[Openicc] Linux CM ideology, was: meta data in test chart

[Kai-Uwe Behrmann]

Am 04.02.11, 00:55 +0100 schrieb edmund ronald:
> Indeed, "a complex mechanism which in the end is completely understood
> only by the experts." as you say is a good description of the ICC
> model. In the end it has produced not only a difficult user-model, but
> also a programming model which is too complex for non-specialist
> application developers. I would agree that a clean slate approach is
> not only feasible but also desirable on Linux. In the end, what is
> there to lose? Speaking for the print side, Gutenprint will continue
> to put dots on paper whatever the upstream color model happens to be.

To write in analogy, I doubt that users and developers like to go to a 
simplified font format for the goal of having something which is only 
useful for a artifical user group - the masses. It would largely reduce 
the culture of type setting to a one fits all shoe. Contrary, the effort 
of font engine developers went in a quite different direction. APIs where 
created to abstract various font complexity from decidedly naive users
with the flexibility to deliver more details on demand. That approach 
appears to me quite reasonable.

What we need for colour is not a simplified exchange model, but APIs 
which are able to abstract the colour description models while maintaining 
their flexibility for demanding users. lcms is the API of choice for many 
developers for that purpose currently. We are now in the phase to build on 
top of it and alternative APIs and integrate more deeply into systems to 
provide abstraction layers.


kind regards
Kai-Uwe Behrmann
-- 
developing for colour management 
www.behrmann.name + www.oyranos.org