My gThumb bug is fixed in 2.11.90 - and I couldn't be a happier user of free, open-source software
When I discovered after uploading a couple dozen breaking-news JPGs I had written captions for in gThumb 2.11 that those captions weren't being recognized by my IPTC-capable content-management system, I worried that my go-to Linux/BSD application for photo editing would be useless to me. I even went so far as to install Wine so I could get my work done with IrfanView.
Well, not even two weeks have passed, and everything is working right once again.
The whole process gives me a great feeling about the people behind gThumb, GNOME, Fedora and the free, open-source software world in general.
When I discovered the gThumb 2.11 problem, I found users in the Fedora Forums with other gThumb issues and saw the suggestion that we file bugs upstream. I immediately figured out how to file a bug in GNOME Bugzilla,started an account and filed a bug.
As detailed in my last post on gThumb's broken IPTC metadata capability, the prompt answer to the bug I filed suggested that I try gThumb 2.11.90, in which this bug should have been fixed.
In Fedora 13 right now, gThumb is at 2.11.5, and while there was a 2.11.90 package for Fedora 14, I was reluctant (and not so knowledgeable as to exactly how) to update the dependencies that went with gThumb 2.11.90. I also was unable to build 2.11.90 from source (although I've since installed the necessary compiliers in an effort — not quite completed or successful — to fix my Conexant sound problem with another source package).
It's been barely a week since that last entry, and I checked the gThumb area of the Fedora Build System today and found a gThumb 2.11.90 package for Fedora 13.
I downloaded and installed the RPM. I immediately did a test on the IPTC metadata, and gThumb is now writing that data in the proper way, which means captions written via IPTC (in gThumb's Comments) will now show up in other IPTC-capable image editors (IrfanView, Photoshop, PhotoMechanic) as well as in Web-based applications that tap into the IPTC data fields in JPGs.
My participation in this is in no way a big deal. I found a bug, filed a bug report, got helpful advice from a GNOME developer (thanks, Paolo!), installed a newer version of the package and am now back in my go-to image-editing application in Linux/BSD.
So in this case, the free, open-source development model is working perfectly. If you're running Fedora 13, grab the new gThumb from the page linked to above.
Installing this RPM went without a hitch. And gThumb will be in great shape when Fedora 14 is released. I'm not sure if/when gThumb 2.11.90 will be pushed to all users of the app in Fedora 13 — I'm still too new of a Fedora user to have a handle on these things. But I bet it's coming, given that there's an FC13 package in the Build Service.
Ubuntu 10.04 rolled back from gThumb 2.11 to 2.10, which is also in Debian Lenny. The Ubuntu package situation right now has 2.11.3 in Maverick, and I have a pretty good feeling that they'll get to 2.11.90, so when the next Ubuntu release comes around, users will have no idea there was ever IPTC trouble in gThumb 2.11.
Debian Squeeze currently has gThumb 2.11.5 (same as stock Fedora 13). Looking at Debian's gThumb situation, 2.11.90 is in Experimental and should be at least percolating into Sid soon.
I'm not sure what the freeze in Debian Squeeze means for gThumb, but it would be a problem for users if 2.11.90 is held back from Squeeze.
Do any Debian people out there know if Debian policy will prevent gThumb 2.11.90 from being included in Squeeze?
I'd like to thank the GNOME/gThumb developers who made all this possible, plus the Fedora developers who put together the gThumb 2.11.90 RPM for FC13. You've done a great job in making my Linux installation more productive.
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FOSS would be much nicer if more developers and packagers would react so conscientiously as in your gThumb case. Do you think you got special treatment?
I couldn't reply until I stopped laughing so hard that I spewed coffee across the laptop screen ...
It's not like I'm some kind of rock star like Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier (has his own nickname), Jono Bacon (community manager by day, rock star by night) or Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols (has his own recognizable acronym, SJVN). I'm just another blogger out there who does a lot of complaining.
I think in this case the stars, as it were, are very well-aligned:
-- gThumb just so happens to be under active development at the present time
-- GNOME in general has its act together
-- The Fedora developers are pretty proactive about building new packages and offering users a choice of what they want to run for a given release; I didn't think 2.11.90 would get built for fc13, but they did it. I've heard some rumblings about too many new packages for existing releases, and that those who expect rolling updates should run Rawhide, but I for one am glad that Fedora — already a very forward-thinking distro in terms of newness of packages — wants to push fixes that are not just security patches into the current release.
I've been very happy thus far with the stability of Fedora 13 and the efforts made by the developers to eliminate bugs by pushing new packages (and not just patches from new packages plowed into old code) into the distro.