Do you think that Team-XBMC should keep developing XBMC for the Xbox?

Do you think that Team-XBMC should keep developing XBMC for the Xbox? - Printable Version

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- JimboJones - 2008-10-11

I'm not an active member of any xbox community but I've been using xbmc for a few years now - and I intend to keep using it until the wheels fall off. I actually just came around to browse and see the latest word on Atlantis.

So...uh... yeah... Since no one is stepping up to the plate... What exactly is involved in taking over from jmarshall? What are the requisite skills/tools?

- And yes - this is a tentatively serious offer.

- AnonyOne - 2008-10-11

Just to follow up on a previous offer, I would commit to donate a quarterly sum to an individual who will take the XBOX-XBMC under his/her wings.
I am sure there are quite a few like myself, and wether these funds would be converted to Tuition or simply Pizza n' Beer that is just fine with me! :-)

- jmarshall - 2008-10-12

JimboJones: Requirements are:

1. You have VS 2k3 and the XDK.
2. You know how to merge using SVN.
3. You know how to resolve conflicts.
4. You have the time to devote to it.

Cheers,
Jonathan

- JimboJones - 2008-10-12

jmarshall Wrote:JimboJones: Requirements are:

1. You have VS 2k3 and the XDK.
2. You know how to merge using SVN.
3. You know how to resolve conflicts.
4. You have the time to devote to it.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the response. Please (anyone) school me if my assumptions regarding the four requirements are way off.

#1a & #1b can be obtained. Although I'm not feeling good about finding a legit cy of #1b as it seems everything is 360-oriented now. Well - that plus I'm not to sure I wanna go through the hoops to be an Xbox developer.

I'm guessing #2 is an n-step process that's more or less the same each time you do it so sort of a learn once, write it down, & that's it.

Regarding #3 -- Ahh, there's the rub. I've been coding for 10+ years but mainframe stuff - and not in c/c++ so depending on what all 'conflicts' entails... I have 6-8 recent months invested in c# using VS 2K5/8 but just introductory exposure to c/c++.

Lastly - #4. I'm guessing you know what you're doing (how else could you be doing it, right?) so the best I could hope for is matching the same amount of time you currently spend which is... Huh

I'm sure I'd have to spend plenty more than that my first few times around the block. How many hours per week/month are you spending now?

- JimboJones - 2008-10-12

deleted

- jmarshall - 2008-10-12

It normally takes me a couple of hours a week. The procedure I use is:

1. Look through the commits for that week.
2. Make a note of which ones will apply to trunk. This is based on experience, though some are obvious (anything that is clearly platform specific can be ignored), and I only do it this way to cut down on the work in step 4.
3. Merge said revisions.
4. Fix the inevitable conflicts. Normally it's pretty simple (line ending differences, or code differences present on one platform but not the other.
5. Check it builds and runs.

It's not that hard, but it does require a reasonable working knowledge of the XBMC codebase. It'd be quite a task for someone that doesn't have a good working knowledge of the codebase. Remember that I've been "living" in this code base for more than 5 years. Obviously whoever takes this on will not be on their own - we developers are quite happy to comment on whether or not something should be merged. It will, however, be expected that whoever does it has the ability to merge and fix any basic problems, as we don't have all the time in the world to spend doing this, otherwise we'd keep doing it ourselves.

Cheers,
Jonathan

- Geeba - 2008-10-12

Jonathan - how many pizza'n'beers donations would it take for you to do the merge of the features that could run on Xbox? say every other month or so... just to keep the daddy of XBMC involved in the scene? Like you said you've lived it for the past 5 years so no one will know it like you.... Sad

- jmarshall - 2008-10-12

Since you asked, and only since you asked:

Once a week it takes a couple of hours. If it's once a month it'd probably be at least 4 hours, though it may well be more than that. It doesn't scale too well.

I don't wish to state publicly how much I normally charge per hour - I'm sure you can google for programmer rates to get a ballpark. Since it's for the community, I'd happily cut that rate right down, but I suspect that even then there would not be sufficient donations to motivate me.

