Hi all digiKam users,
The metadata C++ library Exiv2 is now released as 0.26, after more than 2 years of development.
This new version is now included in all digiKam bundle. This will permit to fix more than 200 bugs relevant of the library.
2 years is very long in open source. Too long, as Exiv2 is an important piece of software for digiKam.
The future of Exiv2 project is uncertain. The current maintainer will left the project this year, and it still a lots of important bug to solve before to have a stable implementation for a 1.0.0 release.
And i don't talk about video file support, at least in read only. Currently i disabled the video support in Exiv2 for digiKam, else this one will crash very quickly.
The relation between digiKam and Exiv2 (especially between me and Robin) going to a wrong direction. This is why i check about a alternative of Exiv2, more powerfull and with more support and more frequent releases, and with native video support.
Exiftool sound like the natural choice, even if it's a Perl component. This is not the simpler way for digiKam, but solutions exist to wrap Exiftool and digiKam. This is what i will experiment in a near future, at least to see if it's suitable and enough speed for a intensive huge as we do in digiKam core with Exiv2.
I hope that Exiv2 will revival with a new maintainer with a better support than now. We will see...
Comments and feedback are welcome.
Best
Gilles Caulier
Locked
