> What
>
> Develop cinelerra as a professional free/libre video editing tool.
>
> Why
>
> Cinelerra is the most powerfull free software for video editting we
> have nowadays. Although it has many resources and that it is far more
> advanced than any other Open Source video software, its development is
> very slow and has no sponsor.
>
> Its main developer, Heroine Warrior, do not mantain a SVN or a mailing
> list. The last official release was last july and there is no sign of
> a upcoming version of cinelerra. They usually publish a new release
> every six month or so but do it only for their own needs and do not
> talk with the community much.
>
> Few developers mantain a fork called "Community Version". All out of
> volunteer work they mantain a SV a mailing list and an online wiki.
> They also fix some bugs and add some features to the code.
>
> This desorganized development results in a mess. There is no official
> stable release and package for the distributions, and cinelerra is now
> known as very hard to install and unstable software (although it got
> really better last year).
>
> Also, first contact with cinelerra is usually disappointing because of
> a not well resolved interface and also because of big flaws it has on
> some funcionalities.
>
> With all that said, it happens that we have a software that is, at the
> same time, powerfull enough to do any kind of editing, but weak enough
> to have very basic issues of usability.
>
> And the feeling all advanced users have is: We are pretty close to
> have high standard software!
>
> To learn more about the mess, take a look at this page:
>
http://cv.cinelerra.org/about.php
>
> Many of the actions described on this plan are already been done by
> many people, but in a rather heroic way. If this people got motivated,
> organized and _paid_, cinelerra would increase its quality
> dramatically in a short period of time.
>
> The Plan
>
> 1. Get the community together
>
> The community of developers today is very small and spread, and
> cinelerra has no road map.
>
> First thing to do is gather this people to discuss about the future of
> cinelerra, identify the main flaws and its solution, make a plan to
> organize the place and set up for new features.
>
> Cinelerra needs a project leader, an interface designer, and more
> people with defined roles that should be choosen on this meeting.
>
> Developers of other softwares are also welcome. Cinelerra is, so far,
> the only video free editing video editing software with professional
> approach, but it could share a lot of things with other software, such
> as effects, for example, that shoul be usable in any video software,
> just like we have LADSPA for audio. There is already a video effect
> standar called Frei0r that cinelerra does not support.
>
>
> 2. Diagnostics
>
> Cinelerra code is not very well documented, so few people have the
> idea of how tuff is to deal with it. Second step is to see what must
> be done so we can invite more people to colaborate with the code.
> Documentation, refactoring, etc. It also has to work on the API so
> other people can write plugins and effects.
>
> In other words, lots of work that are a pain in the ass but has to be
> done in order to advance properly. And passion has a limit. There must
> be people getting money to work on that.
>
>
> 3. Make a plan
>
> Based on the diagnostics and on researches with users and other video
> editing tools, define how cinelerra will look and act in a not so
> distant future. With that goal in mind, make a reasonable plan to make
> it happen.
>
> 3. Set up a core development team
>
> No secret here. Few people dedicated to make it happen, including an
> interface designer.
>
> 4. Bounties
>
> The core team can offer bounties for parts of the job they choose.
> This will attracat more developers to the community.
>
> 5. Attract contributors
>
> Mantain a nice looking website, a wiki, tools for easy translation of
> the interface and of the online documentation, etc. are goos
> strategies to attract people to contribute. Its also important to find
> people to package the software for different distributions.
>