Re: [Gimp-user] GIMP should fork babl and GEGL

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

On 11/05/2014 07:34 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 10:27 PM, Elle Stone wrote:
>
> > Another advantage to forking babl and GEGL for GIMP is that GIMP's fork of
> > babl and GEGL could be GPLed, thus freeing the GIMP devs to add FFTW
> > (Fourier transforms, http://www.fftw.org/) and other new functionality to
> > GIMP. FFTW is GPLed. At present, GIMP is somewhat hobbled as to what GPL
> > code can be used for new editing functions because the babl/GEGL code is
> > LGPLed.
>
> Well, it's a shame we can't legally use FFTW to revive that GSoC
> project, but FFTW is not the only option out there. There's e.g.
> https://github.com/anthonix/ffts.
>
> Also, as Jehan correctly stated, licensing a library under GPL opens a
> whole can of worms. Just google for "libredwg gpl freecad librecad" to
> see what kind of madness can happen.

I'm not exactly keen on the idea of forking babl and GEGL. Nonetheless, 
it is a legitimate question to consider much GIMP is being/might in the 
future be compromised by the needs of other projects that use babl and GEGL.

The FFTW code is a case in point. I haven't looked at the anthonix code 
and frankly I'm not enough of a mathematician to make an informed 
judgement (has any free/libre software adopted it in place of FFTW?).

There is already that google summer of code Fourier branch, and I've 
peeked into enough useful algorithms to know that GIMP users would 
benefit from having access to Fourier-based algorithms, which is useful 
even for "simple" things like a convincing lens blur and motion blur, 
and of course sharpening that goes beyond unsharp mask.

At the moment GIMP devs have way more than "enough to do" without 
worrying about Fourier-based enhancements. But it seems a shame to have 
to worry about licensing issues if/when that happy day comes when 
Fourier-based code reaches the head of the "let's do this" list.

Elle