Discussion
Today I learned that #ImageMagick has been slopped for some time. Like many tools, it's been load-bearing infrastructure for decades.
Meanwhile, the #GraphicsMagick fork has been quietly chugging along for 24 years. For most of that time, it's been maintained by a single human being.
That person has been asking for additional developer help for years now. While I don't have the skills to help directly, I can talk about it while I take their kindly offered toys out for a test drive.
@RussSharek@mastodon.art What do you mean by 'slopped' in this context?
@RussSharek@mastodon.art Any idea if GraphicsMagick is doing the same? The source code is a bit tedious to get.
I have no evidence suggesting the project is compromised. There is a mailing list, if you want to reach out and ask about it.
Well, butts.
I took a look at the possibility of uninstalling ImageMagick on my OpenBSD system, and it turns out that it is a dependency for inkscape.
That's a program we use regularly here at the clown house.
It seems I'm stuck with both for the moment.
Again I say, butts.
It doesn't have to be. It can be compiled without it.
I was just reading about this. I may have to risk poking a packager.
@RussSharek Carney knows that the United States is not its event, just the Trump administration, and the administration's trade war will be undermined if an unfriendly Congress is elected in a few months.
I think you got a wire crossed here. I'm talking about command line image manipulation tools.
一个哥们扛了 24 年，这才是真正的开源精神。好多项目都是这种默默续命的状态，等哪天 maintainer 退了，才发现整个行业都靠他在撑。
@RussSharek I cannot find any evidence of #ImageMagick being vibecoded, where did you learn this? The only statement I found is this:
> We will continue to keep humans in the loop. All contributions, whether written by a person, an LLM, or a mix of both, will be reviewed by a maintainer and tested before its committed. What matters is the quality, clarity, and correctness of the contribution, not the tool used to produce it.
https://github.com/ImageMagick/ImageMagick/issues/8614#issuecomment-4058760511
@RussSharek tip for those on debian: the package graphicsmagick-imagemagick-compat says it contains "a set of several executables that is compatible to ImageMagick's interface". I imagine there may be limits to the compatibility but I went ahead and installed it since I am somewhat conversant with IM's command line...
I am curious what the package includes. Is it basically a bunch of symlinks to the old im commands like convert?
@RussSharek There's also libvips which is much faster than ImageMagick and has a pretty reasonable and anti-slop contribution policy: https://github.com/libvips/libvips/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#ai-contribution-policy
It's good to see projects with clear policies.
Do you happen to know if this project has a set of cli tools similar to im/gm?
@RussSharek Actual fucking link: https://graphicsmagick.sourceforge.io/index.html
The mailing list would seem to be the way to get in touch/get involved: https://sourceforge.net/p/graphicsmagick/mailman/
@RussSharek (I didn't link that one bc my browser does HTTPS-only by default, so it shows a warning page)
It appears up to date, other than the cert issue.
@RussSharek would you know where I can find a list of the kinds of AI built into it now?
https://slopscan.ava.pet/repo/https%3A%2F%2Fgithub%2Ecom%2FImageMagick%2FImageMagick
For me, the answer to the question of "how much slop is ok" is "none" if I have alternatives to try...and if I don't have an option I think that is a concerning problem.
I'm a sucker for replacing a fusty old wizard with a friendly amphibian.
ImageMagick ... nooooooooo!! :(
It feels like I only just figured out how to shrink image
sizes w/o looking it up :P
Thx for the pointer to the GraphicsMagick one, i'll check that out.
CC: @RussSharek@mastodon.art
ImageMagick has been a part of my personal toolkit for *years*. I'm excited by a tool reported to be more consistent, faster, and made by people.
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