exiv2
exiv2 copied to clipboard
Exiv2
Future of Exiv2
The development of v0.27.4 is on track. @clanmills has volunteered to help one last time by shipping v0.27.4 before he retires. I've set up a Zoom meeting to discuss the following two questions:
- Should Exiv2 join OIN (see #1447) .
- The future of Exiv2 after v0.27.4
Zoom meeting details: Topic: Future of Exiv2 Time: Feb 27, 2021 06:00 PM Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna Join Zoom Meeting https://us05web.zoom.us/j/87388802811?pwd=RStyUUdRak1aNmRENnRKZ3k1Z3U3Zz09 Meeting ID: 873 8880 2811 Passcode: S0qPG1
This is the list of contributors / people who forked and/or worked on Exiv2 over the years on GitHub. @1480c1 @1div0 @354380o726502 @5l1v3r1 @a17r @adammartak @ahuggel @alexvanderberkel @AmaniBHH @AndreasMartin72 @andreilabato @Anmol92verma @anmolvermamm @arkiruthis @asp @astippich @Aurora-Community @awilfox @badola @bellaperez @bentglasstube @BioDataAnalysis @bkuhls @blockspacer @boardman @BohuaCao @Cadcorp @caomw @carlosbasecodeit @Cethric @cgilles @chan0415 @clanmills @clayne @clthomas @codingdave @connectthefuture @criadoperez @cryptomilk @csparker247 @CTF-s @cygwin-lem @czgnp @D4N @danielkaneider @danileo @dbeichl @Deneb99 @derselbst @devil1437
@dimin @dirkmueller @disneylucy @divakar-lakhera @dong-516 @dorisli2017 @draekko @drinckes @DroneDB @dvhart @emmenlau @emye @enefry @exiftool @Fimagena @FreddieWitherden @frli8848 @fuzzitdev @GitTongZQ @greenbigfrog @hassec @heckflosse @henryborchers @hexygen @hfiguiere @hitagisol @Hombre57 @ImageRights @imsodin @jaehojung @Jakuje @janisozaur @jarobbins @jeffli678 @jenshannoschwalm @JoanneWheeler @joggelxx @JohnCoconut @johntron @joncampbell123 @joxda @jtojnar @julian-zhuang @jwilk @kd35a @kevinbackhouse @Kicer86 @kiekerjan @kmilos @layderv
@lbschenkel @LeoHsiao1 @LeiOuYang @Leonidas-from-XIV @liuyudian @Lupupam @MADV360 @maheshmhegade @maksim-0 @marciopocebon @marisn @matt-maguire @mbrukman @mcdamo @MerlotQ @mfg92 @Michael-Lfx @mikaelstaldal @MingSN91 @mmind @modulexcite @moon6969 @naderak @ncopa @nehaljwani @neheb @nicofooo @nkbj @nomacs @Olliebrown @olupton @Pandinosaurus @pankhurivanjani @PenitentTangent2401 @phako @pic-time @picturae @piponazo @pmatth2 @postscript-dev @qiqihuang @QL-Win @QLHua001 @RaphaelK12 @ratchetasslife @rcsanchez97 @RomainDWipsea @ryandesign @RyanMarzec @santoshmenon
@sat3ll @scitao @Seabreg @shensq04 @SijieShen @SineSquared @siposcsaba89 @skal65535 @slonm @smr99 @sridharb1 @tabulon-ext @taor-163 @tbeu @tcberner @terial @tgurr @theluciano @TonyDiana @TopazLabs @tpetazzoni @UESTC-ZKP @UIUCLibrary @ujjwalsh @vasvlad @vcunat @vog @Vogtinator @webmeister @whatdoineed2do @wikityrey @WNiels @xy-lin @yfyuufuruu @yvoinov @zententacles @zeta1999
Meeting notes of 2021-02-27
Participants:
- Robin Mills
- Volker Griels-Grabsch
- Luis Diaz
- Christoph Hasse
- Peter Kovar
- Alexander Esseling
- Thomas Beutlich
Join OIN (open invention network)?
- Joining OIN is being suspended in the short-term
- Decision to evaluate joining the KDE project
- Benefits: KDE is already part of the open invention network
- KDE project might bring new contributor and/or maintainer to the project
Exiv2 after v0.27.4?
