I have no financial or personal stake in PhotoMechanic or its success. I didn’t even particularly like the software before version 6 as the interface was hard to look at. Metadata is hard and CameraBits looks that difficulty straight in the face and deals with it.
The fatuity of your statements about old OS is ludicrous. Mojave was introduced in 2018 and Apple’s own active update program for Mojave only ended this week. Mojave will continue to get security updates for another three or four years via Xprotect, Gatekeeper, MRT (Malware Removal Tool) and TCC (Transparency, Consent and Control).
If you’d like a job selling Apple computers, I’m sure the Genius Bar in Paris is hiring. Your bilingual skills and enthusiasm would be much appreciated. It’s all new computers there and the latest OS so you’d feel much more at home, than among photographers who have work to create and would rather not spend their time troubleshooting OS/app incompatibility issues every year.
offer the option of writing metadata to RAW files if a user so wishes - according to @Stenis, just like PhotoMechanic
CameraBits strongly discourages choosing to do so. Metadata applications rooting around in RAW files is a recipe for long-term disaster.
Adobe DNG Converter for that very reason from its origin actually includes the untouched original RAW file inside a DNG to make sure that photographers won’t lose access to the original image.
A “simple” metadata converter which risks the long-term integrity of a photographer’s archive by writing to the RAW originals seems a terrifying bio-hazard to me.
That said, there is space for a much simplified version of PhotoMechanic which works well with PhotoMechanic, Adobe Lightroom, CaptureOne, DxO PhotoLab and other applications which work non-destructively with .xmp files.
FastRawViewer’s developer does a very good job building independent and simple and affordable software for the photo space (FRV is for triage and not metadata despite some very basic metadata features). FastRawViewer is cross-platform, lightning fast and compatible with everything. Even the just released v2 runs on any OS back to Sierra 10.12 on Mac and Windows 7 as well as the latest versions. Iliah Borg does not need the “very latest version of OS X” to be able to get out of bed in the morning or manage photos. FastRawViewer should serve as a model for anyone attempting to build a metadata editor.
DxO could (has?) build such a metadata editor into PhotoLab, although I’d like to see the Library module become its own independent mini-application like FilmPack and ViewPoint with its own sales. Bundling is okay but Library should pay its own way and not interfere with core PhotoLab functionality. As Library grows larger and more complex it should be possible to not see the Library functionality at all when using PhotoLab.
I’m encouraged by Alex’s answers and the care DxO is taking not to allow PhotoLab’s handling of metadata to disrupt the use of external DAM and metadata solutions.