Gilles Caulier has started to replace imlib2 with a library written by Renchi Raju. This will bring 16 bits per pixel per channel to digiKam, with support for meta-data (like exif or iptc). Imlib2 only supports 8 bits per pixel per channel.

Today he reached his first success. With help of dcraw he loaded a raw image to digiKam, although it took 5 seconds to load on a Pentium III (not yet optimized), this will be a great step forward for digiKam.

You can see the proof here