- No new maintainer has volunteered.
- We agreed to simplify the branch structure and "modernise" the code (C++20 support)
- Current master branch v0.28 will be labeled as old-master and frozen.
- 0.27-maintenance will be frozen.
- We'll branch 0.27-maintenance to 'main' and make it the default branch.
- Luis will port Unique pointer code from old-master to main.
- Robin will release v0.28 from 'main' in the Fall.
There is no active plant for development of Exiv2 beyond 2021. We hope to have a week-end retreat in Germany in the Fall to celebrate our achievements.
It was nice to see you again after such a long time!
Just a small nitpick: I'm still in favor of naming the new main branch 'master' rather than 'main', because to any outsider, 'master' is the most obvious name for "the git branch to use" (for final testing, pull requests, etc.).
Thanks, Volker @vog. Maybe I'll do that. Yesterday I changed the name of 'master' to 'old-master' to discourage anybody from submitting further PRs. I also set '0.27-maintenance' as the default branch.
I should close all the open PRs on 'master' and explain what's going to happen.
By the time we ship 0.27.4 on 2021-05-22, it'll probably be safe and reasonable to branch an new 'master' from 0.27-maintenance. I want to retain the 0.27-maintenance branch in case we need a 0.27.5 security update in future. We haven't had a security issue raised on the code for almost 18 months.
Your comments are appreciated. Thank you for contributing.
@phako. Are you saying 'main' is the new default? I thought somebody said that during the meeting on Saturday.
yes, at least for github, see https://github.com/github/renaming. I thought git itself had switched as well but I cannot find any reference for it in quick search, only heated discussions why this is "PC gone mad"
It's not (yet?) a default in git, but the default branch has recently(ish) been made configurable: https://github.blog/2020-07-27-highlights-from-git-2-28/#introducing-init-defaultbranch
If you are already restructuring branches, I do suggest using main. I do expect it to be the de-facto norm soon-ish - at least my muscle memory already does m-a-i-TAB (weirdly I didn't drop the TAB and go with m-a-i-n). And the only downside I see is having to switch existing setups from master to main, that's why I think an unrelated branch-restructuration is a good moment to make the switch.
@phako @imsodin Thanks for clarifying the issue with master! I wasn't aware of that latest developments and forming consensus about switching from master to main.
I fully agree that, given those circumstances, main is the better choice.
By the way, I never liked the wording master that much. Even if it didn't have any connotation to slavery, it was simply a bad naming. You would never guess this default branch name unless you are already familiar with Git. Nevertheless, I followed this naming, because following a suboptimal convention is better than following no conventions at all. It is still a pity that the community bends towards "main" rather than "default" - the latter being the default branch name in Mercurial, and an equally good choice, and then would be automatically compatible with the second-most popular DVCS. But then, perhaps Mercurial will be moving to main in the future as well.
Thanks you everybody for your comments. I've had a message from @alexvanderberkel saying 'main' is the new 'master'!
Let's stick to the plan. On 2021-05-22, I'll branch 0.27-maintenance -> main and make 'main' the default branch. I've already renamed 'master' -> 'old-master' to discourage its use.
@boardhead: I hope you will be able to join us.
Sorry, I missed this. I haven't been keeping up with all of the Exiv2 posts recently.
Just a thought about maybe switching to 1.0: I agree that considering the maturity it is an appropriate step, however it might rise the (mental) bar for anyone considering to step up to help maintaining exiv2. On the flip side you don't win much if anything from doing it.
@1div0. WebP has been supported since 2016. You're right. I should add JXL. We only need to add a few lines of code to support JXL/bmff. JXL/codestream is still being negotiated by the standards committee and will add ICC support. Exiv2 doesn't provide ICC support for every image format.
@imsodin When Alison and I stayed with Andreas and his family in 2016, Andreas and I had our one-and-only in depth discussion about Exiv2. About v1.00, he said "until we have the Unified Metadata Container, we can't declare 1.0. BTW there's an implementation in the unstable branch in SVN.". Last week, I finally had the time to pull that down and investigate it. #1505
It was written about 2012, so the merge will not be easy. However, it's a huge win to add this. It enables the code base to support other metadata standards such as ICC/tags, PNG/text and so on. Now is the time to get this done. Additionally, we now have BMFF support. BigTiff is supported in tvisitor.cpp and can be ported into Exiv2. So, I really believe that we are very close to having Exiv2 v1.00 with a stable API which will endure.
