CinePaint: Open source deep paint software

CinePaint Version 1.1 Delayed

Version 1.1 release delayed after finding and fixing memory leak bug

By Robin Rowe

Monarch caterpillar, a bug that becomes a butterfly

LONDON, ENGLAND (CinePaint.org) 2012/12/26 – The next release of CinePaint seems to have at least another week’s work for me to do. I’ve just about completed working on the libwire source files, but still have changes to the libbase and app directories to go. The task became larger than I’d scoped when I decided to fix all compiler warnings and unneeded library dependencies as I worked through the source files toward version 1.1.

What triggered that decision was a compiler warning that led me to find a nasty memory leak. That bug had been introduced by a programmer no longer with the project who clearly didn’t understand how C memory works, that you can’t just keep allocating the same memory over and over every time a function is called . As a result, every time CinePaint code looked up the home directory of the user, it bleed a little memory. The bug was in a function that CinePaint calls a lot.

I’ve been renaming some CinePaint files and directories, which means version 1.1 will show up as a brand new version control upload. CVS gets unhappy about renaming things. There have been suggestions in the past to move to Bazaar or Git or Subversion, which everyone including me can agree are more modern and have more features. Unfortunately, the last I checked, these newer systems are not as well implemented across non-Linux operating systems or as well understood by typical programmers.

While I’m planning to stick with CVS on SourceForge, that doesn’t mean Bazaar enthusiasts are out in the cold. There’s a Ubuntu Launchpad developers page for CinePaint:

http://launchpad.net/cinepaint

It provides a bridge from Launchpad CinePaint Bazaar to the SourceForge CinePaint CVS. When I get the new CVS up on SourceForge that will show up on Launchpad in Git.

Savvas Radevic has been tending the CinePaint Lauchpad page, not that much is going on there.  If anyone has suggestions what should happen on our Launchpad page, let me know. Savvas has a CinePaint packaging page and says he can help with Ubuntu packaging.

http://launchpad.net/~cinepaint

Photo courtesy of Pseudopanax at wikipedia.org.