XBMC Linux port questions and answers...

nah, its not stalling. its progressing at the pace one can expect.

we got exactly one dev after our plea for help (d4rk) and he's doing a great job. cant expect it to progress faster with the avail human resources. the rest of the devs are either not interested, are working on application updates instead of porting (like me) or got new jobs and shit lately and hence other priorities. xbmc is already a monster to maintain for the few of us that works on it, so when u throw in another enormous task which is to be done by the same ppl, progress necessarily reflects that.

I'm learning c++ as fast as I can

I know the people involved don't do it for the money but would more financial help....well, Help to get more Devs on board or incentivised to work on the port project?? ie. say there was enough money to be shared out to the devs that they didn't have to work the overtime in their real jobs to pay for their new Audi.

I mean I've used a few useful shareware programmes in my time and have often said to myself that I must make a donation to this project or that project. I am ashamed to say that I have never donated to any project in the end. I would definately 100% guaranteed donate to XBMC INC. In fact as soon as I finish this post I am going to donate straight away Its quite simply the best, most useful, most used piece of software I or my family have ever used free or otherwise.

How big is the userbase? Imagine if there was even only 10,000 active users(I am sure there are lots more) and we all donated the 50 dollars!!! No one is ever, "Meh, XBMC is alright I s'pose" Anyone who ever posts on any XBMC related forum is always uber enthused about the application. Does the level of donations match that apparent enthusiasm from the userbase for the project?

Do we need to organise a new donation drive?

Its just that XBMC on the actual Xbox is surely almost the best that it can be given the hardware. Surely the devs have rung every last clock cycle of performance out of it? Have developed every useful bit of functionality, script etc. ie get it to a stable 2.02 point release and then just leave the skinners and scripters to it and just update the mplayer codecs and maintain compatabilty with the websites and servers xbmc uses for its various functions.........or is just maintaining (treading water) such current compatability a full time job for the devs? I know that half or probably most the fun(if you can call it that) for the devs is that very challenge of ringing every last mhz of performance out of the hardware that I mentioned earlier but again like I said earlier....surely they have hit a very thick brick wall.

I would have thought at this stage that the devs would relish the 'new challenge' and the new possibilities afforded by newer hardware.

For instance, Gamester17s' posts about the next gen Mac mini have me salivating!! Does it not have the devs salivating? Surely the XBMC Port in combination with the upcoming mini (or any box with the specific xbmc hardware requirements) is the holy grail of hardware/OS/GUI combos. The ultimate media streamer. The ultimate combo of reasonably affordable hardware with the full gamut of connections, the power to play anything, the 'under tv' aesthetics, the small form factor, the coolest most fully functioning media OS/GUI out there. It just seems like the convergence of technology required, price,size,aesthetics,hardrive sizes/price of Nas's etc. Its all come together now or in the very near future....we just need the XBMC port to finish it all off.

Heres hopin'

Right, I'm off to make my donation

while donations are welcome we are not short on money. we are short on man power and money wont help a bit there (well, hiring someone but lets face it - thats just not realistic). i for one will certainly not drop my phd job no matter how much money is thrown at me. to give you an idea; i was offered a job that pays 3x what i have now and i instantly declined that one as well. i like my job.

anyways, donated money dont go to us devs. it goes into keeping the project alive, hosting isnt free...

this is a hobby. some ppl like to nit, some ppl like to collect stamps, i like to code.
personally i find porting rather boring, its much more pleasant to polish the application, add new features and fix bugs. in the end this benefits all the ports. i havent gotten any hd gear yet and hence xbmc on the xbox is far from outdated for my uses.

i cannot speak for the others but personally i wouldnt touch anything that has apple on it with a ten foot pole.

Indeed - I appreciate the joke about the Audi though.

Fortunately, the small amount I've received in donations (mostly consisting of a couple of modchips and a little cash from "code this and I'll pay you $x") has been more than I expected or desired. I'm with spiff - I'm not in it to make my fortune (rather fortunately ) - I'm in it because I enjoy it, and because I am improving the application for my own use.

With that said, the donations are ofcourse extremely valued and appreciated - they help pay for the hosting (and software) of these forums, the website and so on.

If and when there's an obvious hardware platform for us to focus on, then a donation drive may be appropriate at that point to help developers out in purchasing the hardware.

The main thing we need at this point is more developers

Cheers,
Jonathan

jmarshall Wrote:Indeed - I appreciate the joke about the Audi though.

Fortunately, the small amount I've received in donations (mostly consisting of a couple of modchips and a little cash from "code this and I'll pay you $x") has been more than I expected or desired. I'm with spiff - I'm not in it to make my fortune (rather fortunately ) - I'm in it because I enjoy it, and because I am improving the application for my own use.

With that said, the donations are ofcourse extremely valued and appreciated - they help pay for the hosting (and software) of these forums, the website and so on.

If and when there's an obvious hardware platform for us to focus on, then a donation drive may be appropriate at that point to help developers out in purchasing the hardware.

The main thing we need at this point is more developers

Cheers,
Jonathan

Jonathan,
I think a lot of people would like to get involved but aren't sure where they can be most useful. Is there a place for where small tasks related to the porting effort are kept and tracked? I saw the todo list on the wiki but how up to date is it etc?

Maybe if it were broken down to a lot of smaller chunks with dev guidelines on a recommended approach would be good.

Maybe this already exists and I'm missing the obvious. If so, forgive me.

-Ed

the list is up to date.

the best attack angle at this point; use it, crash it, figure out why, fix it. or find something that hasnt been ported yet, port it (or if that isnt applicable) reimplement it to suit the new platform.

and don't be afraid to ask, i think you'll find us most helpful when asked about code issues.

Long time lurker, home media enthusiast and serial entrepreneur here.. (nothing that resulted in complete financial freedom, but getting there).

I'm still in the commercial software / outsourcing industry and was wondering...

If developers are needed to accelerate the port to Linux here's a thought.. please no flames.

How would the XMBC developer community feel if a commercial firm (that finds making money "fun") applied it's developer resources to help complete the XMBC linux implementation and then extended the platform with proprietary features that were packaged and sold as a slick, commercial, pre-integrated, consumer friendly home media platform (think sonos and the newly launched firm Fuze http://www.fuzeav.com/).

Think of this as the RedHat business model.

Comments / thoughts?

Thanks,

bradesp

bradesp Wrote:How would the XBMC developer community feel if a commercial firm (that finds making money "fun") applied it's developer resources to help complete the XBMC linux implementation and then extended the platform with proprietary features that were packaged and sold as a slick, commercial, pre-integrated, consumer friendly home media platform (think sonos and the newly launched firm Fuze http://www.fuzeav.com/).

Think of this as the RedHat business model.

Comments / thoughts?

Team-XBMC have no problems with that at all, ...as long as your XBMC fork is kept open source and follows the GPL the source code is licensed under. Sure you might be able to workaround add some closed source proprietary plugins via some sort of API but the GPL still need to be followed for the 'core' of XBMC (ei. the GUI), we can not and will not change the license of that. See how a few companies commercialized on MythTV (and most of those are perfecly legal and follow the GPL):
http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Com...hTV_System

I noticed a bulletpoint on the todo list:

• No good support for streaming video
  

and was wondering if meant streaming from http and other similar protocols, or network streaming over network filesystems like smb/cifs?

I'm kinda at that point where I may have to take the plunge and pick up a mac mini after the next refresh if it's to the point where I can actually do reliable video playback from my NASs' and my laptop.