The other reason is to claim it's done instead of leaving Exiv2 with an undefined future. What happens to Exiv2 or OSS/metadata processing after v1.00? We don't know. However it's nice to claim that I shepherded the code from 0.22 (about 2012) to successful completion.
At the weekend, @hassec asked me: "Who will take over fixing everything in Exiv2 after you, Robin?". By declaring v1.00, I can answer Nobody. Exiv2 is complete.
Ah WebP2. I haven't thought about that at all.
I have no idea why Google, Apple and all those people keep re-inventing the wheel. In the process of writing the book, I discovered that the current versions of BMP (the Native Windows bitmap) now supports ICC profiles. I believe BMP files from Windows/1.0 will be respected by current windows. I believe Windows/1.0 will open BMP files created on the current windows. I believe Adobe Acrobat which will have its 30th birthday in a couple of years is just as durable.
Canon have used 3 totally incompatible raw image formats in about 15 years. Why?
Exiv2 v1.00 Updated: 2021-04-1
We are now within sight of Exiv2 v1.00 and could achieve that by the end of 2021. In many ways this is a more desirable goal than KDE. Exiv2 declaring v1.00 says Exiv2 is complete. If KDE wish to take over the project in 2022, that will be fine.
I think it's better to use our limited resources to reach Exiv2 v1.00 on GitHub and not put effort into working with KDE.
| Topic | Status | Comment | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| To reach v1.0 | |||
| API | Good | Unified Metadata Container | Milos |
| C++ Code | Good | C++ modernisation | Luis |
| Documentation | Good | Improve README-TESTS.md | Robin |
| Image Handlers | Good | Add BigTiff | |
| Join OIN and/or KDE | Good | Alex | |
| Localisation | Fair | Slovak and Czech Brazilian Portuguese Crowdin German |
Peter Leonardo Leonardo/Robin Alex |
| Project management | Good | Alex | |
| Release Engineering | Good | Robin | |
| Samples | Good | exiv2 -ps enhancements | Milos |
| Security | Good | Create Security Advisories | Kev |
| Source Code | Good | Reformat with clang-format | Luis |
| Team Weekend | Good | September 2021 in Bavaria | Alex |
| Test Framework | Good | Improve bash_tests | Peter |
| Web Site | Good | Move to GitHub | Robin |
| XMPsdk | Good | Consider removing from code base | Robin |
| Deserves Attention | |||
| Bugs | Good | Monitor and respond | Robin |
| Users | Good | Customer Satisfaction Follow Up | Alex |
| Post v1.0 | |||
| JXL/codestream | Waiting for Standard | ||
| WebP2 | Waiting for Standard | ||
| Deep Test Coverage | raw.pixls.us and testimages.pixls.us | ||
| Platforms | Good | Support for Mobile | |
| Preview/Thumbnails | Fair | The code is weak | |
| Servers | Good | KDE/GitLab Transition | |
| In Good Order | |||
| Back-porting | Good | ||
| Build | Good | ||
| Build Server | Good | ||
| Contributors | Good | ||
| Enhancements | Good | ||
| Licensing | Good | ||
| Scheduling | Good | ||
| Tools | Good |
We hope to have a Zoom meeting on the weekend of 24 April or 1 May to discuss the plan and assignments. It looks the moment as though there will be four groups of 3 contributors in each group:
| Group | Members | Priority Tasks |
|---|---|---|
| code | Luis, Rosen, Pydera | C++11, jp2image.cpp, security |
| metadata | Milos, Christoph, Tom | Unified Metadata Container, Canon AFInfo, JPEG>64k |
| t_l | Peter, Leonardo and AlexS. | Test and localisation |
| pm | AlexE, Kev, Yuahm Robin | Project Management, Security, User support, Release |
The schedule looks like:
| Topic | Date | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Kickoff | 2021-05-01 | Zoom meeting to discuss the task list |
| Priority Complete | 2021-06-30 | Priority features done |
| Bavaria Week-end | 2021-09-18 | Fun meet-up. Hiking, talking, boozing |
| Code Complete | 2021-09-30 | Finish all shipping features |
| RC1 | 2021-10-21 | First cut |
| Code Freeze/RC2 | 2021-11-15 | No more changes |
| GM | 2021-12-15 | Shipped |
The detailed task/priority list is still below. I hope each group will complete their Priority tasks by 2021-06-30. If we have to drop lower priority tasks to make the schedule, we will. If we hit Priority Complete in late June, success is certain.
