Lightworks Is Not As Open As Some Would Like

for the blog post? another bad example of open source developers, advocates etc doing bad to linux... We need professional tools on linux.

about the video editors on linux?
Tried kdenlive a year ago, managed to produce two videos (one of them), hated every minute of working on it, crashed all the time, problems with timing and more...
pitivi, lives, openshot... are just ...., really come on....
ended up doing job on blender, produced these there are about 50 or sth of these
didn't love it, but didn't hate it either (the usage of clips, and the definition of them in blender is kinda problematic for me)
tried lightworks (on windows, I don't have sample yet) and absolutely loved it... Yes, it has some problems with formats etc but that problems are fixable with opensource tools (ffmpeg or ffmbc)

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Originally Posted by kiddo

You think that gnome dev isn't aware of the legal mess EditShare is in when it comes to opening a 1M+ LoC codebase with 20 years of history? Come on, that guy isn't dumb :)

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well if he is (aware of the legal mess), he doesn't really believes it's true, maybe he is just playing( dumb)?:

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Originally Posted by blog author

Although I do have some faith that they might release it eventually, personally, after two years of waiting, I’m even beginning to seriously doubt that. I’m not saying that EditShare wishes to do evil or just throw a marketing ploy together; I heard the numerous justifications/excuses along the lines of “we’ve got bigger priorities”, “we have a reputation to uphold” and “we’re stuck in legal review”, I just don’t buy those arguments.

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Originally Posted by skotadopsyxos

Tried kdenlive a year ago, managed to produce two videos (one of them), hated every minute of working on it, crashed all the time, problems with timing and more...

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What did you hate (except for instability of course)?

My instability issues with Kdenlive was resolved by converting to lossless matroska before doing anything else. Besides, the stability has improved greatly over the last two years.

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well if he is (aware of the legal mess), he doesn't really believes it's true, maybe he is just playing( dumb)?

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Probably not that he doesn't believe them, but rather that he does not really see these arguments as valid for the way they have been handling the situation. I guess I kinda see what he means there, but it's subtle indeed and you have to think beyond "the guy is just a freetard ranting who has no clue what he's talking about or what users want" :) if you take the article as a whole, he's very understanding/empathic of the situation EditShare is in. That doesn't mean he gives them a free pass though.

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Originally Posted by Del_

What did you hate (except for instability of course)?

My instability issues with Kdenlive was resolved by converting to lossless matroska before doing anything else. Besides, the stability has improved greatly over the last two years.

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well, it was mostly about the ability to change the interface etc..., for example, I need at least two clip previews to sync video and sound, kdenlive doesn't have that (as long I know and was documented back then)...
blender has it, lightworks has it...
and really when I have 3 hours of HD video x 3 cameras, as an "amateur" I can't convert all my videos to lossless (you convert your video to lossless video, not lossless matroska which is just a container), that would just mean many tb, hdds and no chance of backing up...

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Originally Posted by skotadopsyxos

well, it was mostly about the ability to change the interface etc..., .

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It is highly customizable, like most KDE programs. The toolbar can be configured by you, and you can arrange any functionality within kdenlive there exactly as you like. Likewise for the window, like common with Qt apps, you can rearrange the gui exactly as you please.

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I need at least two clip previews to sync video and sound, kdenlive doesn't have that (as long I know and was documented back then)...

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Not sure I understand what you mean. You can split up the clip monitor and the project monitor, but I don't know if that addresses your issue.

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and really when I have 3 hours of HD video x 3 cameras, as an "amateur" I can't convert all my videos to lossless (you convert your video to lossless video, not lossless matroska which is just a container), that would just mean many tb, hdds and no chance of backing up...

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I see. Terrabytes are cheap today, but I assume you would rather prefer finding a compressed format that behaves well in kdenlive. Shouldn't be too hard though, just ask in their forum.

A lot of people including the author of this post are taken astray by things like KDEnlive and such but fail to address the MAIN reason of this post:

Is Lightworks an Open Source Video Editor? Yes or No?
The answer is NO.
Period.

Everything else you want to bring in the mix is for another time.

Lightworks plans are that it WILL BE EVENTUALLY open source.
That is great news.

