[clug] Video editing under linux and financial incentives.

Martijn van Oosterhout kleptog at svana.org
Wed Jun 9 04:34:07 GMT 2004


On Wed, Jun 09, 2004 at 01:37:51PM +1000, Edward C. Lang wrote:
> > 2) Use the source, Edward. Or, provide some incentive for somebody else
> > to do so.
> 
> It would be working on a lot of source, and would involve interfacing
> with a lot of people. At the moment I don't have the motivation or
> desire to do either of those thing. I'd much prefer to continue taking
> photographs. 
> 
> Isn't the satisfaction of enabling a large number of people to remain at
> the height of their productivity and creativity, using OSS instead of
> using proprietary software, incentive enough? 

Umm, no. The number one beneficiary of any work I do in OSS is myself.
I fix problems I come across. I add features I want. I don't get paid
to play with stuff I don't have an interest in. I'm fiddling with my
scanner because I want to scan stuff, the fact that other people are
helped by it is secondary.

You raise some interesting things that need to be addressed, but the
output of my scanner is good enough for me. Besides, someone who fully
understands what you're talking about would need to work on it. I guess
the problem is that the set of people who understand colour spaces and
are computer programmers and are interested in doing it for free is not
very big.

And as pointed out, $500 is not really enough for me to give up my time
to learn it :) Plus, for hardware anyway, you need support from the
manufacturers. My scanner allows you to upload (what I think is) a
gamma correction table. Fine, but I have no idea how to calculate such
a thing so I leave it to the calling interface (SANE) to work on that,
maybe someone else knows...

Still, more power to the people who can do it and if someone can work
on it that would be cool.

But I think even in OSS true altruism is rare.

Have a nice day,
-- 
Martijn van Oosterhout   <kleptog at svana.org>   http://svana.org/kleptog/
> Patent. n. Genius is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. A patent is a
> tool for doing 5% of the work and then sitting around waiting for someone
> else to do the other 95% so you can sue them.
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