The commitment of time per contributor should be of the order of 100 hours. I suspect the metadata group tasks will require more than 100 hours per contributor. I will work on/with any group as requested in addition to dealing with users, release engineering and project management.
Please be aware that the task list is based on open issues on 2021-04-13. New issues will be reported during the life of the project.
| Meaning | Priority | Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Required | 1 | Deliver by Priority Complete | ||
| Required | 2 | Deliver by Code Complete | ||
| Optional | 3 | Will drop if necessary | ||
| Objective | 4 | Not a task | ||
| Cannot | 5 | Not scheduled/no resource | ||
| Issue | Category | Priority | Title | |
| #1557 | code | 1 | C++ Modernisation | Luis |
| #1538 | code | 1 | 32/64 bit support in Exiv2 | Pydera |
| #1235 | code | 1 | Add ARM job to Travis-CI | |
| #1228 | code | 1 | UBSan violations | |
| #898 | code | 1 | Add Safe::cast<T> | |
| #1355 | code | 1 | Simplify cmake/compilerFlags.cmake | |
| #1062 | code | 1 | Investigate JPG2000 check_boxes | |
| #950 | code | 1 | CVE infinite loop in Exiv2::Jp2Image::encodeJp2Header | |
| #1537 | code | 2 | Fix special case of box size == 1 in jp2image.cpp | |
| #1525 | code | 2 | Replace jp2image with bmffimage | |
| #1501 | code | 2 | make uninstall leaves artefacts in standard locations | |
| #1542 | code | 2 | Function name free() in class EXIV2API DataBuf | |
| #1406 | code | 2 | fcf-protection only exists on x86 | |
| #1405 | code | 2 | readMetadata - improve warning & error handling | |
| #1404 | code | 2 | kerAliasesNotSupported: Please sendXMP packet to ... | |
| #1348 | code | 2 | Move utilities out of the Image class | |
| #1217 | code | 2 | CMake does not check for duplicates | |
| #917 | code | 2 | ABI compatibility checker | |
| #1320 | code | 2 | clang-tidy: sort includes LLVM style | |
| #1022 | code | 2 | Add RAII Exiv2::Library to init/free resources | |
| #956 | code | 2 | Add compiler flags to test software security | |
| #1514 | code | 3 | Replace every EXV_ symbol with EXIV2_ | |
| #1417 | code | 3 | Improve console output under Windows for UTF-8 | |
| #1060 | code | 3 | Replace deprecated SHGetFolderPathA | |
| #565 | code | 3 | Test for alpha bit detection in VP8L chunks | |
| #1552 | code | 4 | Refactoring Tasks for v1.00 | |
| #1279 | code | 5 | Unicode Basic Multilingual Plane | |
| #1505 | metadata | 1 | Unified Metadata Container | Milos |
| #1515 | metadata | 1 | Investigate removing xmpsdk from code base | |
| #1343 | metadata | 1 | Comment and EXIF data cannot be read from PNG files | |
| #1549 | metadata | 1 | Implement Adobe Exif >64k in JPEG | |
| #1026 | metadata | 1 | Rewrite sanity checks for CiffComponent size & offset | |
| #459 | metadata | 1 | add namespace to XMP toolkit - exiv2 and libexempi | |
| #1543 | metadata | 1 | Canon AFInfo Rotation makerNote | |
| #1541 | metadata | 2 | Add pretty printer for GPSImgDirection & GPSTrack | |
| #1524 | metadata | 2 | Error: Directory Samsung2 with 21313 entries considered invalid; not read. | |
| #1419 | metadata | 2 | Support for tag PrintImageMatching 0xc4a5 | |
| #1416 | metadata | 2 | Iptc.Application2.DateCreated/TimeCreated formats are different for read/write | |
| #1397 | metadata | 2 | Support for DNG 1.5 | Milos |
| #1334 | metadata | 2 | report Roll Angle | Tom |
| #279 | metadata | 2 | Whitebalance values | |
| #1085 | metadata | 2 | Fix Irix lens names in pentaxmn_int.cpp | |
| #280 | metadata | 2 | Reading temperature values form RAW files | |
| #1081 | metadata | 3 | Changing Tag shortens MakerNote on Olympus | |
