LightZone goes Open Source!

**Daveth** · January 5th, 2013

My favourite photo editor has just been announced as an open source project. The Lightcrafts company folded and a community website kept the flame burning, but recent discussions with the software originator have resulted in this new initiative. The following text went out to registered users, and is copied here mostly in full:

"We are extremely pleased to inform those of you who don't already know from the announcements on the website that LightZombie is changing as we speak into the LightZone Project. We have received permission from LightZone's founder, Fabio Riccardi, to take LightZone open source. This is the best possible news for all of us who continue to value LightZone as an important part of our photo editing workflows. Being open source means that we will begin to be able to offer LightZone for free through our website, be better able to support the program generally, continue the raw profile support more easily, and possibly even pursue some additional development of the product in the future.

We are also extremely pleased to announce that for the last month we have been assisted by Anton Kast, one of the original developers of LightZone. He was in fact instrumental in getting Fabio to agree to this new effort. He, Doug, and two important new volunteers, Pavel Beňak and Jedd from Australia, are currently in the thick of a difficult job compiling the source code for Windows, Mac, and Linux. ANY of you with compiling, coding, Java or other technical skills, PLEASE come forward now. We really need your help!

All these changes will necessitate some other changes as well. The first has already taken place: our new URL is www.lightzoneproject.org. Those of you still using the www.lightzombie.org URL are now being pointed to the new URL. We will be making some changes to the website shortly as well to accommodate the new scope of our project, and there are other things we may attempt this spring as well.

We have not sent any emails out for a year, and we don't intend to clutter up your inboxes in the future, either. We will probably be sending out a few more in the coming months as we effect these changes, however, and so you may see several in the coming weeks. We will be sending out a general press release in a few weeks also once we get the source code ready for new downloading.

We want to thank all of you for registering and popping by the website every now and then---we have almost 300 registered users now, with more coming in every week---you have demonstrated through your interest that this project has been worth the effort. And speaking of effort, please join me in a hearty round of applause and thanks for Doug Pardee, who mostly single-handedly kept this project viable for nearly 14 months. Without him we truly would not be where we are today.

Our very best wishes to all of you for the New Year, which is already starting out pretty well!".

Excellent news.
David

**forrestcupp** · January 5th, 2013

That's cool. They really need to do a better job of showing what LightZone is on their web site. If I didn't have any idea what it is and I went to their web site, I would just keep on going. They don't have any screen shots or talk about any features, or anything. The About page is pretty lacking. Hopefully when they get the project going better with open source, they'll put some work into the web site.

**Daveth** · January 6th, 2013

yes, very early days and a very small team I think. All the other info was presumably on Lightcrafts website, though i may enquire if it could be lifted as you are right, it undersells it greatly.

**Buntu Bunny** · June 13th, 2013

Originally Posted by forrestcupp

.... They really need to do a better job of showing what LightZone is on their web site. If I didn't have any idea what it is and I went to their web site, I would just keep on going.....

Never heard of it and am definitely intrigued. I agree with Forrestcupp; their website does nothing to promote the product.

**dhor** · June 13th, 2013

Final Lightzone release is almost ready. Everybody who want to test beta version can register on http://lightzoneproject.org/ and obtain link to .deb package. The team is working on few minor bugs, so it's worth to keep eye on project site