I followed the hype: Reddit, Slashdot's front page, months of thumbs up on my blog and various video forums by Linux users for OpenShot. Given that I'm longing for a usable Linux video editor since 2003, and given that OpenShot version 1.0 had just been released, I naturally gave it a go, by also downloading its provided dependencies on my Ubuntu Linux 9.10.
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Member since:2005-06-28
Believe it or not, this is not my job to do. My "job" here is to review software, and tell the consumers what to expect from it. If there are bugs, that's for the developers to iron out by themselves. The developer should have tested with Ubuntu, even if he might not be using it, since that distro is the most popular out there.
Of course, being the geek that I am, **I DO** bug reports. Search for me on the KDEnLive and PiTiVi bug servers. On Ubuntu servers, gnome server etc. I'm there. But I won't be doing this forever and for everyone. "Patience has borders", we say in my motherland.
Member since:2008-10-23
It's not the developer's job either to test software. He's probably not even paid to develop this software. He probably has another job to pay his bills and develops that on his own free time. Ubuntu might be popular, the developer might still not use it. Using the latest version of Ubuntu would be a very poor choice for a developer distro.
Nice review anyway. The advices to the developer at the end are a little unrealistic though.
Edited 2010-01-11 09:45 UTC
Member since:2006-03-16
I understand your experience was sub optimal (and that's an understatement), however, if you take a look at the videos posted on their web site ( http://www.openshotvideo.com/2008/04/videos.html ), you'll see that even at version 0.82 it was functional and quite workable. Sure, those videos represent some sort of optimal experience, but the point is that it basically works and actually quite responsive on those vids.
I can't comment on the actual [missing] functionality as video editing isn't really my thing. I agree with your annoyance of the sparse controls, but I think it's more of a general Gnome issue. FWIW, I don't like it either.
I think your core-issues are mostly related to integration/testing on various distributions, and I agree it should have been properly tested on the most popular ones. That being said though, the basic stuff is there and since (as far as I understand) they include their own ffmpeg code segments, it shouldn't depend upon a specific distro's pre-installed multimedia frameworks. So I think the integration should be easier than on other cases that rely on pre-installed stuff.
So what do I say? give 'em some slack. Obviously a lot of work went into the project and the integration issues should be solvable IMHO. Not everyone relates to a "1.0" release the same. It probably should have been called beta, but naming it incorrectly isn't a good enough reason for that amount of bashing IMO.
P.S.
I'm completely unrelated to this project, although I do have an interest in video in general (a mod on doom9 forums) and in OSS development (previously associated with few video-related projects and now maintain a Firefox addon).
Edited 2010-01-11 14:36 UTC
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Member since:
2008-10-23
The main developer may not have the man power to test his software on every single distro out there. Especially Ubuntu, with its "break everything every 6 months" policy. Ubuntu is a very fast moving target. They've broken Xorg and gtk no less than 2 times last year. It's not a one man job to test the software on every machine on every distros. I suggest you spend some time testing every little bit of that software on Ubuntu 9.10, isolate the bugs and write bug reports as detailed as possible. This may help a lot.
Edited 2010-01-11 09:28 UTC