the circumstances. 
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I do too. He’s mentioned a house remodel - maybe that got hosed up by supply chain issues. I know lumber prices spiked horribly over the past few years, and other stuff is screwy too.
I wasn’t sure if you or @heckflosse (some of his closest co-contributors on the project) had a more direct method (alternative email, phone number) for reaching out. I’ve found one possible phone number on a rather outdated website, but I’m definitely NOT calling that number myself, and I’m guessing you’ve probably already seen that number at some point too…
I think at this point we don’t need to rehash the story about our absent friend or @ him but look toward what we could do moving forward. Imagine him visiting one day and seeing 1000 mentions or @'s. I would nope back out. 
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It’s a delicate thing - because ideally, out of respect for him, I don’t think anyone wants to take a project that he’s been the lead of for a long time against his will. But there is a need to make the project go on, and people with the motivation to go ahead.
Ideally someone (preferably someone he has a really good working relationship with) could reach him and get two simple questions answered:
- Is he OK? Some of us are worried about him!
- Since he’s obviously got a lot on his plate, and hey, he deserves a break, would he be OK with someone else like Roel taking over the release manager role for 5.9?
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I will leave the decision about the release strategy to others because I have only been a contributor since recently. However, I want everyone to be aware of the challenges of adopting a new release schedule and be prepared accordingly.
A rolling release, for example, makes stability less clear. We have a dev branch that is usually more stable (in terms of bugs) because of bug fixes. Occasionally though, there will be a significant change (think exiv2) or an unexpected regression. We also have high standards for pp3 compatibility between stable releases. This needs to be reevaluated for a rolling release.
I hope we can figure things out and get a new version of RT out to the general public soon. There have been so many great improvements since 5.8.
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Yes. A rolling release is only slightly different from the already-existing dev builds. (I am, in fact, having difficulty conceptualizing anything other than occasionally version-bumping dev without a formal release process…) Also has a greater risk of “wasting a translator’s time” which seems to be a concern. Although at least one translator has gone ahead anyway recently, maybe it’s time to proceed at risk with that regard? If it’s beneficial I’m thinking of writing a script to look for orphaned strings. Something like Weblate, IMO, should wait for post-5.9
Very good point on the PP3 compatibility concern.
As far as release process goes, I’m questioning whether or not there is a benefit of doing a “release candidate” build prior to the formal release. I think there have been platform-specific glitches (primarily Windows IIRC?) in both of the past two releases from what I recall. On the other hand, the fact that Windows and Linux are automated (is MacOS automated?) with CI now should hopefully mitigate this concern.
Perhaps it’s time to introduce a “release” branch, where all the non-breaking fixes get merged to, so some of the “6.0” PRs can get merged? There is nothing more frustrating than investing hours into a proper PR and then it goes nowhere. It might also help to get releases out faster as features are out to the public earlier and can be tested during the weeks (months/years…) of releasing.
Overall I would say that local adjustments are the biggest change that has taken place since the last 5.8 release. At least give those who don’t download development versions a chance to have this feature. There will always be something that needs to be fixed and there will always be new features that will be added. That’s sad, I think it’s time to release 5.9 knowing that LA Would be available for everyone.
There are four PRs tagged as 6.0, and none of the owners of those PRs seem to have any issue with skipping 5.9 for those. Some of those were very high risk (such as exiv2).
There are a few such as Path filter in dynamic profile panel by nicolas-t · Pull Request #6284 · Beep6581/RawTherapee · GitHub where it was questioned whether or not it should be a 5.9 item, technically dev is in feature freeze so I’m assuming at this point it’s now moved to 6.0 since it’s a new feature as opposed to a bugfix/camera support item.
Right now the big blocker for a release seems to be translations/strings cleanup, there’s a separate thread for those efforts. We already found a UI bug due to cruft in the translation files, I’m going to do a PR to fix that tonight hopefully.
Hello there, I just created an account at the forums to reply to this!
I am an end user, not a developer. I strongly agree that any sign of activity would be good and encouraging. Any update of the website, mentioning something, not necessarily about a future release.
I understand there are only a few developers working on RT, who also have other obligations. I also hope that the head developer/maintainer you mentioned above is in good health.
I wish the best to everyone and I thank you for creating such a software!
Regards, Harry
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Hi Harry, welcome to pixls,
In case you don’t know, here are the development builds that are quite stable:
Direct download links to the latest RawTherapee development version.
Greetings.
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Hello Arturo, thank you for your welcome and for your reply!
My intention was mainly to emphasize that something new on the website would be good.
I will try the development version as I just found out there is now the possibility to make local adjustments and I’d like to explore that. Until now I have never tried a dev version as I expected the stability to be better at standard releases.
Thank you again, have a nice day!
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FWIW, I agree.
I’ve been using dev releases for a while, but to the ‘outside world’ in general per the website nothing has changed in the better part of 2.5 years. I’m not sure exactly what the verbiage could be, but just a small website update stating that development is continuing and a new version is in the works would IMO go a long way. I wonder how many people see the age of the stable version and just move on, never learning of PIXLS nor the dev releases.
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" Nel caso non lo sapessi, ecco le build di sviluppo abbastanza stabili:
Collegamenti per il download diretto all’ultima versione di sviluppo di RawTherapee.
Saluti."
This link should be inserted on the site, in the “download” section.
The current link only downloads the old version,
It is already in rawpedia, in the Development Builds section.
Thanks, but it is not “automatic” for anyone who goes to a software site to have to go looking for the file to downlo
ad from elsewhere.
There is the “download” section and usually one uses that.
It took me a long time to get here and know that there is a newer file that I can use.
And how many give up before getting there?
In fact when I got here my first question was:
“I’d like to use Raw Therapee, but is he still alive?”
I’m just a user. On the official website
https://rawtherapee.com/
I guess they can only announce the stable program and not the development builds. I don’t know the reason.
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The project and website can advertise whatever they want. But there isn’t a consensus among developers and other prominent people in the project on what to do.
It’s not that the stable releases are the only ones that can be published. There used to be development builds available for download on the website before the redesign.