Cheers,
Jonathan

- arnova - 2008-10-13

jmarshall Wrote:It normally takes me a couple of hours a week. The procedure I use is:

1. Look through the commits for that week.
2. Make a note of which ones will apply to trunk. This is based on experience, though some are obvious (anything that is clearly platform specific can be ignored), and I only do it this way to cut down on the work in step 4.
3. Merge said revisions.
4. Fix the inevitable conflicts. Normally it's pretty simple (line ending differences, or code differences present on one platform but not the other.
5. Check it builds and runs.

It's not that hard, but it does require a reasonable working knowledge of the XBMC codebase. It'd be quite a task for someone that doesn't have a good working knowledge of the codebase. Remember that I've been "living" in this code base for more than 5 years. Obviously whoever takes this on will not be on their own - we developers are quite happy to comment on whether or not something should be merged. It will, however, be expected that whoever does it has the ability to merge and fix any basic problems, as we don't have all the time in the world to spend doing this, otherwise we'd keep doing it ourselves.

Cheers,
Jonathan

I'd also be willing to help here. Especially if someone else (like JimboJones) is willing to help out too (I feel more comfortable when doing tasks like this with an additional person). I'm still a big fan of the Xbox platform (as you probably know) and I don't like to see it die anytime soon yet (as I mentioned earlier a still give it a couple of years). I've been an (amateur) C coder (and several other languages) for quite some years now. I can "read" C++ and have some experience with SVN. If Jonathan could provide a basic "protocol"/procedure for SVN merging/backporting I'd certainly like to be a part of this. And of course the backup/support from the actual dev's is a prequisite too (but from what I understood this shouldn't be a problem)... And of course I hope t3ch or someone else is still willing to make binary packages and distribute them...

My idea is to *at least* merge/backport important fixes, just to keep xbmc-xbox healthy enough (in principle no (big) feature enhancements)...

- Geeba - 2008-10-13

jmarshall Wrote:Since you asked, and only since you asked:

Cheers,
Jonathan

Awwww... you made me feel special!! Nod

thanks mate! Laugh

- syion - 2008-10-13

Keep development and support for the XBOX as well as other platforms. XBOX is still a great in-expensive media player.

Also a prepackaged linux/XBMC package would be great.

- katz - 2008-10-15

"XBOX MEDIA CENTER" Huh

Ummmmmmm wasnt it all the xbox users that got this off the ground many many years ago? Howabout we keep them in the game.

ive got 3 xbox's in my house, all running xbmc, and only that.

seemed like a good idea at the time - JimboJones - 2008-10-16

Hello jmarshall/arnova

I've been mulling it over and while I AM intrigued- I can't honestly see myself being anywhere near as enthusiastic as an XMBC QA tester.

So rather than waste more time I'm just gonna say "Thanks for your responses but I'm not a good match for the task at hand".

Good luck. I hope some other enthusiastic user picks up the slack.

- griffore - 2008-10-16

Just retire Xbox support at the release of Atlantis...

Yes, the xbox was where it all started, but it's not going to be where it ends. XBMC is moving on so should everyone else.

It's not like you won't have an awesome media center available to you. You just won't have the latest version. What do you expect, you're running it on a 7 year old piece of hardware.

- Jezz_X - 2008-10-16

griffore Wrote:.....It's not like you won't have an awesome media center available to you. You just won't have the latest version. What do you expect, you're running it on a 7 year old piece of hardware.

Indeed people tend to forget over time that we do this in our free time for nothing (money,funding,gifts) if the current developers choose not to support the xbox anymore then really its just tuff luck for all you xbox users. Its not like you don't have a working version to use anyway.

That being said as jmarshall and others have said before anyone with the skills and the will to do it is more than welcome to give it a go and even join the official team and become "the xbox guy" in which case the team will continue to support it through them.

But if none of the current capable devs want to continue on it, then there is really nothing anybody can do about it other than help out themselves (or start paying the current devs lots of money to do it for you, if they would except that)