Hi all, as per title, is it me or the development of Synfig has slown down? I saw that Synfig got a new person involved in writing code (caryoscelus), but I noticed that on github the latest commit was on November 11 Nov, which is more than a month ago, is there something users like me can do to help developers?Donations,testing and so on?
Hello, Fillmmaker!
Yes, you right - there is slowdown in development right now. The reasons for that are partially explained in this post - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10078&start=15#p32405
In short: right now I am out of funds to pay our hired developer Ivan Mahonin (known as "blackwarthog’ on github - he is the one, who wrote most of Synfig code for pas 20+ months).
So, I am investing my (limited) free time into improving Synfig infrastructure - we have migrated bugtracker to GitHub and there is a new frontpage on Synfig website - synfig.org/ (more to come soon). Another thing that is on my radar - release a stable version of Synfig with all latest changes.
What users can do in this situation to help Synfig development?
- You can place a bounty for your favorite issue. I am sure our (ex)hired developer Ivan Mahoninwill be happy to fix the issue for you. Step-by-step guide:
- Post the bug with detailed steps to reproduce to this bugtracker.
- Submit a (small) bounty to Bountysource (as it was done here for memory usage bug).
- Share bounty link and convince other users to join and increase the bounty.
- If you would like to support open-source animation in general, you might consider to contribute to our Patreon page - patreon.com/morevna
As part of our Patreon activities we are contributing not only to Synfig, but also Papagayo lipsync software, RenderChan automatic build system. All of them work with Synfig and by contributing to our Patreon you can help us to make al them better. Also, we are testing and improving opensource animation tools by producing open animated shorts (see Morevna Demo and Episode 3)
Thank you for your reply Konstantin. That’s a pity that a good software like Synfig can’t attract more developers 
At the moment I got no money for any help, but in the future with my documentary made only with free software I hope to give something back in the form of donations to the software I use, Synfig included! I would like to see creators using free software giving something back to the softwares they used in form of monetary funds triggering a virtuous circle where by using software for free authors are able to support it with some contributions. I will stay around looking for news and will keep you updated on how my documentary goes 
Thank you, Filmmaker! Any work made with Synfig is also a big help!
Hi, Filmmaker.
I am not currently actively working on Synfig, because a feature i’m mostly interested in requires more work than i anticipated and so i somewhat switched to other projects. But i plan to resume developing some time soon, nevertheless.
Note that a lot of my work is not in master branch yet and it will continue to be so for a quite some time because i’m making radical changes which would break stuff. Also the date of last commit might be not the same as date of last change because older commits can be merged using rebase.
As for the ways of helping - here’s my personal list (i.e. how can you help me develop synfig ):
- donations: personally i will be more willing to work either on the features i’m already working or maybe on minor bug-fixing
- testing: at the moment i only need somebody to test cmake build system - i stopped working on it because it works for me and nobody else is actively interested; (note that it will not bring anything new directly, it just makes developing easier, at least for me)
- i also have an idea of developer-artist exchange: paying for bugfixes&features with content rather than money; at the moment i’m not working on any big project involving synfig though, so this option needs some initiative from artists.
Hi Caryoscelus thanks for your interest in Synfig! Would you mind explaining a bit more your last point? I am a newbie but I saw that on the forum there are some talented arists. Perhaps the thing could be more advertised?
It’s just an idea at this point - i’m pretty sure most developers (including me in any case) have personal interest in Synfig, that is, want to make some animation(s) with it. But it’s a lot of work and hard to do alone, so i thought such form of collaboration could be beneficial.
The main problem is that it should be effective for the developer. Which means either the result should be better than what developer could make, or developer should spend less time/energy on developing than they would’ve spend on content creation. (for an artist who can’t code at all, it’s always somewhat effective).
As i said, i don’t have a project for that kind of thing at the moment. I will advertise more when i do. But if somebody is enthusiastic enough about this thing, i can probably create a small project to test collaboration out.