Replace F-Spot with Solang?

[Marco Laverdière]

Hi,

Here are my views on the decision to replace F-Spot by Shotwell:

1. I've tried the latest Shotwell version (0.5.2) and clearly, it's 
still an immature application, that can't be compared to F-Spot 
feature-wise.  Right now, Shotwell doesn't even know how to import 
F-Spot tags (XMP), so it wouldn't provide some basic continuity to 
regular Ubuntu users.  Moreover, it seems that there is no way in 
Shotwell to opt for embedding tags within pictures (whether in XMP or 
IPTC),  which is clearly the right and modern way to manage pictures 
according to many experts.  For one thing, this is the best approach to 
provide freedom to user overtime, since it let him move his collection 
from one application/media/OS to another, without loosing it's tag work 
(even Microsoft has embraced the embedded metadata approach since 
Vista!).  Shotwell is also short on many other features that F-Spot 
already has.  To me, replacing F-Spot by Shotwell, as it is right now, 
would be a regression.

2.  I've also tried the latest version of Solang and my conclusions are 
the same:  right now, it's an immature/half-backed application, that 
can't compete with F-Spot.

3. I know that F-Spot is not perfect and that many users don't like it 
(while some others, like me, have learned to like it).  Having read many 
critics on F-Spot, it seems that it's main problem is that it forces 
users to import pictures, instead of just scanning the directory set by 
the user.  For the rest, F-Spot let the user browse it's pictures by 
tags, by date/years (timeline) and by folders (maybe this feature is not 
well known), so on the browsing front, it's not so different than 
Shotwell, wile it's more mature and complete for editing, etc.

Now here's the question:  Do Shotwell (or Solang for that mater) 
developers will be able to catch up on F-Spot features (or to even just 
implement the neccessary features to assure compatibility/continuity for 
F-Spot/Ubuntu regular users between now and the release of 10.10 
Maverick (in 5 months!)?   Wouldn't it be more productive to try to 
improve F-Spot (which has a new maintainer 
<http://mail.gnome.org/archives/f-spot-list/2010-May/msg00012.html>), at 
least to implement some sort of directory scanning (i.e. the main 
directory set by the user), to circumvent the "mandatory import" problem?

That was my 2 cents!

Thanks.

(sorry for my previous HTML message)

-- 
Marco Laverdière