Three months ago we did a comparison between F-Spot and Shotwell that showed many interesting things about the two photo management applications.
Since the latest version of F-Spot dated 18 months ago I supposed that F-Spot is slowly being left to die. Apparently I was wrong! There is an interesting discussion in the F-Spot mailing list these days that concerns the future of F-Spot that is going to live after all!
It is true that Ruben Vermeersch didn’t have much time due to work/life and 10 months ago announced that the main development efforts will be in the hands of Stephen Shaw. Stephen wasn’t very active so users started to wonder if F-Spot is dead or not. Thankfully Stephen decided to answer to these questions by sharing his plans about F-Spot.
What is the plan?
- Work on bugs and update the code that will improve stability. No new features for now.
- Update to GTK3 is something we may do in the form of a beta in the next few weeks
- Port to GStreamer 1.0 as soon as the work on the binding tool is finished
- Future plans also include porting to Windows and Mac with the hope to widen user base and contributions
- Create a minor on github so that its easier for people to contribute through pull requests.
F-Spot is not only about what developers think of course! Stephen wants to know what users want to see in the next release and for that reason he set up a Trello page for tracking things were everyone has access to read and could get access to write if he/she wants to.
It looks like Shotwell and F-Spot will continue to compete for the benefit of the Gnome user! That is great news no matter what is the photo management application of your choice…