But right now, at this moment, you can NOT call Lightworks an Open Source editor.
Which makes your title Is-Not-As-Open-As-Some-Would-Like very transparent putting the onus on the accusers rather than on the claim of Open Source Video Editor.
To be honest, the Edithshare folks are not the ones who refer to Lightworks as an Open Source video editor but rather the sharp as always FLOSS press.
The Edithshare damage control guy who is in the comment section even says it, they are not an Open Source Video Editor.

At worst they do a lite 'open washing' thats all. They never say they are Open Source but they throw in meaningless terminologies like The Lightworks Open Source initiative and The groundbreaking Lightworks Open Source project and thats a lot of Open Sourcey titles for something they dont claim is Open Source yet.
Welcome to Open Washing. Same principle as with Green.

Look, most likely this will never come through and the world will never get to see their brilliant code. They will keep it closed and simply sell a top notch video editors for Linux for those that really need it (are 85% of web users still considering themselves Web Creators because they have a hacked version of Photoshop?). I have no problems with that.
Thats a great thing for Linux I mean I use Skype every day on Linux because not all my video contacts are on Gmail. I buy Linux games.
Lightworks is welcome to make business in Linux land. It is not illegal. It is welcomed. I hope Adobe does as well.
We need Lightworks because it theoretically allows the minute group that is involved in that technology to have high quality programs.

But we also NEED true open source projects like KDEnlive from which other free-open software editors can take ideas and code and back and forth as opposed to the Googlefied version of top down open source communities should look like.
I dont foresee Lightworks every being that.
Which is fine.
It can be the nice fancy closed souce Linux program.
Thats part of a healthy Linux eco-system which is based and built on open code and standards but can be a business ground for pay software.

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Originally Posted by kiddo

I think you guys just missed the point of the original author's article entirely. Go re-read it (and the comments section is interesting too).

You think that gnome dev isn't aware of the legal mess EditShare is in when it comes to opening a 1M+ LoC codebase with 20 years of history? Come on, that guy isn't dumb :)

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No, the main point of the article was that LW isn't an Open-Source project (which is true at this point, EditShare wouldn't argue that either. They've made it pretty clear too - just look at their roadmap). The rest of that gnome-devs article is nothing more than speculation. - whether or not that was his/her intention doesn't matter. it is still nothing more than speculation infused with zero facts... (and in other areas - it was nothing more than FUD ~ like with the assertion that the different versions will be severely crippled, yet the only difference is not having a commercially licensed plugin, installed ~ which you could easily purchase - if you needed them)... You suggesting that because it has an older code-base means that it is filled with code that can't be opened is nothing more than speculation - ie: you don't know that at all and neither does that Gnome-developer. period.

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Originally Posted by ninez

nothing more than FUD ~ like with the assertion that the different versions will be severely crippled, yet the only difference is not having a commercially licensed plugin, installed ~ which you could easily purchase - if you needed them)

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Have you bothered to look at the pricing page that he was linking to? It's not just codecs. Other features of the application are affected too.

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Originally Posted by kiddo

Have you bothered to look at the pricing page that he was linking to? It's not just codecs. Other features of the application are affected too.

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have you? go and read it again, there are maybe 3 or 4 things that don't pertain plugins/licensed codecs (or are misc options that probably doesn't affect someone like yourself)... furthermore, some of 'misc ones' aren't really worth bitching about anyway ~ such as multiple-concurrent-licensing, community support, project-sharing or the h/w io options.... You wouldn't be using the H/W io options without the hardware and pro version anyway - and if you are too cheap to pay $40-60 for a license - you wouldn't own such hardware anyway....

Really, the only to things you _may_ be able to bitch about (once the dust has settled) is the FX-related options - but again, if you are too cheap to shell out $40-60 for that - then you should use some 'free as in crap' video-editor that is already available for you to use, free of charge ;)

and it still doesn't change the fact, that that blog article is based on very few facts, lots of speculation and FUD.

if you read her latest posts about cairo/pango you will have made note of this (her talking to Lightworks developers; ESLightworks and Great white);

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Originally Posted by nekohayo

Oh, so you actually draw the shapes and widgets and all that using Cairo? That’s good news. I’m positively surprised, and I’m sorry then; you have to give me some slack for not having the source code to guess that one out ;) and for seeing too many projects using their own drawing library.

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translation: " oh, i don't know what i am talking about. It's surprising that what you guys are doing at EditShare, doesn't match up with my own speculations that i've blogged and bitched about in my article... and of course, adding the apology in there for her false-claims/speculation and asking for 'slack'. lol.