wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: Which stitching software to choose ? ????
yuval_levy 2009-Nov-03 17:44:00
--- In #removed#, Viktor Balogh <viktor.balogh@...> wrote:
> +1 for Hugin.
Wow, as a representative of the development team I'd like to thank you all for these endorsements of Hugin!
> If you dislike open source programs, you can
I'm happy to find a discerning public here and would like to try to bridge the gap. Please excuse me if I state the obvious and my statements offends your intelligence; or if I am assuming too much and my statements seems to be coming from outer space (in which case, just ask for clarification and I'll expand).
First questions: what is it that you do (or could) dislike about open source? and what is it that you like? how does it compare, for you, to proprietary software?
Open Source is not for everybody and I am not trying to evangelize. I am myself pragmatic about my choice of software and use FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) and proprietary side by side. I believe I have a right to choose what works for me and so do you, and we have a right to mix and match. I have paid licenses for Autopano Pro, PTGui Pro, Pano2QTVR and do not regret any of them, even if I mostly use Hugin nowadays.
If I want to go Open Source, I am responsible of making it work for me. I can't expect anything form anybody. There is no contract between a seller and a buyer. There is no warranty. There is no obligation to support. There is a supportive community if I address it respectfully. The exchange becomes in my opinion more yielding and rewarding than a commercial transaction, and I have more control and more possibilities. Everybody wins.
When I approached Hugin three years ago I was like most users of this group: a photographer with no coding skills. In the meantime I am integral part of the community, I took responsibility for the integration and release process, got version 2009.2.0 out and am preparing to release 2009.4.0. Prior to that I have contributed to facilitate new contributions by lowering the barrier of entry and helping others along the learning curve while I helped/educated myself. You can read about it at
http://wiki.panotools.org/Development_of_Open_Source_tools
Alone I could have never put together the documents for building Hugin on all the different platforms, but with a little bit of motivation I got the experts in the Hugin community to teach me (and by extension of the documentation the rest of us) how to make it work for me.
Yuv