Shotwell (software)

Shotwell
	Shotwell 0.30.4 in Arch Linux
Developer(s)	Yorba Foundation; Elementary; Jens Georg
Initial release	June 26, 2009; 15 years ago
Stable release	0.32.10 / 27 October 2024; 13 days ago
Preview release	0.31.7 / December 3, 2022; 23 months ago
Repository	gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/shotwell.git ;
Written in	Vala (GTK+)
Operating system	Linux
Platform	GNOME
Available in	Multilingual[which?]
Type	Image organizer
License	LGPL-2.1-or-later
Website	wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Shotwell

Shotwell is an image organizer designed to provide personal photo management for the GNOME desktop environment. In 2010, it replaced F-Spot as the standard image tool for several GNOME-based Linux distributions, including Fedora in version 13^[5] and Ubuntu in its 10.10 Maverick Meerkat release.^[6]

In 2019, Shotwell was the target of a predatory lawsuit by Rothschild Patent Imaging against the GNOME Foundation claiming a patent infringement related to the use of WiFi to transfer photographic images. The case was resolved through agreement in 2020 and the patent itself invalidated in 2022 following a legal challenge from the open source development community.^[7]^{: 251–252}^[8]

Features

Shotwell can import photos and videos from a digital camera directly. Shotwell automatically groups photos and videos by date, and supports tagging. Its image editing features allow users to straighten, crop, eliminate red eye, and adjust levels and color balance. It also features an auto "enhance" option that will attempt to guess appropriate levels for the image.

Shotwell allows users to publish their images and videos to Flickr, Piwigo,^[9] and YouTube. Shotwell can also set the desktop wallpaper.

Technical information

The Yorba Foundation wrote Shotwell in the Vala programming language. It imports photos using the libgphoto2 library, similar to other image-organizers such as F-Spot and gThumb.

References

^ "Picking Up Shotwell Development". lists.launchpad.net. Retrieved 2016-03-12.
^ Georg, Jens (2016-04-15). "Taking over". Retrieved 2018-06-06.
^ "shotwell-0.32.10". 27 October 2024. Retrieved 27 October 2024.
^ Georg, Jens (3 December 2022). "New development preview - Shotwell ~0.31.6~ 0.31.7". Retrieved 7 December 2022.
^ "4. Changes in Fedora for Desktop Users". docs.fedoraproject.org. Fedora Project. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-03-12.
^ Sneddon, Joey-Elijah (2010-05-13). "See Ya F-Spot! Shotwell to be default Image App in Ubuntu 10.10". OMG! Ubuntu!. Retrieved 2016-03-12.
^ Bain, Malcolm; Smith, P McCoy (October 2022). "Chapter 10: Patents and the defensive response". In Brock, Amanada (ed.). Open source law, policy and practice (PDF) (2nd ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. pp. 213–255. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198862345.003.0010. ISBN 978-0-19-886234-5. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
^ OSI Staff (28 April 2022). "GNOME patent troll stripped of patent rights". Voices of Open Source. USA. Retrieved 2022-12-25.
^ "guillaumev/piwigoshotwell". GitHub. Retrieved 2016-03-12.