[Eldorado]

I would like to bring this topic up with fellow addon developers, mainly those that will be affected

I have been informed by Martijn that my movie and tv show meta data scraper for addons - script.module.metahandlers - will be removed from the xbmc.org repo with the following reason:

We discussed it with our repo maintainers and since no addon is using it in repo we are likely going to remove it in short time.
Unless an approved plugins is going to be submitted to our repo. It's our consensus that a module in our repo must be used by at least one addon.
So for starter we won't pull in the update.

I find this new rule that was obviously just created a bit absurd!

Upon sending in a new pull request, Martijn had responded to me personally asking which addons in the official repository were using this module, to which I replied I did not know of any off-hand.. I had originally created the script for a couple addons that are no longer supported here but it's no secret as to what they are, a quick search on this forum and you will see the inception and how it was born

But since it's creation I have noticed a number of other dev's have found it and have made use of it in their own legit addons, after a very quick search I found the following addons implementing it to scrape meta data for their content:

- Popcornflix
- Docu-Hub
- Filmi By Nature
- TV on Desi Zone

There are likely more, and even more likely is that there are current dev's who are unaware that this exists and may wish to use it. I haven't been as active on this forum since the parting of ways that led to the creation of other 3rd party addon sites, so I have also not been promoting and fielding support here for this module as I should be, but I am more than willing to do so..

But now this ridiculous rule has been created.. an addon must be used by another addon in the existing repo to remain in the repo... right, I think I will add this one to the list of 'why do you not submit your addons to the official repo' thread

* Edit - removed my comment regarding grey area addons (spade a spade remark)

What will you say to the authors of the above addons who you will be negatively impacting? Too bad, so sad I guess it will be..

I believe other addons dev's should have their say on this matter, especially those that will be affected

Voice your opinions, start the discussion.. a simple movie/tv show meta-data scraper, yay or nay?

[Martijn]

Just to be clear this has nothing to do with being used by grey area addons. We are just cleaning up our repo and there will likely before unused stuff removed. This also nog my decision but a collective decision by some team members.
Fact is that last version got downloaded more than a million times without a addon in repo.

If there are valid addons that will be submitted to repository it will remain in repo.
I have not seen any of those devs even asking to be included in repo or why they don't want too. Also if they don't want to why should we cater their needs if they are refusing us?

Also your comment that is a reason to not include in repo is not valid. Why has this been submitted and the other non grey area ones are not.?

[Eldorado]

That's it exactly.. if it had 0 downloads, then yes it's unused and can be removed no questions asked, I am in perfect agreement

But it is being used by legit 3rd party addons as given, why does it matter if they exist in the official repo?

This is the logic I don't understand.. again, see the thread and reasons as to why many don't submit their addons

If you remove modules that are being used, then you cripple 3rd party addon devs.. is this the goal then, to only cater to addons that are in the official repo, ignore those that are not?

[Martijn]

That logic is faulty.
If they want to be in repo they request dependent modules to be included too. Problem solved.
This has been many times before. If they are still WIP the dependant modules are no problem as well as they are needed for proper testing AND the addons will be included eventually.


And if they don't want to be in official repo there is no reason what so ever that we should provide modules as they are willingly not to be included. Id they need modules they might as well just provide them their selves.
But I'll let our other repo maintainers voice in.

[Eldorado]

Makes things very tough on the 3rd party dev''s with that idea...

[prae5]

That's it exactly.. if it had 0 downloads, then yes it's unused and can be removed no questions asked, I am in perfect agreement

But it is being used by legit 3rd party addons as given, why does it matter if they exist in the official repo?

What "legit" addons is it being used with? Its my understanding that nothing in our repo uses it. I've not checked all of the addons you list above, but at least two of them contain piracy content.

This is the logic I don't understand.. again, see the thread and reasons as to why many don't submit their addons

We only want legitimate addons on in repo. That is our decision, you may not agree with it but we ask you to respect it.

To turn things around a little, so you can perhaps understand our position - If an addon isn't needed by anything in our repo and seems to only be used by addons that don't qualify for our repo / contain content that isn't compatible with our forum rules, then why should we host it? Genuine question.

If you remove modules that are being used, then you cripple 3rd party addon devs.. is this the goal then, to only cater to addons that are in the official repo, ignore those that are not?

Our focus is understandably addons that are in our repo, there is no intention of crippling 3rd party addon devs.

[ajay]

Team XBMC,

Removing metahandler module will definitely make things tough for other add-ons dependent on it. I understand your point is to not host anything that is not being used by add-on hosted within XBMC repo but most of the XBMC users see XBMC as a framework bundled with basic and reusable libraries to widen the possibilities could be achieved.

If such modules are removed, future add-on of XBMC will end up rewriting the same code again because no one would aware about existence of such reusable library. I think this will defeat the idea of having common script.module artifact in XBMC repo. Please give it a second thought.

Wish you Happy New Year Guys!!!

[o9r1sh]

I would like to go on record and say that I too believe that it would be a poor decision to remove this module from the official repo. Its been mentioned that script.module.metahandler had over a million downloads this past month, that alone should be enough reason for it to remain because regardless of what type of addons this module generally used it the fact is that XBMC users do use this module and they use it a lot.

Please reconsider

Thanks.

[nickr]

I vote to keep it.

[Martijn]

This has nothing to with voting and voting won't even be taken into consideration (certainly not from non addon devs).

Neither the fact if it has been download one time or a billions of times. Also the reason it has been downloaded so many times is because it is used by addons that we don't want anything to do with.

If such modules are removed, future add-on of XBMC will end up rewriting the same code again because no one would aware about existence of such reusable library. I think this will defeat the idea of having common script.module artifact in XBMC repo.

