How to Organize Photo Collection with FOSS

[Grant Robinson]

On Nov 2, 2006, at 2:40 PM, Grant Shipley wrote:

> On 11/2/06, Jonathan Duncan <jonathan at jkdwebmagic.com> wrote:
>> iPhoto is amazing.  You can tag each picture and make albums on  
>> the fly
>> and instant slideshows.  I love it.  I think you can even post to  
>> a photo
>> blog with it, but I have not tried it yet.  I am still using  
>> Gallery2 for
>> online photo sharing.
>
> <sarcasm>
> Is iPhoto open source now?  Can it run on linux?
> </sarcasm>

Settle down, pal.  The original poster never specified that it had to  
be open-source, nor that it had to run on Linux.  One might assume  
that, based on the list being posted to, but it was never made  
clear.  Ask a general question, get a general response. :)

>
> Sorry for the flame bait but we have to stop thinking of Apple and
> their closed source applications as a suitable alternative.

You must not be that sorry or you wouldn't have posted sent the  
email.  Some people do not believe it, but I believe that there is  
definitely a place in this world for well-written, user-friendly  
closed source software.  Would I like a free and/or open-source  
alternative to iPhoto?  Sure, especially if it was cross-platform.   
But right now, iPhoto for me is definitely the best of the bunch.

>
> Apple took open source software and made it great in a couple of
> years.  Have they given it back?  Nope.  In my opinion, they are more
> harmful to open source than microsoft.

Perhaps you have some concrete examples of what they have "taken" and  
not given back?  Safari is based on WebKit (which is based on KHTML),  
and Apple has made their changes freely available.  Perhaps you refer  
to the fact that a lot of Apple's utilities are from the *BSD's.  The  
BSD license doesn't require anyone to give anything back, but Apple  
does anyway.  Including writing a new "unified launch" program  
(launchd) that they have made available.  Perhaps you should cut back  
on your daily intake of un-informed rhetoric. :)

That being said, Apple, Google, and Microsoft are all public  
companies and don't just answer to the ideals of open-source  
software, but they also answer to their shareholders.  Where will any  
of those companies be if they start losing lots of money?  Just ask  
Sun how long it takes to go from king of the hill to being an also- 
ran.  In Silicon Valley, it can be clocked with an egg timer.

>
> How about google?  Their business is built and runs on open source
> software --- and yet they fail to see the need to open source their
> GWT compiler(*1).  How about picassa(*2), is it open source? No of
> course not.

Google is a company, and they have every right to not open-source  
pieces of software if that is their choice.  Just like I have every  
right to open-source the software I write.

I have also heard a bunch of speculation that Google can't open- 
source the GWT compiler due to intellectual property issues.  Nothing  
official, that is just what I have read/heard.  So, that could be un- 
informed rhetoric.  Maybe I should cut back as well.

/me wanders off muttering "Never believe anything you read on Slashdot."

Grant