| #1401 | metadata | 3 | XmpParser::encode() swallowing exceptions | |
| #1547 | metadata | 3 | fix_1416_iptc_DateCreated | |
| #1556 | metadata | 5 | BigTiff Support | |
| #1506 | metadata | 5 | JXL/codestream support | |
| #710 | metadata | 5 | Extract PreviewImage from JPEG | |
| #904 | metadata | 5 | Canon 1Ds thumbnail colour corrupted | |
| metadata | 5 | WebP2 Support | ||
| #1516 | t_l | 1 | Build is using incorrect include path | Fixed |
| #1510 | t_l | 1 | Crowdin localisation | Leonardo |
| #549 | t_l | 2 | Localisation for v1.00 | |
| #1421 | t_l | 2 | Fix regression in Canon lens detection | Alex S |
| #1428 | t_l | 2 | Test all Canon lenses | Alex S |
| #930 | t_l | 2 | Add test for issue 755 | |
| #896 | t_l | 2 | Enable git LFS testing | |
| #1550 | t_l | 4 | Development of the python test framework | Peter |
| pm | 1 | Security | Kev | |
| #1447 | pm | 1 | Joining OIN | Alex |
| pm | 2 | Week-end in Bavaria | Alex | |
| #1494 | pm | 2 | Joining KDE community | Alex |
| pm | 4 | User support | Robin | |
| #1521 | pm | 2 | Deprecate exiv2.org and binary builds for v1.00 | Robin |
| #1462 | pm | 3 | Exiv2 Project Status | Robin |
| #1018 | pm | 4 | Exiv2 RoadMap | Robin |
I can and will finish localisation to Slovak & Czech, my primary and secondary languages.
Also, please correct JXP/codestream to JXL as an abbreviation of JPEG XL. Thanks.
Thanks for your input, Peter (@1div0). This is forming a nice project. Nobody has to do a lot of work and nobody is stuck with this forever and ever.
Apparently KDE have localisation folks to whom we can send the files. I've never discovered how to access that channel.
I'm thinking about bullding RC2 next week to include the JXL/bmff code. The code will then be frozen and I will open branch 'main'. I'm meeting with Luis this afternoon to discuss auto_ptr/C++20.
I do have a very good experience with https://crowdin.com for ML based localisation. Probably worth to explore.
If there's interest, I could volunteer to localize to Brazilian Portuguese (my native language). I also have previous experience with Crowdin.
@lbschenkel Thanks. I've updated the task table. You've got that task.
Localisation is documented in README.md. It's driven by gettext technology. I believe this is a commonly used approach.
Some companies provide free services and products to open-source projects. Perhaps you could explore that with Crowdin. As Exiv2 has no revenue, so we are unable to pay for a license.
I'm also familiar with gettext, so that is not a problem to me. However, Crowdin can be easier for non-developers to contribute translations since they can do it directly via the website compared to editing PO files, which is a bit awkward.
Crowdin is free-of-charge for open source projects, and I could apply on behalf of the project, but only the project lead can do so: https://crowdin.com/page/open-source-project-setup-request
I've filled in the application form. I think they expect you to have already created something on their platform. I don't want to start learning about Crowdin. Is it a big job to tool up to use this platform? Can you set up the necessary resources?
It's not hard. I can volunteer to set the project up as an experiment if you want, and then you can judge if it's something that you think that could be useful to the project.
But I think if I do that, it'll be tied to my account at first. I should be able to transfer it to somebody else's account.
I have opened a new issue "Investigate Localisation using Crowdin" for further discussion. #1510
Please be aware this topic "The Future of Exiv2" is circulated to about 200 people who have contributed to Exiv2 since 2004.