Why is the official XBMC Remotes for Android and iOS code not on XBMC's GitHub repo?

  Thread Rating:
  • 0 Votes - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Post Reply
RockerC Offline
Senior Member
Posts: 147
Joined: May 2011
Reputation: 3
Post: #1
Why is the official XBMC Remotes for Android and iOS source code not on the official GitHub repository for XBMC? Huh

XBMC (Team XBMC) official repository on GitHub
https://github.com/xbmc/

Official XBMC Remote(s) for Android is instead on freezy's own private repository on GitHub
https://github.com/freezy/android-xbmcremote
https://github.com/freezy/android-xbmcremote-sandbox

Official XBMC Remote for iOS is instead on joethefox's own private repository on GitHub
https://github.com/joethefox/Unofficial-...BMC-Remote

Would it not be better to collect all official source code from Team XBMC in one and the same repository on GitHub?
(This post was last modified: 2012-06-07 17:18 by RockerC.)
find quote
jschoen Offline
Senior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: Sep 2010
Reputation: 0
Location: Chalmette, Louisiana
Post: #2
I do not know about the Android Remote but the ios one you linked is not an Official Remote. It is actually called the Unofficial Official XBMC Remote. Although I do have to say it is quite good, and I really like, it is not built by XBMC developers.
find quote
natethomas Offline
Team-XBMC Community Manager
Posts: 2,828
Joined: Apr 2008
Reputation: 53
Post: #3
(2012-06-07 19:49)jschoen Wrote:  I do not know about the Android Remote but the ios one you linked is not an Official Remote. It is actually called the Unofficial Official XBMC Remote. Although I do have to say it is quite good, and I really like, it is not built by XBMC developers.

That was mostly true until yesterday. The main developer was invited on to the team a while back upon agreeing to open source the software. After a team review and some internally discussed changes, it's been officially accepted by the team as "our" remote.

Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.

[Image: badge.gif]
find quote
natethomas Offline
Team-XBMC Community Manager
Posts: 2,828
Joined: Apr 2008
Reputation: 53
Post: #4
I can't speak for the Android remote, but part of the reason we're trying to keep the iOS marginally separated from the XBMC codebase is licensing concerns. Essentially, the GPL doesn't play nice with the iOS app store. So to get around that issue, the remote is basically "GPL, except in any way that conflicts with the app store." At least at this point, keeping the base separate makes for less confusion.

Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.

[Image: badge.gif]
find quote
jschoen Offline
Senior Member
Posts: 119
Joined: Sep 2010
Reputation: 0
Location: Chalmette, Louisiana
Post: #5
(2012-06-07 20:41)natethomas Wrote:  
(2012-06-07 19:49)jschoen Wrote:  I do not know about the Android Remote but the ios one you linked is not an Official Remote. It is actually called the Unofficial Official XBMC Remote. Although I do have to say it is quite good, and I really like, it is not built by XBMC developers.

That was mostly true until yesterday. The main developer was invited on to the team a while back upon agreeing to open source the software. After a team review and some internally discussed changes, it's been officially accepted by the team as "our" remote.

Well I guess I do not read enough. That is good news though.
find quote
RockerC Offline
Senior Member
Posts: 147
Joined: May 2011
Reputation: 3
Post: #6
(2012-06-07 20:44)natethomas Wrote:  I can't speak for the Android remote, but part of the reason we're trying to keep the iOS marginally separated from the XBMC codebase is licensing concerns. Essentially, the GPL doesn't play nice with the iOS app store. So to get around that issue, the remote is basically "GPL, except in any way that conflicts with the app store." At least at this point, keeping the base separate makes for less confusion.
That does not make sense as a reason for different GitHub project/repository as license is applied per source code file, not per GitHub project or even per GitHub repository/branch.

I would think that the XBMC project as a whole would look more attractive to new developers and potential sponsors / partners if all source code was collected in a single place.

You could compare this concept to the new Addon Manager verses the old way of having to browse the forum and manually download/extract files to get addons into XBMC Tongue

(2012-06-07 20:41)natethomas Wrote:  
(2012-06-07 19:49)jschoen Wrote:  I do not know about the Android Remote but the ios one you linked is not an Official Remote. It is actually called the Unofficial Official XBMC Remote. Although I do have to say it is quite good, and I really like, it is not built by XBMC developers.
That was mostly true until yesterday. The main developer was invited on to the team a while back upon agreeing to open source the software. After a team review and some internally discussed changes, it's been officially accepted by the team as "our" remote.
Yeah I read an announcement on XBMC's Facebook page yesterday, I was thinking there would be a more public news post announcement on xbmc.org today though? Cool
(This post was last modified: 2012-06-08 10:12 by RockerC.)
find quote
natethomas Offline
Team-XBMC Community Manager
Posts: 2,828
Joined: Apr 2008
Reputation: 53
Post: #7
(2012-06-08 10:08)RockerC Wrote:  I would think that the XBMC project as a whole would look more attractive to new developers and potential sponsors / partners if all source code was collected in a single place.

You could compare this concept to the new Addon Manager verses the old way of having to browse the forum and manually download/extract files to get addons into XBMC Tongue

Sure. Except the addon manager actually IS a part of XBMC. Neither remote is part of the XBMC codebase. Honestly though, I'm not much use in this discussion. The minutia of where code is located in github for the purposes of looking the most attractive to potential future developers is much less important to me than the fact that the code is in github in the first place.

Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail XBMC-Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.

[Image: badge.gif]
find quote
Martijn Online
Team-XBMC
Posts: 7,677
Joined: Jul 2011
Reputation: 114
Location: Dawn of time
Post: #8
Not sure what the fuss is all about. There are more "official XBMC add-ons" that aren't in the XBMC git but only in team member his own repo

Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forums before posting.
Do NOT e-mail Team-XBMC members asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting, make sure you read this first


For your mediacenter artwork go to
[Image: fanarttv.png]
find quote
Ned Scott Offline
Team-XBMC Wiki Guy
Posts: 11,878
Joined: Jan 2011
Reputation: 130
Location: Arizona, USA
Post: #9
Actually, the open source licensing stuff and the AppStore is highly debatable. However, since it's all original code then we avoid any issues via dual licensing. I doubt there would be any actual issue if we did have to put any open source code upstream to the iOS remote app, but that's something we'll deal with when it happens.

The real reason you don't see the code on XBMC's GitHub is because no one has done it yet. XBMC add-ons still haven't made it over to GitHub yet. Just takes time and organization, and no one is pressed to do it since in most cases only one or two people are working on the code, so it's whatever works best for them. They're smaller sub projects, so it's not as pressing for the code to be with all the other XBMC code.

At least that's what I've figured from what I've seen.

You can make easy links to the XBMC wiki using double brackets around words: [[debug log]] = debug log, [[Add-on:YouTube]] = Add-on:YouTube, [[Adding videos to the library]] = Adding videos to the library, [[userdata]] = userdata, etc
find quote
RockerC Offline
Senior Member
Posts: 147
Joined: May 2011
Reputation: 3
Post: #10
(2012-06-09 19:32)Martijn Wrote:  Not sure what the fuss is all about. There are more "official XBMC add-ons" that aren't in the XBMC git but only in team member his own repo
Good point, would not all the "official Team-XBMC addons" as collaborate works be better served if you had those in the common GitHub repository?

I'm thinking that it is likely that other developers will be more prone to contribute to those "official Team-XBMC addons" if they're all collected there

Again same with official remote control apps and other official stuff such as skins and tools that are open source under Team-XBMC copyright Huh
find quote
Post Reply