This addon has never been promoted by any of you so how would addon devs even know it existed? So devs would rewrite it anyway as no one except a few devs who chose not to be included in repo anyway know about it.

Again show us legit addons, promote it to be used by other addons and then it has a legit reason to be shipped in our repo. If it is purely to be used to addons shipped with other repos that we won't want here or they don't won't to be in our repo they might as well provide the module themselves if they need it.

[Eldorado]

That's it exactly.. if it had 0 downloads, then yes it's unused and can be removed no questions asked, I am in perfect agreement

But it is being used by legit 3rd party addons as given, why does it matter if they exist in the official repo?

What "legit" addons is it being used with? Its my understanding that nothing in our repo uses it. I've not checked all of the addons you list above, but at least two of them contain piracy content.

I had listed 4 in my original post, I am under the belief that the sites they are based against are legit.. again I am not the author of these addons, and we both are likely just guessing as to whether they are legal or not, but it's not something we should be debating here

This is the logic I don't understand.. again, see the thread and reasons as to why many don't submit their addons

We only want legitimate addons on in repo. That is our decision, you may not agree with it but we ask you to respect it.

To turn things around a little, so you can perhaps understand our position - If an addon isn't needed by anything in our repo and seems to only be used by addons that don't qualify for our repo / contain content that isn't compatible with our forum rules, then why should we host it? Genuine question.

I fully respect your stance on legit addons in the repo, I am not trying to challenge that in any way

Good question, I am trying to make my case here as to why and really my main argument is that it IS being used by legit addons and can be used by many more

I have stated 4 addons which I found with a very quick search that use it, there may be more, hopefully they speak up here, ajay for one has already chimed in

My counter argument then is, since I have found legit addons utilizing my module, does it matter that they are not in the official repo? And why? Would it not be in your best interest to help them out by providing the hosting of a shared module rather than forcing them to host it individually?

It's simply a meta data scraper for addons, as far as I am aware it doesn't violate any rules or laws, and in my opinion can be very useful to the community, perhaps hasn't been realized by the full community yet

If you remove modules that are being used, then you cripple 3rd party addon devs.. is this the goal then, to only cater to addons that are in the official repo, ignore those that are not?

Our focus is understandably addons that are in our repo, there is no intention of crippling 3rd party addon devs.

But in essence that is what you will inadvertently do, like I stated above it will be difficult for them to keep up to date on a shared module.. and one that is currently broken (requires a new api key)

[Eldorado]

This has nothing to with voting and voting won't even be taken into consideration (certainly not from non addon devs).

Neither the fact if it has been download one time or a billions of times. Also the reason it has been downloaded so many times is because it is used by addons that we don't want anything to do with.

If such modules are removed, future add-on of XBMC will end up rewriting the same code again because no one would aware about existence of such reusable library. I think this will defeat the idea of having common script.module artifact in XBMC repo.

This addon has never been promoted by any of you so how would addon devs even know it existed? So devs would rewrite it anyway as no one except a few devs who chose not to be included in repo anyway know about it.

Again show us legit addons, promote it to be used by other addons and then it has a legit reason to be shipped in our repo. If it is purely to be used to addons shipped with other repos that we won't want here or they don't won't to be in our repo they might as well provide the module themselves if they need it.

I would assume those that know about it have found the thread here in the forums where it was initiated and last post stating it was moved into the repo, others have found me via github as I have fielded many questions over email about it's usage and location

ajay's addon's are very popular and I believe access only legal content, so that is for starters one dev who supports his addons here but has chosen to keep them in his own repo

Also I would like to promote this module more, I feel it needs exposure to more dev's, and as I said this would be a nice addition to addons such as the Netflix and LoveFilm.. and I could use help maintaining it

If you guys give it another chance, I will start a new thread promoting it's usage and get the wiki section done up properly.. I believe we are in this situation mainly due to lack of exposure here in these forums

[prae5]

I do appreciate your position, I don't disagree that it could be used with addons that would fit with our rules. If you can find someone using it that is inline with our rules and can convince them to put it in our repo, then it will give you a much better position.....

Your argument isn't helped by the addons you mention in your first post. Of the four addons you mention, i think only one of them could pass our forum rules at the moment.

- Popcornflix - I think this is hosted on one of the sites we don't support here, potentially looking at it may be legal content.
- Docu-Hub - I think this is hosted on one of the sites we don't support here, is unclear where content is sourced from
- Filmi By Nature - looks like illegal content, likely to be removed
- TV on Desi Zone - looks like illegal content, likely to be removed

I'm not 100% sure as i haven't had time to checked in full yet, but i do not believe ajays plugins access legal content. I think they pull content from youtube, dailymotion and other legal sites, however they also pull content from other non-legal sources. The non-legal sources taint the addon which means they cannot be supported here.

[hstegeman]

@xbmc.org
Most of the addons I am using depends on it, yesterday i did install the newest version from a piracy website, because still after a few weeks this module wasn't updated by xbmc.org
Don't be a dictator, nobody likes that.

[Karnagious]

This sounds like a hardware store that refuses to stock nails for a brand of nail gun that they dont sell.

1 million downloads isnt insignificant, and removing it from the repo will affect the user experience of tens of thousands of people. Please think about that. Remove it from the repo because it isnt used by anything in the repo and tens of thousands of peoples experience of XBMC will suffer.

Prepare for an avalanche of questions to the support forum. The same question over and over again. Ad nasueum for years. Because we all know that people dont search for a solution, ever.

This is not flippant, its a serious question: if a module has to be used by an addon already in the repo for it to be in the repo itself, then how would any module get added to the repo?