Re: The need for a substantial upgrade of ColorSync
Re: The need for a substantial upgrade of ColorSync
- Subject: Re: The need for a substantial upgrade of ColorSync
- From: Walker Blackwell <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 20:05:41 -0400
I guess what I'm hearing about ColorSync is this. There seems to be (or have been) a lot of entrenched inertia in upgrading ColorSync. I can understand this. I bet Epson and Adobe and HP (etc) really wanted ColorSync to stay the same. This way they could just set up automated print-path and plug-and-play their print drivers and not worry about anything. Apple probably recognized this and froze the code for as long as possible.
But w/ 64bit and all the crazy changes to the system that happened in 10.6, all this stuff had to change and nobody really had time to get it right. Apple is a big-boy OS now. Halting the hype and timing of 10.6 (that os was hinging on iPhone/iPod hardware variables) just for ColorSync when 80 percent of the public don't give a crap or know about ICC would never fly now. Maybe in 10.2.
So it makes it even more pressing to do two things for 10.7.
1. Create a full ColorSync API.
2. Create an independent upgrade/beta path. This will give space for Adobe/Apple/Epson/HP/Canon/etc to implement advanced CM tools into the wild (starting with us crazy geeks) and then let that tech trickle down to the installed base in a natural way. I'm thinking of CM in Apple as sort'of a system pref thing. Centralize monitor/printer/system color settings into one space and let that space be version controlled and pluggable. Then you can set up permissions and hardware tasking for Adobe CMM and Apple CMM and Kodak CMM, Fuji CMM, etc.
3. We have AFP, we have SSH, we have all sorts of system utilities all of which you can upgrade and add to. Why does these work? They are very clearly defined programs and they have borders. Also, many of them are open-source. If Apple's ColorSync wen't open-source and was also VC and pluggable, I think many if not most of our problems would start to be resolved. Imagine if Adobe and Epson and HP and Apple engineers get a look at the ColorSync code and actually go in there and debug it and fix it for their hardware. If it was opensource, and change made could be tested by all the other companies (and individuals) involved, there would be a natural gravitation towards building drivers and hardware that worked well together across the imaging industry. I'm essentially thinking about going the WebKit/Apache route with Apple's implementation of ICC. It would take a lot of burden off Apple, it would satisfy the companies that rely (and get pissed off by) ColorSync code, and it would give us users more advanced tools at a quicker pace.
Walker
Walker Blackwell
802.821.4451
www.walkerblackwell.com
aim: greendirtblues
email@hidden
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